Blackfriars Theater

Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)

a famous London theater. The site is now occupied in part by the London Times office. Originally the theater was built on territory belonging to Blackfriars monastery. The reason for this is a curious one. The monastery possessed the right of asylum. Players were forbidden to act in London, so they built their theater here on protected territory, where the sheriff of London had no authority. Blackfriars was never a low theater. The players were men of standing. "The actors of Blackfriars were of grave and sober behavior and men of high standing." Shakespeare and his friends acted here. Shakespeare wrote all his plays for either the Globe Theater or for Blackfriars. The theater is described as having boxes with three tiers of galleries above them. The orchestra sat at the side of the stage in the balcony. The stage was strewn with rushes, and, if a tragedy was to be represented, it was draped with black. Blackfriars was burned down about 1655. Black Hawk (1767-1838), a celebrated chief of the Sac Indians. His tribe lived at Kaskaskia, Illinois. He was made chief of the Sacs in 1788. He objected always to the cession of their lands, claiming that the chiefs were placed under the influence of whiskey before they signed the treaty. He was ordered to remove with his people to Iowa, but he lingered and inaugurated the so-called Black Hawk War in 1831. He stirred up the Indians of Iowa and Wisconsin, with a view to regain their old hunting grounds in Illinois. In the war that followed, Abraham Lincoln was among the volunteers. In August, 1832, Black Hawk and his braves were defeated at the battle of Bad Axe River, and Black Hawk was taken prisoner. He was taken to Washington, and conducted through the chief cities of the East to impress him with a sense of the folly of opposing the whites. He was subsequently released, and lived with his tribe near Fort Dodge, Iowa.