Black Hawk : The Battle for the Heart of America Summary - Essay Example

In the spring of 1832, Makataimeshekiakiak and his Sauk followers that included 700 soldiers rose up in defiance and rage to defend their ancestral land (Kerry, Hawdy and Alice 2012). They crossed the Mississippi to reclaim their motherland in Illinois. The American Troops dashed the rebellion in three months. No other violent encounter between the Native Americans and the Native Americans embodies an equal degree of violation of human rights and dignity like the battle. Until a decade before the battle, 1822, six thousand Sauk Nationals had occupied the east of Misssissippi, one of the largest Native American settlements.

The White Americans grew envious of the fertile lands of the area that the Natives had kept under large plantations in hundreds of acres. According to the author, the White Americans began encroaching on the lands of the Natives in around 1822 (Trask 2000). Kerry Trask reiterates in the book that both the Native and White Americans turned violent when disputes over who had the right to occupy the region ensued. The Whites uprooted the Sauk community, chased them from the lands and forced into exile.

Trask explores the efforts by a despised group and the heroic stance of their leader and illuminates the tragic history of frontier Americans via the eyes of a society that was cast aside in White American’s quest for Manifest Destiny (Trask 2000). Trask’s book is not a mere historical archive for the conflicts between the white and Native Americans. It opens a lot of hidden treasures that most historians and national archives fail to reveal in the nature of conflicts that took place between the Natives and the White American society in their quest to dominate American culture from all perspectives.

The book reveals that the disputes between the homeowners of America and the intruders were more intricate than presented in most historical literature. In a twist of perspective, the book