Skip to content

1.3.1.5.2 Second Fox War (1728-1733)

The Fox continued to harass French settlements along the Mississippi River. They also raided the Illiniwek and attacked French trade on Lake Michigan. By 1720, Kiala led the anti-French faction of the Fox but faced raids by French-supported tribes: Potawatomi, Ojibwa, Huron and Ottawa. In 1733, Kiala was captured. The French sold him into slavery in the West Indies. The French gave other captured Fox as slaves to allied tribes.

The small remnant of the tribe, numbering around 500, took refuge among the Sauk. The French pursued destruction of the Fox to such an extent as to damage their relations with other tribes.

The Sauk clans that granted membership to the survivors of the Fox are sometimes called the Sauk and Fox or, today, the Sac and Fox. Their hereditary feud with New France encouraged many Sac and Fox warriors to develop kinship ties with France’s rivals, the British. These ties continued to be significant as late as the War of 1812, when many Sac and Fox fought on the side of British North America.