1814-1829
Hononegah was born in 1814, most likely in the area that is now Madison, Wisconsin. According to a legal affidavit filed by Stephen Mack Jr., Hononegah’s parents died when she was 7 years old, and she and her sister Wehunsegah moved over 100 miles south to the Ho-Chunk village of Grand Detour, Illinois, to live with their aunts’ and uncles’ families. When the two orphan girls arrived at Grand Detour, Stephen Mack was already there, working at the trading post for the American Fur Company.
Marriage to Stephen Mack (1829)
Legends recount various romantic tales of Hononegah saving Stephen Mack’s life, hiding him from enemies, or intervening on his behalf. Historians have been unable to verify these as anything more than fanciful tales inspired by the Pocahontas story; however, letters do indicate that on at least one occasion Hononegah helped Stephen through a dangerous fever.
When Hononegah was 15, she married Stephen Mack Jr. in a Ho-Chunk ceremony; Mr. Mack was 31. Today a marriage between a 31-year-old man and a 15-year-old girl would be seen as unhealthy and abusive. Although it may have been unhealthy, in the 1800’s people were considered adults at a much earlier age. Stephen Mack Jr.’s own mother, Temperance Mack, was only 14 years old when she married his father, Stephen Mack Sr., aged 21.
1829 to 1835
Shortly after they were married, Hononegah and Stephen left Grand Detour and moved to Bird’s Grove, a small Native American encampment, fifty miles to the north. We don’t know how Hononegah felt about leaving Grand Detour, but we do know that by the time Hononegah was 17 she had lost both of her parents and her early childhood home; she was married to a much older man —a White man, and had to leave her second home of 8 years, saying goodbye to her aunts, uncles, cousins, and Wehunsegah, her sister. She had had a baby, Rosa, who had been gravely ill and had become deaf. And Hononegah was already pregnant with her next child.
Hononegah’s world was changing around her. During these years, treaties were established that would eventually require all her Ho-chunk and Potawatomi friends and relatives to leave Illinois.
In the Treaty of Prairie du Chien, the Ho-Chunk ceded their lands between the Rock River and the Mississippi River to the US Government, agreeing to leave the region. This land would be made available at a low price to White settlers. A stipulation of the treaty was that individuals of mixed White and Native American ancestry, who did not wish to leave with the tribe, would be given sections of land or money. Stephen Mack was granted land on behalf of his children with Hononegah.
In the 1833 Treaty of Chicago, whereby the Potawatomi gave up claims to land in return for annuities, Stephen and Hononegah Mack received $1,200 on behalf of their daughters Rosa and Mary, equal to about $23,000 today. This money allowed Stephen Mack to buy additional land nearby from the government. Land was available for sale only to US citizens, which did not include Native Americans.
Furthermore, as a Fur Trader, Steven Mack received large compensations (more than $2,000) from the US Government when Native Americans that he traded with had to leave the area as a result of a treaty. The compensation was brought about by the practice of fur traders giving Native American trappers advances of goods like food and blankets; if the Native trappers had to leave their hunting grounds and relocate west of the Mississippi River before they could pay back the trader with pelts, the fur traders would incur financial losses. Only licensed fur traders could operate in the region, and the government limited the licenses, creating in effect a monopoly by the American Fur Company, Stephen Mack’s employer. Licenses were given only to White men, and it helped to have connections, like Stephen Mack’s father, a merchant in Michigan whose business was bought by the American Fur Company.
In 1932, the Blackhawk War ripped through the countryside around Hononegah and Stephen, led by Native Americans who resisted the US government’s forced relocations. Hononegah’s husband joined the US forces as a guide for several months that year, before returning to the settlement.
1836 to 1847
These were years of growth for Hononegah and Stephen Mack’s new settlement, fondly referred to as ‘Macktown’. With the money received from the two Treaties on behalf of their multi-ethnic children, and due to Stephen Mack’s special position as a fur trader, the Macks were able to expand their landholdings. They built a two-story house, and brought a blacksmith, a carpentry shop, a tavern, a trading post and a school to Macktown, and built a bridge across the Rock River, leading to what is now the downtown area of Rockton, Illinois. Travel became easier, and they had many guests, both members of the White community and Ho-Chunk friends who had not yet left the region.
In 1840, Hononegah and Stephen were married a second time, this time by a US Justice of the Peace. Stephen Mack said at the time that he was worried that if they were not legally married in the eyes of the law, his children would have trouble inheriting his estate. Not mentioned are the treaty payouts the family received due to their children’s part Native American and part White ancestry; in the days before DNA analysis, it was a lot easier to establish paternity if you were legally married to the child’s mother. And, being legally wed to Stephen Mack from the US Government’s point of view may have helped ensure that Hononegah could not be legally forced from the area when the Ho-Chunk and Potawatomi were driven out.
Hononegah Mack did not occupy any formal post in Rockton’s early formation, —those jobs were not open to women or to Native Americans— but in spite of the fact that she had no formal role, Hononegah was very much an early leader of the town and helped shape the Rockton that exists today. Through her ties with the Ho-Chunk population in the area, Hononegah helped forge relationships between her husband and the Native Americans who lived in the region. Stephen Mack was a fur trader, and these relationships were crucial to his work, and to the success of Macktown.
Hononegah Mack was one of the first people in the region to successfully navigate between the two cultures, Native American and White. The Mack’s home with its associated trading post was a bustling center of activity, and Hononegah was a thoughtful and generous hostess to White guests and Native American guests alike. She could chat with the White woman of Rockton over a cup of tea one moment, and enjoy a meal prepared on an open fire with her Ho-Chunk relatives the next. Throughout her life she continued to dress in Native American clothing, but the clothing she sewed for her children was that of White people.
By the mid-1840’s, thanks in part to the government programs which benefitted them at times for being White, and at other times for being Native American, the Macks’ property had grown to 1,000 acres. Stephen Mack’s education and experience as a clerk at a trading post, no doubt put him in a position to navigate the countless program requirements, such as written affidavits and other documents. It is a testimony to the character of Hononegah that she was happy to share the wealth they had attained and give back to her community through both her generosity with the poor and her healing skills with the sick.
Hononegah had a new baby about every two years. In total, she and Stephen Mack would have nine children, with possibly an additional two who died in early infancy. Along with making sure that her own children were properly fed, bathed, dressed, and educated, Hononegah made time to advocate for the education of Native American children in the settlement’s school, and to respond with care and skill to the needs of the ill, visiting the sick in their home with her medicinal herbs.
1847 The Death of Hononegah
Hononegah died at age 33 of a fever, leaving behind a grief-stricken Stephen Mack and nine children, the oldest, Rosa, only 17.
Stephen Mack wrote his sister “… not by profession, but by her every act, her every deed proclaimed her a follower of Christ. In her the hungry and naked have lost a benefactor, the sick a friend, and I have lost a friend who taught me to revere God by doing good to his creatures.”
One of the townspeople at her funeral proclaimed, “the best woman in the County died last night,” and the other townspeople nodded in agreement.
Remembering Hononegah Mack
In recognition of Hononegah’s early work promoting education, when Rockton built their first high school in 1922, they named it after her: Hononegah Community High School. To this day, Hononegah High School remains Rockton’s only high school. Also named in her honor is the Hononegah Forest Preserve, the former site of Bird’s Grove, where Hononegah Mack and her husband lived in the early years of their marriage. The main road into Rockton is called “Hononegah Road.”