The Sauk tribe, also known as the Sacs or Saukies were a fierce, warlike people who originally inhabited territory in the western Great Lakes region then moved west of Lake Michigan to present-day Wisconsin. In 1734, the Sauk joined in a alliance with the Fox tribe who had been defeated by the French in the Fox Wars. The tribes extended their territory westward beyond the Mississippi. Sauk chiefs included Keokuk, Wapello and the famous Black Hawk, leader of the 1832 Black Hawk War.
The food of the Sauk Northeast Woodland people were fish and small game including squirrel, deer, elk, raccoon, bear and beaver. Corn, squash, beans and pumpkin were raised by the women. The men also raised tobacco. The food of the Sauk people who inhabited the Great Plains region was predominantly buffalo but also they also hunted bear, deer and wild turkey. The women also collected roots, wild fruit and vegetables
The Sauk (Sac) tribe were farmers, hunter-gatherers and fishermen who made good use of their lightweight birchbark canoes they used on hunting, trading and fishing trips. Originally living along the western Great Lakes, they extended their lands into Wisconsin and the biggest Sauk villages were on the Wisconsin River. They extended their territories further west where they hunted buffalo. Their neighbours were the Fox tribe who were defeated by the French during the Fox Wars (1712 - 1733). The Fox then joined the larger Sauk tribe, an association that led to a long standing alliance. Both the Sauk and the Fox (Meskwaki) people had a strong sense of tribal identity and each tribe retained their separate chiefs, customs and traditions. The Sauk maintained good relations with the French until the Fox Wars and also traded with the Dutch and the English. The Sauk left their central Michigan location for northern Wisconsin after tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy attacked the people in the mid-seventeenth century. The Sauk became allies with the British during the French and Indian wars (1689 - 1763). The Fox tribe relocated south from Wisconsin into Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri. Following the American War of Independence an alliance of many different tribes, called the Western Confederacy, was formed who aimed to keep the Ohio River as a boundary between Native Indian lands and the United States. The Sauk subsequently fought in Little Turtle’s War (1785–1795), Tecumseh's War (1811–1813) and the 1832 Black Hawk War. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 resulted in the Sauk tribe being moved to reservations in Indian territory.
1600s: The Sauk lived in the southern Great Lakes Region
1600's: New France' was established in the area of the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes. New France was divided into five colonies of Canada, Acadia, Hudson Bay, Newfoundland and Louisiana
1614: The New Netherlands was established and the Sauk started trading with the Dutch
1628: The Sauk defeat their Mohican enemies
1620: The Great Migration of English colonists and the encroachment of Native Indian lands in New England begins
1634: Devastating epidemics of smallpox were spread by the Europeans
1667: The first Sauk contact with the French at Chequamegon Bay, Lake Superior. Jesuit missionary Claude Jean Allouez, vicar general of Quebec, was the first person to describe the Sauk and wrote that the tribe was more savage than all the other peoples he had met.
1670: Hudson Bay Company was formed establishing significant fur trading in Lake Superior region
1688: The French and Indian Wars (1688-1763) begin marking the outbreak of King William's War (1688-1699) and the Sauk tribe become allies of the British
1712: First Fox War (1712–1716)
