NARRATOR: Arms crossed, gazing out over his former land,
is a figure known as the Eternal Indian.
A light on his chest illuminates his face
against the trees at night.
Taft's 48 foot high sculpture was completed in 1911
as a tribute to all the Native Americans who
once called Illinois home.
Over time it's come to be associated with a Sauk
leader known as Black Hawk.
The battles he and his people fought with the US government
to keep their land here on the Rock River
are famously known as the Black Hawk War.
One of the most important battles
happen here, in the States Northwest corner,
near the present day city of Galena.
In the 1820's Galena boomed when lead
was discovered in the region.
Other settlements were soon established nearby,
including one at a place called Apple River.
In the spring of 1929 members of the Sauk and Fox tribes
return from their winter comes to discover that the miners had
taken over the villages.
The tribes were forced to resettle
on land on the west side of the Mississippi.
But in 1832 Black Hawk and hundreds
of members of the tribes crossed back over the Mississippi
to try to reoccupy their land.
When miners at Apple River heard the news
they raced to build a fortified wall around their cabins
for protection.
Their Apple River fort has since been reconstructed.
On June 24, 1832 Black Hawk and about 200 warriors
arrived and then attacked the fort.
But the miners and their wives fired back.
And after 45 minutes Black Hawk decided to give up,
thinking he was out gunned.
Almost six weeks later the chief and his people
suffered a final horrifying defeat when
US forces chased them into the waters of the Mississippi
and then fired on them at will slaughtering
hundreds of their men, women, and children
in what came to be known as the Bad Axe Massacre.
Black Hawk was one of the few survivors
and later died of illness in Iowa.
Today Lorado Taft's sculpture stands
as an impressive reminder of what
happened to Black Hawk and his people
here in Western Illinois.
In his final speech before he died,
Black Hawk said, Rock River was beautiful country.
I loved my towns, my corn fields, and the home
with my people.
It is yours now.
Keep it as we did.
The year after the Black Hawk War ended the city of Chicago
was incorporated on the shores of Lake Michigan and Illinois
was about to undergo its transformation
from a series of frontier outposts
to one of the most powerful states in the nation.
[MUSIC PLAYING]