Minnesota Sesquicentennial of Hate: The Hanging of the 38 on Dec. 26, 1862
Today marks the 150th anniversary of the most terrible event in Minnesota’s history: The mass execution in Mankato of 38 Dakota Indians that followed the war between the Dakota Sioux tribes and the new state government. Revenge and rage drove the flawed legal proceedings behind the kangaroo-court convictions of 303 Indians who surrendered after the U.S.- Dakota war of that autumn. Only President Lincoln’s aversion to mass punishment limited the hangman’s toll to 38. But the stain of those official killings, followed by the official banishment of the Dakota Sioux from their home (banishment or extermination was the state’s policy) left a mark of shame on Minnesota that has colored all the years since, and which has made it almost impossible to even talk about the events of 1862. Now, proposals have been made to extend a posthumous “pardon” to one of the hanged. Pardoning one man doesn’t even come close to an official recognition of the wrongs done to the Dakota, or to comprehending the scale of an avoidable tragedy that claimed hundreds of lives on all sides of the racial divide that was the cradle of Minnesota’s birth. I have written a lot over the years about the Dakota Conflict of 1862, especially during 1987 — the 125th anniversary of the war — when John Camp and I, with the help of photographer Joe Rossi, spent most of that year re-examining the conflict through the eyes of the Dakota, and telling the impact of the war on Indian-White relations in Minnesota. I hope someday soon to post some of that work on this blog. We published five special sections in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, as well as many other individual reports and opinion pieces. I don’t believe any other mainstream media outlet has done better in terms of trying to understand the war and its affect on the shaping of Minnesota.
Since my return to my first newspaper, the Star Tribune of Minneapolis in 2003, I have touched many times on the themes found in the reporting I did in the Pioneer Press (Here, here and here, to mention just a few), and have discovered through the kind of readers’ comments those efforts have received that the well of ignorance and outright racism remains deep and largely unplumbed in this state.
Writing about the causes of that war and its aftermath remains a huge challenge. To offer just a very small start, I reproduce here today’s newspaper column, in which I write very briefly about this very large, very misunderstood, and very important story for Minnesota:
From my Dec. 19th column…
December is a time for reflection and for
taking care of unfinished business, so it is
fitting, perhaps, that the end of the year in
Minnesota always comes with a painful
reminder of a deeply troubled past that
remains difficult to resolve.
Next Sunday, Dec. 26, will mark the 148th
anniversary of America’s largest mass
execution, the hanging of 38 Dakota Indians
in Mankato in a proceeding attended by
thousands and done under the color of law
but which nonetheless was flawed in how it
was carried out and how those marked for
death were chosen.
Justice had little to do with the event.
Vengeance was what it was all about.
Swindled out of their land, cheated of the paltry payments they were supposed to
receive, pushed to the point of starvation,
confined to tiny reservations and facing the
collapse of their traditional culture, the
Dakota exploded in rage and fear and tried to
wipe the Minnesota River Valley clear of the
expanding white population.
If the original sin of Minnesota was the
injustice perpetrated against its original
inhabitants, the violence of 1862 and the
retribution that followed was the flood that
destroyed the old and gave the new state a
new start.
But in the view of historian Gary Clayton
Anderson, a Moorhead native and an expert
on frontier Indian and white cultures, the war
and its aftermath were the defining events
that made Minnesota.
Born in blood and fire, the state had a rocky
start that is still being debated.
Last week, the New York Times reported on
a proposal to “pardon” one of the Dakota
hanged at Mankato, a man named Chaska, a
common name given to first-born sons.
There were several “Chaskas” among the 303
condemned prisoners sentenced to death by
military trials — trials that were brief
Below: The warrior Chaska: Hanged by mistake? Or in reprisal?
kangaroo courts and that dispatched death
sentences by the score, including to many
Indians whose “crimes” amounted to nothing
more than fighting in battles with soldiers.
Chaska was among the majority of the
prisoners spared from the gallows by
President Abraham Lincoln, who was aware,
unlike the authorities in Minnesota, that
executing 300 Indians would not look good
to the world.
Chaska was supposed to be reprieved, but
was hanged anyway. He may have been
confused with another prisoner with the
same name.
But some believe it is very possible Chaska
was hanged because he had taken a white
woman under his protection and because
rumors of a sexual relationship between
Chaska and the woman had outraged whites.
The story makes quite a potboiler (I have
written extensively about it in the past), but it
is important for what it reveals about the
lynch-law justice of 1862, and for what it
says about our efforts to cope with that
history. U.S. Sen. Al Franken, according to the
Times, may introduce a bill issuing a
posthumous “pardon” to Chaska…
I have friends from SW Minnesota who have told me they grew up never knowing about the mass execution until they went of somewhere to college and maybe studied it in a college American history class.
To this day, you would be hard put to find to find anybody in Mankato who would or could tell you where it took place.
I was in Mankato in early December trying to determine the site of the hanging of the Dakota 38 plus 2. No one I asked really knew.
Here is a link to the trailer for the new film Dakota 38. http://www.smoothfeather.org/dakota38/
May 2012 be the year we are awakened to the horrors of 1862.
peter: there is a marker in a parking lot on the downstream side of the library right in downtown mankato that supposedly stands very near the actual spot…
The “marker” is a crying buffalo. Very hard to miss.
