Chief Keokuk
Chief Keokuk was born in 1780 near the present location of Rock Island, Illinois. His tribe, the Sauk Indians, joined with the remnants of the Mesquakie tribe (or Fox Indians) to form a community they called Saukenuk not far from where the Rock River joins the Mississippi.
In Keokuk's first battle, when he was still very young, he killed a Sioux Indian, the mortal enemy of the Sauk and Fox tribes, with a spear from horseback. This gave Keokuk great fame in his tribe who were known for their skill fighting on foot but not on horseback. Because he was a skilled horseman and presented a striking figure, Keokuk preferred to be seen on horseback.
By 1832 most of the Sauk and Fox lands east of the Mississippi had been taken over by white settlers. Black Hawk, a member of Keokuk's tribe, wanted the land back, and so he crossed the Mississippi with a number of braves, along with their wives and children. Other members of the Sauk and Fox tribes stayed with Keokuk in Iowa. They stayed because of Keokuk's most famous and memorable speech. In it, he offered to lead his warriors into battle against the Americans, but he said that they should first kill all of their wives and children. They should do this, he argued, because none of the warriors would have any chance of surviving. Afterwards, the death that awaited their wives and children would be horrifying and so it would be a mercy to kill them now.
The ensuing conflict, known today as the Black Hawk War, resulted in Keokuk becoming the undisputed chief of the Sauk tribe and was recognized as such by the United States government.
Though Chief Keokuk never lived in Keokuk, he is buried here. Keokuk died in Kansas in 1848. In 1883 a monument was erected in his honor, and his bones were brought back from Kansas to be buried under it. In 1913 a statue of Keokuk was installed on top of the monument's base. Interestingly, the statue's sculptor, Nellie Walker, placed on Keokuk's head a feathered Sioux war bonnet, even though the Sauk and the Sioux were bitter enemies.
The town of Keokuk got its name in 1834, just after the Black Hawk War.