Minnesota Historical SocietyIllustration depicting the hanging of 38 Dakota men at Mankato, Minn. on Dec. 26, 1862.
Posted on 03/05/2019 3:48:00 AM PST by vannrox
Minnesota Historical SocietyIllustration depicting the hanging of 38 Dakota men at Mankato, Minn. on Dec. 26, 1862.
It was Dec. 6, 1862. On President Abraham Lincoln’s desk lay a list of 303 Dakota people who were accused of everything from rape to murder.
These accusations came after Dakota warriors in southern Minnesota took it upon themselves to do something about the starvation and loss of millions of acres of their land caused by white settlers in what’s known as the Dakota Uprising. That battle ended with the deaths of 150 Dakota and nearly 1,000 white settlers during the fighting itself — but the true numbers of Dakota casualties over the next several years are still, to this day, untold.
There were no lawyers and no witnesses at the trials of these Dakota people and some were sentenced within mere minutes. In the end, Lincoln and his lawyers combed through the charges and eventually decided that 39 would die. One man’s sentence was commuted minutes before heading to the gallows, but the 38 about to die sang Dakota songs and held hands as they plunged to their deaths at the end of a rope. To this day, it remains the largest mass execution in U.S. history.
After the executions, some 1,700 Dakota elderly, women, and children who had nothing to do with the uprising were placed into concentration camps. Those who survived starvation and disease there were shipped off to reservations in South Dakota, where conditions were no better.
These Dakota people had lived in Minnesota for hundreds of years before white settlers had ever set foot there, and now, they were gone.
Minnesota Historical SocietySigning of the 1851 treaty.
By the time the Dakota wars broke out in 1862, most of the Dakota were starving. This was due to a treaty that they’d signed 10 years before that had cost them 25 million acres in exchange for promised gold, cash, and food. When it came time to deliver on this, however, the U. S. government changed the terms and instead sent the payments to the white settlers who sold goods to the Dakota.
University of MinnesotaA map of Minnesota in 1862.
Finally, in a cruel natural disaster, the decimation of the Dakota corn crop in 1861 by a “cutworm” infestation meant the vital crop the Dakota had been counting on for survival would not be harvested.
Thus, by the summer of 1862, the Dakota people were absolutely desperate.
There were two key incidents that started the Dakota Uprising of 1862, both on the same day: Aug. 17. The first came when desperate Dakota people broke into a government “agency” (administrative offices that managed the reservations and held stores of food) known as the Upper Agency (see map above) to take flour and other staples. This incident spread fear and anger among the white settlers and other agencies of the federal government.
The other event was when, on the same day as the agency storehouse incident, a small group of four young Dakota warriors came back emptyhanded from a hunt. They then tried to steal eggs from a small white settlement near Acton — about 60 miles West of Minneapolis. The young men were caught doing so, and in the ensuing back-and-forth, the white settler family who owned the chickens was killed.
Sensing what was coming next and desperate for basic food supplies, Dakota warriors called for an all-out war with the white settlers and traders, as well as with the U.S. government itself.
Minnesota Historical SocietyChief Little Crow
Chief Little Crow, whose Dakota name was Ta Oyate Duta, disagreed with the sentiment of warring with the white settlers and the federal troops because he’d traveled to Washington, D.C. four years prior and knew just how many there were in the country. He warned them with these prescient words: “If you strike at them they will all turn on you and devour you and your women and little children.”
Still, he resolved to lead the tribe’s attack force and die with them if he had to. The warring members of the Dakota tribe searched out local settlers and once again began with the agencies. This is also where the merchants who famously stole the Dakota cash payments had storefronts.
The “Lower Sioux Agency,” which was actually on the tribe’s own land, was their first target. They took food supplies, set fire to some of the buildings, and killed about 20 of the white men who worked there and attempted to defend it.
