User:Willace01/Sauk people

Early History
The precise time is unknown, but around the time of the year 1600, the Sauk people were driven from the area of the St. Lawrence river, which is now northern New York, west to the area between modern day Bay City and Detroit in Michigan. For many years, the Sauk are believed to have prospered in the fertile valley of Saginaw thereafter.

Some Ojibwe oral histories also place the Sauk in the Saginaw Valley some time before the arrival of Europeans. Sauk traditionism states that the tribe occupied the vicinity of Saginaw river. (Saginaw comes from the Ojibwe “O-Sauk-e-non,” meaning “land of the Sauks” or “where the Sauks were.”) Approximately from the years 1638 to 1640, it is believed that a fierce battle ensued, nearly annhilating the entire Sauk Tribe. The story goes that the Chippewa inhabited the lands north of the Saginaw Bay, and the harsher northern climate caused more difficulty in prosperity compared to that of the Sauk occupying the area of Saginaw Valley. The Chippewa allied with the Ottowa, who resided south of the Sauk, and sprung a series of attacks on the Sauk Tribe which practically decimated their people. One such attack, The Battle of Skull Island, occured on an island which is now called Skull Island in Michigan. (It’s name came from the many skulls and bones found in mounds on that island over the years.) In this battle, it is said that the Sauk had used their boats to cross part of the river, escape to the island, and were temporarily free from their attackers. But when morning came, ice had solidified the river enough for the Chippewa to cross. They killed every member of the Sauk tribe who had fled to that island besides twelve women whom they later sent west of the Missippi River.

Anishinaabe expansion and the Huron attempting to gain regional stability drove the Sauk out of their territory. The Huron were armed with guns supplied by their French trading partners. The Sauk moved south to territory in parts of what are now northern Illinois and Wisconsin. In the seventeenth century the Sauk also maintained close relations with the Potawatomi (Pehkînenîha or Shîshîpêhinenîha). This relation has been found by borrowings of Sauk vocabulary that appear in the Potawatomi language.

Migration map

Oklahoma History
The land currently occupied by the Sauk is only a section of what used to be the Sac and Fox Reservation during the time of 1867-1891. This reservation was established by the U.S. and spanned 480,000 acres. In 1887, however, the Dawes Act failed to recognize Native American Culture by dividing the reservation into small allotments designated for individual households. The remainder of land not allotted to the Sac and Fox was then sold to non-Native settlers in an attempt to gain Oklahoma statehood and the full assimilation of its native american population. By 1889 519 of the tribe were located in Indian Territory, what is now central Oklahoma. On June 10, 1890, they ceded these Indian Territory lands to the federal government.

Treaties with U.S.
Many of the latter treaties listed have little to no information regarding their details, besides the date. In total, twenty two treaties were signed from 1789 to, more than a century later, 1891.


 * Treaty of Fort Harmar
 * Treaty of Greenville
 * Treaty of St. Louis (1804)
 * Treaty of Portage des Sioux
 * Treaty of St. Louis (1816)
 * Treaty of St. Louis (1822)
 * Treaty of Washington
 * First Treaty of Prairie du Chien
 * Fourth Treaty of Prairie du Chien
 * 1832 Treaty
 * September 27th 1836 Treaty
 * September 28th 1836 Treaty
 * September 28th 1836 Treaty
 * 1837 Treaty
 * 1837 Treaty
 * 1842 Treaty
 * 1854 Treaty (Missouri Sac and Fox)
 * 1859 Treaty
 * 1861 Treaty (Iowa Sac and Fox)
 * Feb 18th, 1867
 * June 10th 1872 “Act of Congress” (Missouri Sac and Fox)
 * Feb 13th, 1891 “Act of Congress”

Sauk Language Loss
Use of Sauk as the official tribal language in everyday communication declined rapidly between 1935 and 1945. The chances of coming across a tribal member who can understand basic phrases of Sauk is small, due to the fact that that the main language spoken by the Sac and Fox today is English. The loss of Sauk, as with many other native american languages, lies in context with American history. Speaking in the native language was actively discouraged and often punished in Indian boarding schools during the late 19th and early 20th century, when the U.S. was attempting to assimilate native americans into European-American culture.

Another conflict for the preservation of the language, is that the original syllabary created was intended for the use of native Sauk speakers, and it’s clarification was designed from the Sauk language. This is a problem because this is no longer as helpful for the majority of the Sac and Fox nation, as the official tribe language today is English. The issue arises in instances when Sauk is being taught to a school in the tribe, and an elder, who is fluent in the language, disagrees with the pronunciation being taught.

Here is the pronunciation of the word "oθaakiiwaki."

Vowels

Vowel length important in the sauk language because of it’s distinctive function. Long vowels are often distinguished by the doubling of characters, such as a / aa representing two different spoken lengths. This is different for the vowel e, as an elongated version of this vowel shares the sound of the vowel in the english word bear.

Pitch and Tone

Pitch and tone are important when speaking Sauk, as there is a general rule of emphasizing the first or second syllable of phrases, and slowly fades away by the end of a word. The Sauk language is percieved as having a “swallowed” quality when reffering to the ends of phrases nd words, so pitch, tone and intonation is a concept that would come from learning the language as opposed to studying the syllabary. {page 423}

Citations of Sources:

Leeson, M. A., & Clarke, D. (2010). Page 117-118 History of Saginaw county, Michigan. In History of Saginaw county, Michigan. Nabu Press.

Hinterman, P. (2018, October 30). Battle of the Flint River – fact or fiction? Retrieved March 01, 2021, from http://www.mycitymag.com/battle-of-the-flint-river-fact-or-fiction/

McCollum, T. J. (2007). SAC and fox. Retrieved March 01, 2021, from https://web.archive.org/web/20141027030410/http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/S/SA001.html

Reinschmidt, Kerstin Müller (1995). "Language Preservation with the Help of Written Language: The Sauk Language of the Sac and Fox of Oklahoma"