a-La-Tai-Me-She-Kia-Kiak

October 11, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is indigenous peoples in honor of Indigenous People’s Day, which was celebrated on October 8.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com .

A poem for Indigenous People’s Day, based on eyewitness accounts and military histories, of the Massacre at Bad-Axe, which occurred Aug. 1-2, 1832:

a-La-Tai-Me-She-Kia-Kiak,

Known to the Whites as Black Hawk,

Crossed back over the Mississippi in 1832

To return to our ancestral village, Saukenuk,

From which we had been driven the year before.

He had hoped for help from the Winnebago,

The Potawatomi, and the British in Canada,

But when he received none, he waved the white flag

And tried to cross back over to Iowa,

He and his 500 warriors, and his 1500 women and children,

To give up our homeland forever.

And I was with him.

The Illinois militia pursued us,

Though we waved the white flag many times

And wished to leave in peace,

And we fought with them along the way

Until we came to the Mississippi,

Near where a tributary called the Bad Axe

Joined the great river.

There was a steamboat on the river

With canons and sharpshooters,

And again we waved the white flag,

And again we were ignored.

The canons and sharpshooters let loose,

Killing many as we tried to cross the river,

Killing many hiding on small islands

And behind fallen trees and swampland

On the river’s banks.

And we fought back, thinking to die with honor

There on the great river

That lay between our home

And the place of our banishment.

Two days we fought them

Until many of us were dead,

And those remaining had nothing more to fire.

I saw the white men taking scalps.

Some cut strips of flesh from our warriors’ backs

To serve as razor strops.

They took 400 women and children prisoner,

Along with the warriors that were left.

No one knows how many warriors, women, and children

Were massacred in the river, on the islands, and on the banks.

One warrior, in pride and grief,

Banged his head against the steamboat’s rail

Until he was dead.

But I, less brave than he,

To my eternal dishonor and shame,

Survived.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/alatai.html. For more poems for Indigenous People’s Day, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/indigenouspeoplesdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Indigenous Peoples

10/8: Indians Are, of Course, Not Indians

10/9: We Have Become an Endangered Species

10/10: Indians? Just Get a Few

10/11: a-La-Tai-Me-She-Kia-Kiak