Benjamin Drake

Great Indian Chief of the West Benjamin Drake

Benjamin Drake (1795 -1841) was a historian, editor, and writer from Kentucky. Benjamin co-founded and for seven years was the editor of the Cincinnati Chronicle. Great Indian Chief of the West Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk begins, "The Indians are frequently denounced as faithless, ferocious and untameable. Without going into the inquiry, how far this charge is founded in truth, the question may be asked, has not the policy of our government contributed, essentially, to impart to them that character? Have we not more frequently met them in bad faith, than in a Christian spirit? and sustained our relations with them, more by the power of the sword than the law of kindness? In the inscrutable ways of Providence, the Indians are walking in ignorance and moral darkness. It is the solemn duty, and should be the highest glory of this nation, to bring them out of that condition, and elevate them in the scale of social and intellectual being. " Black Hawk (1767 -1838) was a leader and warrior of the Sauk American Indian tribe. During the War of 1812, Black Hawk fought on the side of the British. Later he led a band of Sauk and Fox warriors against settlers in Illinois and Wisconsin in the1832 Black Hawk War.