The Great Sauk Trail

Part of an ancient network of Indian paths, the Great Sauk Trail, as it came to be known, extended from Rock Island in present-day Illinois to the Detroit River. It played a significant role in the communications between the native peoples in the upper Mississippi Valley and the British in this region, particularly during the period of Anglo-American rivalry following the American Revolution. For four decades pro-British tribes such as the Sauk and the Fox made annual pilgrimages along the trail to Fort Malden. Here they met with officials of the British Indian Department and participated in gift-giving ceremonies reaffirming their alliance. When these exchanges were terminated by the British in the late 1830s, the Great Sauk Trail gradually fell into disuse.