by August Derleth (Author)
August Derleth was perennially interested in the history of his native state of Wisconsin. In Wind over Wisconsin he treats the controversial subject of the Black Hawk War of 1832, when the American government definitively defeated the Sauk (or Sac) tribe in Wisconsin, led by their doughty leader, Chief Black Hawk. A settler from France, Chalfonte Pierneau, keenly understands the repeated duplicity and treachery of the United States in robbing the Sacs of land to which they were legitimately entitled, and he laments the fate of Black Hawk as a captured chieftain. Chalfonte struggles with his own personal tragedies of his own as he must refocus his energies from the dying industry of fur trading to farming. Throughout, Chalfonte retains a moral compass that sees both the virtues and evils of settling land that had once belonged to others.