Black Hawk: An Autobiography (Prairie State Books)

A classic of Native American literature and US history, the autobiography of the Sauk warrior Black Hawk (Ma-Ka-Tai-Me-She-Kia-Kiak in the Sauk language) offers an eyewitness account of the conflict between Indigenous peoples and white colonists on the Illinois frontier. But it also provides one of the most vivid Native descriptions of Indigenous life and beliefs before and during colonization of the Mississippi Valley. The University of Illinois Press edition is the definitive 1833 text edited by Donald Jackson.

A foundational document, Black Hawk: An Autobiography is both an unsparing record of America's genocide against Native American peoples and the moving self-portrait of an extraordinary man.

Ma-Ka-Tai-Me-She-Kia-Kiak, also known as Black Hawk (1767-1838), dictated his autobiography in 1833 while in custody at Jefferson Barracks in Missouri.