Among the Sac, as in many other American Indian cultures, women as life-givers were responsible for growing crops. With starvation threatening the village, the women of Black Hawk's band quickly agreed with his decision to return to their old lands in Illinois, where the ground was already broken and the richness of the soil was well known. One woman said her people should be allowed to remain long enough to gather the provisions growing in their fields, saying that she was a woman and had worked hard to raise something to support her children.