Fort Ridgely was next to be attacked, though the warriors were eventually pushed back. They then headed from town to town, killing as they saw fit, sparing some settlers who they knew to be friendly, and taking what food they could scrounge up.
This continued until finally, after the Battle of Wood Lake 36 days later, the Dakota Uprising of 1862 was over. Total numbers aren’t certain, but estimates are that 500 — 1,000 of the white settlers and about 100 Dakota lay dead.
The fighting was over, but the sentiment of most of the Dakota people had been decidedly against what the warriors had done. They knew what could come of it.
And, indeed, it did.
Minnesota Governor Alexander Ramsey had declared just a few weeks before the end of the uprising what he intended to do:
“The Sioux Indians of Minnesota must be exterminated or driven forever beyond the borders of the State. If any shall escape extinction, the wretched remnant must be driven beyond our borders, and our frontier garrisoned with a force sufficient to forever prevent their return.”
Indeed, the state eventually raised the bounty on Dakota scalps from $75 to $200 — $2,500 apiece in today’s dollars.
After the uprising, the head of the military for the area, Colonel Henry Sibley (who was the main architect of the flawed treaty to begin with), promised security and safety for the remaining Dakota people if they came forward. The warriors who had caused death and destruction had already fled the state or were captured. Those who did come forward were old men, women, and children. They were hunger-marched for several days to Fort Snelling, near St. Paul.
It was “essentially a concentration camp,” said historian Mary Wingerd, “where they were kept until the spring of 1863. And then they were transported to a reservation — Crow Creek, South Dakota. It was in Dakota Territory, which was the next best thing to hell. And the death toll was just shocking.”
“They lost everything. They lost their lands. They lost all their annuities that were owed them from the treaties. These are people who were guilty of nothing.”
Minnesota Historical SocietyA Dakota woman and her child in the concentration camp at Fort Snelling. 1862 or 1863.
This, of course, followed the execution of the 38 Dakota prisoners on Dec. 26, 1862 in Mankato — the largest mass execution in American history.
After the execution, the rest of the Dakota people were effectively banished from the state forever.
“...and the 1,000 to 2,000 mostly unarmed settlers ...”
Democrats still want to keep us disarmed.
Christians being killed?
What was her 'offense'?
Brandon Weber is a communist......enough said!!!!
All those people, the guilty and the innocent, have been dead now for over 100 years. There is nobody left to blame or offer sympathy to.
I have to ask: Who’s country was it in the first place?
“Have you read the text on his homepage?”
That guy’s brain is a bag full of cats.
I have to ask: Who’s country was it in the first place?
BINGO Buddy. The whites routinely violated and ignored many a treaty, cheated, and starved women and children. By the many thousands.
Some native Americans were primarily simple nomadic gatherers. Peaceful and without suspicion.
Probably most were tribal and warlike with most anyone. No commerce or state system to mitigate the fury. Throat slitters that could match/outclass the worst of todays moslem throat slitters.
All pale when matched up against the fine blades of todays abortionists. The Slice and Dice of pure innocence is the worst blood letting this continent has ever seen. Is some accounting ever to be required?
John Brown is smoldering.
Seems no one is certain. Inhabited at various times from points north/south/and west. Vikings even a possibility in the far northeast. Beats me.
Yeah, read a lot of history of the early years of the US; some of it shameful. The Trail of Tears comes to mind as one.
What is the point of understanding history? Because what has happened will happen again. What is happening to the West happened to India Centuries ago. What China is doing they did to Tibet, and they will do here.
Used to have a neighbor lady who grew up in Acton, MN. She related how as kids on Halloween night they would visit the massacre memorial and it scared the living shit out of them.
Didn’t read article.
However, when we read: “The Indians had their all their land taken” it must be put in context...
Were these agricultural lands? No. These were not “Indian farms” that were “taken”...
Lincoln later made it a point to discuss with the various chiefs that the bulwark of civilization was agriculture and that they must stop being nomadic hunter-gatherers if their cultures were to survive.
