One such attack, the Battle of Skull Island, occurred on an island which is now called Skull Island in Michigan. (Its name came from the many skulls and bones supposedly found in mounds on that island over the years.) In this battle, it is said that the Sauk had used their boats to cross part of the river, escape to the island, and were temporarily free from their attackers. But when morning came, ice had solidified the river enough for the Chippewa to cross. They killed every member of the Sauk tribe who had fled to that island besides twelve women whom they later sent west of the Mississippi River.But the Sauk may have been mistakenly recorded as dwelling at this location near Lake Huron at that time. There is little archaeological evidence that the Sauk lived in the Saginaw area. In the early 17th century, when natives told French explorer Samuel de Champlain that the Sauk nation was located on the west shore of Lake Michigan, Champlain mistakenly placed them on the western shore of Lake Huron. This mistake was copied on subsequent maps, and future references identified this as the place of the Sauk. Champlain never visited what is now Michigan.Anishinaabe expansion and the Huron attempting to gain regional stability drove the Sac out of their territory. The Huron were armed with guns supplied by their French trading partners. The Sac moved south to territory in parts of what are now northern Illinois and Wisconsin.
Federally recognized tribes
Today the federally recognized Sac and Fox tribes are:

Sac and Fox Nation (Meskwaki: Othâkîwaki, meaning: "People of the yellow earth"), headquartered in Stroud, Oklahoma;
Sac and Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa (Meskwaki: Meshkwahkîhaki, meaning: "People of the red earth"), headquartered in Tama, Iowa; and
Sac and Fox Nation of Missouri in Kansas and Nebraska (Meskwaki: Nîmahâhaki), headquartered in Reserve, Kansas. Language
Sauk is a dialect of the Fox language, one of the many Algonquian languages. It is very closely related to the dialects spoken by the Meskwaki and the Kickapoo tribes. Each of the dialects contains archaisms and innovations that distinguish them from each other. Sauk and Meskwaki appear to be the most closely related of the three, reflecting the peoples long relationship. Sauk is considered to be mutually intelligible, to a point, with Fox. In their own language, the Sauk at one time called themselves asakiwaki [a-sak-i-wa-ki], "people of the outlet". The Sauk people have a syllabic orthography for their language. They published a Primer Book in 1975, based on a "traditional" syllabary that existed in 1906. It is intended to help modern-day Sauk to learn to write and speak their ancestral tongue. A newer orthography was proposed around 1994 to aid in language revival.