Schwarzwaldbahn from Offenburg to Singen, from which various small local lines ramify.
BLACK HAWK [Maʽkatawimeshekaʽka, “Black Sparrow Hawk”], (1767–1838), American Indian warrior of the Sauk and Fox tribes, was born at the Sauk village on Rock river, near the Mississippi, in 1767. He was a member of the Thunder gens of the Sauk tribe, and, though neither an hereditary nor an elected chief, was for some time the recognized war leader of the Sauk and Foxes. From his youth he was intensely bloodthirsty and hostile to the Americans. Immediately after the acquisition of “Louisiana,” the Federal government took steps for the removal of the Sauk and Foxes, who had always been a disturbing element among the north-western Indians, to the west bank of the Mississippi river. As early as 1804, by a treaty signed at St Louis on the 3rd of November, they agreed to the removal in return for an annuity of $1000. British influences were still strong in the upper Mississippi valley and undoubtedly led Black Hawk and the chiefs of the Sauk and Fox confederacy to repudiate this agreement of 1804, and subsequently to enter into the conspiracy of Tecumseh and take part with the British in the war of 1812. The treaties of 1815 at Portage des Sioux (with the Foxes) and of 1816 at St Louis (with the Sauk) substantially renewed that of 1804. That of 1816 was signed by Black Hawk himself, who declared, however, when in 1823 Chief Keokuk and a majority of the two nations crossed the river, that the consent of the chiefs had been obtained by fraud. In 1830 a final treaty was signed at Prairie du Chien, by which all title to the lands of the Sauk and Foxes east of the Mississippi was ceded to the government, and provision was made for the immediate opening of the tract to settlers. Black Hawk, leading the party in opposition to Keokuk, at once refused to accede to this cession and threatened to retaliate if his lands were invaded. This precipitated what is known as the Black Hawk War. Settlers began pouring into the new region in the early spring of 1831, and Black Hawk in June attacked several villages near the Illinois-Wisconsin line. After massacring several isolated families, he was driven off by a force of Illinois militia. He renewed his attack in the following year (1832), but after several minor engagements, in most of which he was successful, he was defeated (21st of July) at Wisconsin Heights on the Wisconsin river, opposite Prairie du Sac, by Michigan volunteers under Colonels Henry Dodge and James D. Henry, and fleeing westward was again decisively defeated on the Mississippi at the mouth of the Bad Axe river (on the 1st and 2nd of August) by General Henry Atkinson. His band was completely dispersed, and he himself was captured by a party of Winnebagoes. At Fort Armstrong, Rock Island, on the 21st of September, a treaty was signed, by which a large tract of the Sauk and Fox territory was ceded to the United States; and the United States granted to them a reservation of 400 sq. m., the payment of $20,000 a year for thirty years, and the settlement of certain traders’ claims against the tribe. With several warriors Black Hawk was sent to Fortress Monroe, Virginia, where he was confined for a few weeks; afterwards he was taken by the government through the principal Eastern cities. On his release he settled in 1837 on the Sauk and Fox reservation on the Des Moines river, in Iowa, where he died on the 3rd of October 1838.
See Frank E. Stevens, The Black Hawk War (Chicago, 1903); R. G. Thwaites, “The Story of the Black Hawk War” in vol. xii. of the Collections of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin; J. B. Patterson, Life of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak or Black Hawk (Boston, 1834), purporting to be Black Hawk’s story as told by himself; and Benjamin Drake, Life of Black Hawk (Cincinnati, 1846).
