Sauk << sawk or sak >>, also spelled Sac, are a Native American people in the Algonquian language group of the North American Eastern Woodlands tribes. They lived with their close relatives, the Fox. They originally made their home in Canada or Michigan, but the Iroquois drove them out. They then settled in southern Wisconsin, northern Illinois, and Iowa. The Sauk had a large village where Rock Island, Illinois, now stands. They also set up villages in Iowa along the Mississippi River.
The Sauk and Fox lived in lodges covered with elm bark. When hunting away from the village in winter, they lived in round houses made of stakes covered with matting. The men wore skin clothing long after cloth was available from white traders.
The Sauk and Fox ceded their Illinois lands to the United States in 1804, and most of them moved across the Mississippi. But a famous warrior, Black Hawk, tried to regain the Rock Island village. This attempt led to the Black Hawk War in 1832, and the defeat of his band. Most Sauk and Fox now live in Iowa and Oklahoma.
