American Art Collaborative

“Muk-a-tah-mish-o-kah-kaik (the black hawk) is the man to whom I have above alluded, as the leader of the ‘Black Hawk war,’ who was defeated by General Atkinson, and held a prisoner of war, and sent through Washington and other Eastern cities, with a number of others, to be gazed at . . . I believe it has been pretty generally admitted, that ‘Nah-pope’ and the ‘Prophet’ were, in fact, the instigators of the war; and either of them with much higher claims for the name of warrior than Black Hawk ever had.” (Catlin, Letters and Notes, vol. 2, no. 56, 1841; reprint 1973)