BLACKHEATH, an open common in the south-east of London, England, mainly in the metropolitan borough of Lewisham. This high-lying tract was crossed by the Roman Watling Street from Kent, on a line approximating to that of the modern Shooter’s Hill; and was a rallying ground of Wat Tyler (1381), of Jack Cade (1450), and of Audley, leader of the Cornish rebels, defeated and captured here by the troops of Henry VII. in 1497. It also witnessed the acclamations of the citizens of London on the return of Henry V. from the victory of Agincourt, the formal meeting between Henry VIII. and Anne of Cleves, and that between the army of the restoration and Charles II. The introduction into England of the game of golf is traditionally placed here in 1608, and attributed to King James I. and his Scottish followers. The common, the area of which is 267 acres, is still used for this and other pastimes. For the residential district to which Blackheath gives name, see Lewisham.
BLACK HILLS, an isolated group of mountains, covering an area of about 6000 sq. m. in the adjoining corners of South Dakota and Wyoming, U.S.A. They rise on an average some 2000 ft. above their base, the highest peak, Harney, having an altitude above the sea of 7216 ft. They are drained and in large part enclosed by the North (or Belle Fourche) and South forks of the Cheyenne river (at whose junction a fur-trading post was established about 1830); and are surrounded by semi-arid, alkaline plains lying 3000 to 3500 ft. above the sea. The mass has an elliptical shape, its long axis, which extends nearly N.N.W.-S.S.E., being about 120 m. and its shorter axis about 40 m. long. The hills are formed by a short, broad, anticlinal fold, which is flat or nearly so on its summit. From this fold the stratified beds have in large part been removed, the more recent having been almost entirely eroded from the elevated mass. The edges of these are now found encircling the mountains and forming a series of fairly continuous rims of hogbacks. The carboniferous and older stratified beds still cover the west half of the hills, while from the east half they have been removed, exposing the granite. Scientific exploration began in 1849, and systematic geological investigation about 1875. Rich gold placers had already been discovered, and in 1875 the Sioux Indians within whose territory the hills had until then been included, were removed, and the lands were open to white settlers. Subsequently low-grade quartz mines were found and developed, and have furnished a notable part of the gold supply of the country (about $100,000,000 from 1875 to 1901). The output is to-day relatively small in comparison with that of many other fields, but there are one or two permanent gold mines of great value working low-grade ore. The silver product from 1879 to 1901 was about $4,154,000. Deposits of copper, tin, iron and tungsten have been discovered, and a variety of other mineral products (graphite, mica, spodumene, coal, petroleum, &c.). In sharp contrast to the surrounding plains the climate is subhumid, especially in the higher Harney region. There is an abundance of fertile soil and magnificent grazing land. A third of the total area is covered with forests of pine and other trees, which have for the most part been made a forest-reserve by the national government. Jagged crags, sudden abysses, magnificent canyons, forests with open parks, undulating hills, mountain prairies, freaks of weathering and erosion, and the enclosing lines of the successive hog-backs afford scenery of remarkable variety and wild beauty. There are several interesting limestone caverns, and Sylvan Lake, in the high mountain district, is an important resort.
See the publications of the United States Geological Survey (especially Professional Paper No. 26, Economic Resources of the Northern Black Hills, 1904), and of the South Dakota School of Mines (Bulletin No. 4, containing a history and bibliography of Black Hills investigations); also R. L. Dodge, The Black Hills: A Minute Description . . . (New York, 1876).
BLACKIE, JOHN STUART (1809–1895), Scottish scholar and man of letters, was born in Glasgow on the 28th of July 1809. He was educated at the New Academy and afterwards at the Marischal College, in Aberdeen, where his father was manager of the Commercial Bank. After attending classes at Edinburgh University (1825–1826), Blackie spent three years at Aberdeen as a student of theology. In 1829 he went to Germany, and after studying at Göttingen and Berlin (where he came under the influence of Heeren, Ottfried Müller, Schleiermacher, Neander and Böckh) he accompanied Bunsen to Italy and Rome. The years spent abroad extinguished his former wish to enter the Church, and at his father’s desire he gave himself up to the study of law. He had already, in 1824, been placed in a lawyer’s office, but only remained there six months. By the time he was admitted a member of the Faculty of Advocates (1834) he had acquired a strong love of the classics and a taste for letters in
