In the preface to The Great Indian Chief of the West: Or Life and
Adventures of Black Hawk, Benjamin Drake shared with the reader the hope
that his book might "contribute to awaken the public mind to a sense of
the wrongs inflicted upon the Indians, and to arouse the Christian
statesmen of this land to the adoption of a more liberal, upright and
benevolent course of policy towards them." Of course, that benevolent
course of policy was never adopted. Between the Black Hawk War of 1832
and the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890, numerous wars, campaigns, and
massacres took place west of the Mississippi. Benjamin Drake first
published this excellent history on Black Hawk and the war named after
him just six years after that war ended. This new edition, which marks
the 175th anniversary of the Black Hawk War, reproduces the 1856 edition
of Drake's book, retaining the original punctuation but modernizing the
spelling.