Waukon Decorah

[6] Decorah wanted to mount a retaliatory raid against the Sauks and Meskwakis, but he was discouraged from doing this by United States officials, who were trying to negotiate an end to the hostilities.

[9] After the war, on November 5, 1834, Meskwaki raiders killed ten women and children from Decorah's family, including his wife.

[10] In 1837, Decorah was part of a Ho-Chunk delegation that went to Washington, D.C. to seek redress for American encroachment on their land.

Even though the delegates had been U.S. allies during the Black Hawk War, they were pressured to sign a removal treaty ceding all Ho-Chunk land west of the Mississippi River to the United States.

The delegates thought that the treaty gave the Ho-Chunks eight years to leave Wisconsin, which would leave them time to negotiate a new treaty, but the wording on the document gave the tribe eight months to vacate Wisconsin and resettle on reservations in Iowa and Minnesota.

Ho-Chunks who refused to leave were rounded up by General Henry Atkinson and escorted west, though many later returned.

[2] Some older histories state that Decorah died in Minnesota at the Blue Earth Indian Agency,[3] but he evidently returned to Wisconsin in the last years of his life.