This is a really awful case. Firstly, corrupt agents of the US government took money the US government was obligated to pay for food for the upkeep of the tribes on their reservations to line their own pockets. The treaty had called for the Dakota to receive these supplies in exchange for their land. Thus the tribes were literally starving. Lincoln refused to pay the tribes money they were owed under the treaty with which they could have bought food. Not surprisingly this enraged them and they lashed out at White settlers. There were several atrocities committed against the White settlers beyond any doubt.
The Federal army put down the uprising.....then just grabbed any Dakota around and claimed they had committed the atrocities against the settlers without any proof that the individuals grabbed by the Army actually had. After complete sham trials that lasted on average TEN MINUTES each and frequently without even having translators present, surprise surprise, they were convicted. Lincoln knee this was a complete sham but the White settlers in Minnesota were (understandably) pissed and wanted blood. Not wanting to lose votes, Lincoln allowed 38 of the death sentences to be carried out thus making him the only POTUS in history to order a mass e execution.
Then the whole tribe was rounded up and sent away to another reservation where the US government deliberately starved them again. Then they finally released them further West but made sure to do so after planting season so they’d starve yet again.
For good measure, the US government rounded up the nearby Winnebago who had not even participated in the uprising and ethnically cleansed them too.
Then members of the Lincoln administration were able to use their connections to snap up land the Indians had been ethnically cleansed from at bargain basement prices and flip them for huge profits.
I’d recommend reading 38 Nooses which is an excellent book about this. There was also a BBC documentary called Lincoln:Saint or Sinner which went into detail about this shameful episode.
We forget the times this happened. It was believed that the tribes were instigated to rebel by CONFEDERATE AGENTS working through Canada. Even the Navajos were armed and inspired to rebel due to Utah mormons with southern leanings.
All along the High Plains, from Canada to Mexico many of the tribes chose the Confederate states as their new ally over the Union.
Captain Eugene Ware found quite a few Confederate agents, mostly Indians from the Oklahoma tribes instigating the plains tribes to war.
It got so bad that Union troops had to be pulled from fighting in the deep South to fight Indians. Two men of Black Kettle’s band, captured at Sand Creek, had been in the Confederate army and were believed to be agents to keep the tribe fighting the next year.
It doesn’t even hold a candle to the (first) massacre at Waco.
It doesn’t even hold a candle to the (first) massacre at Waco.
Books that influenced me to begin reading non PC history were..
MASSACRES OF THE MOUNTAINS by Dunn Jr
The Indian War of 1864 by Capt Eugene Ware
ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK by Bourke.
Along with many of the personal accounts of the Mountain Men at that time.
Based on your narrative I seriously doubt it.
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The Sioux were savages who got in the way of the western expansion. They displaced the Ojibwa in many parts of Southern Minnesota by their raiding parties and cold blooded murder. It is the way of the world snowflake. They were nomadic and historically moved from place to place with some agriculture but primarily hunter/gatherers.
My great grandparents and their children paid for their land by the sweat of their brow; no handouts to immigrants back then. You worked very hard, raised a family and saved every little bit that you could. I won't be apologizing for their hard work and frugal lifestyles.
My grandmother on my mothers side hated the Sioux. In the late summer and early fall groups of them would wander through Lyon County in Southern Minnesota, not looking for work but for anything they could steal. They would see my grandfather out in the field with his dog and they would sneak into the farmstead, stealing clothes off the clothesline and making a mess of her garden. That was in the 1890's when they could ill-afford it, but they managed through their own hard work.
150 years after their murderous rampage in 1862 against farmers who did them no harm the Sioux still refuse to adapt to the reality of America, parked out in South Dakota on reservation lands living off whatever the government will give them for free. I have no sympathy for folks who refuse to get an education and find productive work. Sittin' on the Rez' is a dead end. Make something of yourself and quit your b#tchin'.
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