Dakota War of 1862

I thought I would do my next blog on the Sioux Indian conflict in Minnesota during the Civil War, also referred to as the Dakota War of 1862. 

As I would expect from most of my fellow classmates, I had never heard of the Dakota War before today. My family and I took a day and a half trip up to the environmental boarding school I'll be attending next semester: Conserve School, in northern Wisconsin. On the five hour drive back, we- as my family is wont to do- listened to NPR. There was a segment on This American Life about the Sioux Indians, and this is where I heard the story of the Dakota War. 

Sioux tribe warriors 

The war was basically prompted by traders and the state's government, who desired the land that the Sioux were currently living on for settlers pushing West. By basically forcing the chiefs into debt and then manipulating them to sign a treaty, they were able to cheat the Sioux tribes of 35 million acres for American soil. 

It didn't take the Sioux tribe long to discover that they'd been played. And once they realized this, a group of them decided to take revenge. The lands they had grown up on and had lived on for years had literally been stolen from them- snatched right out from under their noses. Their anger was understandable; their actions were too rash. 

They declared war on the United States and went on a 36 day rampage throughout the state. There was a shortage of soldiers in Minnesota, of course, due to the Civil War, and as a result, over 400 people were killed, including women, children, and defenseless men.

The public reacted with an extreme backlash of emotions. The extermination of the Sioux was called up on immediately, and the term "blood for blood" was a notion they intended to practice. 

Quote from Alexander Ramsey, the governor of Minnesota: "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."

Most of the warriors that had been involved with the killings fled West. But Henry Sibley, a previous friend to the Sioux, tricked the remaining innocents, who either had nothing to do with the fighting or deliberately chose not to take part, into surrendering. The terms were that they would not be harmed. They were anyway. 

The women, children, and men who had not participated in the War were made to march on "a mini-Trail of Tears". Hundreds of Sioux died on the trail, in the temporary camps they stayed in, and on the reservation they were forced onto.  

The Sioux Indians were falsely seen as barbaric savages 

President Lincoln, pre-occupied with the Civil War, only took prominent note of the Dakota conflict when the guilty- and unfairly judged- verdicts of 303 Sioux men were presented to him. The state of Minnesota and many of the surrounding citizens called fiercely for their hangings. 

Lincoln had more pressing things on his mind: the disbandment of the Union, for one. He dealt with the false verdicts quickly, asking that the Sioux men who did the more extreme damage (raping of women, mutilation of babies) were the ones to be prosecuted for their crimes. 

Only two Sioux men were found guilty of Lincoln's defined crime and the president now faced the bloodthirsty people calling for the death of more. He eventually wrote out a list of 38 Sioux to be executed, to quell the raging citizens in Minnesota and across America. 

All of this goes to show that the conflicts with the Indians were not over, and that the idea of "manifest destiny" was not over, even while the Civil War was happening. Americans were still pushing West, and still pushing the Indians out of their homes. 


I think that the interesting part to of all of this is that even today, many people in the U.S. are completely ignorant to the hangings, and to the fact that it was the white man to blame. Many schools push the mindset that it was the Indians who waged the War, for random and mysterious reasons unknown. As is covered in the NPR podcast, many of the people who live in the area of the hangings have no idea what the Dakota War was. 

Here's some questions for you to chew on. Do you think that Lincoln should have intervened in the brutal treatment of the Indians? Or was the Civil War enough for him to tackle? What was a different way to end the conflict- peacefully, perhaps? And should the Dakota War be taught alongside the Civil War, or should it be deemed unimportant to the events of the 1860s?

To give my own opinion, wanted or not, I feel that the mistreatment of the Sioux was just as prominent as the conflict between the North and the South. Brutality to minorities is something America has always handled badly. Perhaps if this brutality was taught or focused on more, it wouldn't happen as frequently now. 

After all, history repeats itself. 

You can listen to the podcast (something I would highly recommend) here: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/479/transcript

Thanks for reading.