Black Hawk, born Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak (Sauk: Mahkatêwe-meshi-kêhkêhkwa) (1767 – October 3, 1838), was a Sauk leader and warrior who lived in what is now the Midwestern United States. Although he had inherited an important historic sacred bundle from his father, he was not a hereditary civil chief. Black Hawk earned his status as a war chief or captain by his actions: leading raiding and war parties as a young man and then a band of Sauk warriors during the Black Hawk War of 1832.