The settlers appealed to John Reynolds, governor of Illinois, for protection.

The evidence

• “This placed them technically in the right. So when Black Hawk returned to the village in the spring of 1831, after another unsuccessful hunting season and ordered the settlers to leave that locality or he would remove them by -force, they confidently appealed to the governor of Illinois, John Reynolds, for protection. In his biography, written at his dictation in after life by Editor Patterson, Black Hawk claimed that he did not mean bloodshed or war, but simply the use of physical force.”

  1908-brown-rock-county/03-black-hawk-war.md, Vol. 1, PDF p. 45 / book p. 36

  Brown, William Fiske, editor. Rock County, Wisconsin: A New History of Its Cities, Villages, Towns, Citizens and Varied Interests, from the Earliest Times, Up to Date. Chicago: C. F. Cooper & Co., 1908. 2 vols. archive.org/details/rockcountywiscon01brow, archive.org/details/rockcountywiscon02brow.

  Grade A: Found on a page of one of our sources