The Chicago Blackhawks were founded in 1926 by coffee tycoon Major Frederic McLaughlin. He bought the Portland Rosebuds to build the core of his new team, but didn't like the name "Rose Buds." McLaughlin turned to Illinois history and his own past for inspiration. In World War I, he served with the 333rd Machine Gun Battalion of the 86th Division of the U.S. Army. Members of this division called themselves Black Hawks in honor of the Sauk Native American chief. McLaughlin felt this name was more fitting for the National Hockey League.
Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak (Black Sparrow Hawk) (1767 - 1838) was a recognized leader of a faction of the Sauk and Fox Indian tribes. In 1804, United States agents tricked Sauk and Mesquakie representatives into a treaty that signed away tribal lands east of the Mississippi River. The Native tribes continued to live on their traditional lands, but an influx of thousands of lead miners in the late 1820s crowded them out of their lands along the Rock River.
A government order moved the Native tribes off their land into Wisconsin with the promise of government food supplies, which never materialized. Black Hawk defied the orders to vacate and led 1,2000 Sauk into Illinois to re-occupy their homeland and harvest their crops. This resulted in the Black Hawk War of 1831-1832.
"Early in the spring [1832], and when the whole settlement was busy ploughing and preparing the ground for their crops, rumors began to come to us that Black Hawk and his band of Sacs and Foxes, who had been moved west of the Mississippi River… was coming back into Illinois, for the purpose of making war upon the settlements."
In 1831, the Blodgett Family left New York for a new settlement near today's Downer's Grove in Will County, Illinois. (right Henry Blodget in 1850)
With the threat of war looming, Blodgett recalled that one man came to the settlers' aid:
"On the night of the tenth of May, old Aptakisic, otherwise known as Half Day, chief of one of the bands of the Pottowotamies [sic], and whom we had seen a great deal of during the winter, as he had been often at our house, came about twelve o'clock at night and gave a whoop. Father sprang out and opened the door, and he at once began to tell father that he was to take his family and get away from there as soon as possible, that Black Hawk and the head men of his band had been at Waubansie's Village, which is the present site of the City of Aurora, in consultation with the Pottowotamie head men during the whole of the day before, endeavoring to influence the Pottowotamies to join him in the war, which he was determined on making against the white people."
The alarm went out to notify the "neighborhood" and by daylight all the settlers in the vicinity were "gathered and on the road to Chicago."
Blodgett continued:
"As we moved on, he [Half Day] moved on with us, not saying a word, simply following in our trail during the whole of the day. Our march, necessarily with ox teams, was a slow one... the old chief following us... until we were in sight of Ft. Dearborn, when he waved us good-bye with his hand, turned his horse, and disappeared."
Black Hawk was defeated by the U.S. Army and the Illinois militia, and many of his followers were killed. Though he did not achieve his goal, many Americans admired Black Hawk's courage in defending his people's ancestral lands, and he became a folk hero.
Aptakisic was one of the signers of the Treaty of Chicago (1833). The treaty was signed between the U.S. Government and the United Nation of Chippewa, Ottawa and Potawatomi Indians on September 26, 1833. Five million acres were sold to the United States including the last tracts of Native occupied Great Lakes’ land.
Lithograph portrait of Black Hawk from A History of Indian Tribes of North America by Thomas L. McKenny and James Hall (1836-1844).
Henry Blodgett (1821-1905) wrote of the Black Hawk War in his autobiography, published in 1906:
"Early in the spring [1832], and when the whole settlement was busy ploughing and preparing the ground for their crops, rumors began to come to us that Black Hawk and his band of Sacs and Foxes, who had been moved west of the Mississippi River… was coming back into Illinois, for the purpose of making war upon the settlements."In 1831, the Blodgett Family left New York for a new settlement near today's Downer's Grove in Will County, Illinois. (right Henry Blodget in 1850)
With the threat of war looming, Blodgett recalled that one man came to the settlers' aid:
"On the night of the tenth of May, old Aptakisic, otherwise known as Half Day, chief of one of the bands of the Pottowotamies [sic], and whom we had seen a great deal of during the winter, as he had been often at our house, came about twelve o'clock at night and gave a whoop. Father sprang out and opened the door, and he at once began to tell father that he was to take his family and get away from there as soon as possible, that Black Hawk and the head men of his band had been at Waubansie's Village, which is the present site of the City of Aurora, in consultation with the Pottowotamie head men during the whole of the day before, endeavoring to influence the Pottowotamies to join him in the war, which he was determined on making against the white people."
The alarm went out to notify the "neighborhood" and by daylight all the settlers in the vicinity were "gathered and on the road to Chicago."
Blodgett continued:
"As we moved on, he [Half Day] moved on with us, not saying a word, simply following in our trail during the whole of the day. Our march, necessarily with ox teams, was a slow one... the old chief following us... until we were in sight of Ft. Dearborn, when he waved us good-bye with his hand, turned his horse, and disappeared."
Black Hawk was defeated by the U.S. Army and the Illinois militia, and many of his followers were killed. Though he did not achieve his goal, many Americans admired Black Hawk's courage in defending his people's ancestral lands, and he became a folk hero.
Aptakisic was one of the signers of the Treaty of Chicago (1833). The treaty was signed between the U.S. Government and the United Nation of Chippewa, Ottawa and Potawatomi Indians on September 26, 1833. Five million acres were sold to the United States including the last tracts of Native occupied Great Lakes’ land. (Image: Cover page of the 1833 Treaty of Chicago from the National Archives and Records Administration)
Several years later, the Village of Half Day (now Lincolnshire) was named in honor of Aptakisic, whose name can be translated as "sun at meridian" or half day.
Henry Blodgett eventually moved to Waukegan where he was an attorney and a judge, and in 1846 co-founded the Lake County Anti-Slavery Society.
Source: Autobiography of Henry W. Blodgett. Waukegan, Illinois, 1906.
Several years later, the Village of Half Day (now Lincolnshire) was named in honor of Aptakisic, whose name can be translated as "sun at meridian" or half day.
Henry Blodgett eventually moved to Waukegan where he was an attorney and a judge, and in 1846 co-founded the Lake County Anti-Slavery Society.
Source: Autobiography of Henry W. Blodgett. Waukegan, Illinois, 1906.