We aren’t discussing the buffalo. Rather, we are talking about the 100-year-old granite marker that went missing in recent decades.
Nick, my family lived in Mendota Village from the 1840′s until they moved to Turtle Mountain area in North Dakota in the 1880′s. They were originally French Canadian and metis. Many of my fellow students at Sibley High School in West St Paul also had family from Mendota VIllage. After many years of searching, I found that my family was deeply affected by the uprising and the aftermath. My family is now divided along lines of white and Indian. I am just starting to put the pieces together so that my grandchildren will have some perspective of where they emerged into the story. Your compassion was important for me at a time of struggle in the 1960′s. Thanks
Well it is kinda hard for people to talk about it
Despite what I thought was a great Minnesota education, we never touched on this throughout grade school, high school, college or grad school. Quite shameful. Thanks for the history lesson, Nick!
I totally agree with u and its sad and all of that but kids need to know the truth of where they live and what happened in the past and it is the truth it’s part of nature and its better if kids know now than later
I wish that your series from 1987 could be turned into a book. I know there would be all kinds of complications, but it would be a huge contribution to the history of the state. Published by MN Historical Society?
My experience in the St. Peter Public Schools and growing up in Mankato and St. Peter area is very different than what Steve or Mark describe above. There was a historical marker in downtown Mankato for many years, and very conservative father told me the story–and he thought the Dakota had good reason for going to war. At one point, indigenous activists threw a bucket of red paint on the marker, symbolizing the unjustly spilled blood. I strongly suspect the “nobody knows” sentiment is relatively new in the area.
Moreover, the war and Native American history was taught in St. Peter’s high schools. (What was missing in our curriculum was any discussion of the Farmer-Labor Association and labor history).
Unfortunately, while many heard–or had the opportunity to hear–the story in school and the community, listening, reflecting and acting on the knowledge was an entirely different matter.
It’s not much different here in Hutchinson, where despite the presence of a pretty Les Kouba sculpture of Tayoyateduta (Little Crow) perched beside the river, there’s no acknowledgment of his murder north of town and subsequent mutilation of his body when brought in to Hutchinson in 1863.
I recall listening to people on NPR horrified by the treatment of the private contractors in Fallujah early in the Iraq War, with people rhetorically asking, “What kind of people would do such a thing?” In central Minnesota, the answer isn’t so rhetorical–folks remarkably like my neighbors and, truth to tell, myself (my ancestors settled in Blue Earth County before statehood, and their cabin is now in Mankato’s Sibley Park).
There’s another Sibley Park up in Bismarck, ND. I was told that Sibley drove some Lakota/Dakota people into the water there to drown them. More research?
Rosalie: The punitive expeditions of 1863 and ’64 were bloody and genocidal: Any Dakota or Lakota was considered “fair game.” You are right: More research is needed.
Being a survivor-descendants of Blue Water Massacre 1855, Mankato 1862, Sand Creek 1864, the bottom line for us is: what is the root of this woahniye, hostility in human beings? Our country is driven and built upon this dark violence. The ha-ikceka (natural colored, color of the Earth) people still suffer from America’s collective hostility. How do we, as a nation, begin to understand this deep, subconscious affliction and how do we begin to responsibly heal ourselves and take an honorable place in the future of humanity?
Oops! I went from singular to plural in first sentence. Common error of Lakota speakers switching to English.
Rosalie, I just read your remarks and agree completely….of course, I read them through the lens of the Newtown and other mass shootings and the rage that simmers in this country. You are absolutely correct, we need to find out what is causing this rage and hate that has run this country, simmering under the surface, since it’s creation.
Chaske (or Chaska) is a very common name. It means oldest son.
For some who have contributed comments above, I would like to add there have been extensive educational efforts about the Dakota from the Dakota perspective since the 1987 Year of Reconciliation, of which Nick had a key role reporting on. Many of the reconciliation educations projects begun in 1987 continue to this day – several have been adopted in other states.
Specifically, the Mankato School District has been committed and actively involved with the Mdewakanton Mahkato Education Day project for 23 years, an annual event held in conjunction with the annual Mdewakanton Memorial Mahkato Wacipi. If you are interested in an update of what kinds of efforts have been made to help the citizens of Minnesota and beyond Minnesota borders learn, understand and develop a greater respect and appreciation about the Dakota and their history, check out this website:
www. http://www.hmdb.org
Scroll down to Native Americans
On the right hand side of the Native American menu, scroll down to Minnesota
Look at the the 4 Blue Earth County links on the Native American Minnesota site.
You will find documentation of US Gov-Dakota Conflict history, MN history of the 1987 Dakota-non-Indian reconciliation efforts in Minnesota, photographs of reconciliation memorial cites in Mankato, annual Mahkato Memorial Wacipi stories and photographs, written and photographed Mankato educational projects focused on learning about the Dakota, Ojibwe, Hochunk and other tribal cultures from the Native people themselves. There are documentary videos available at the Minnesota Historical Society Library, the Minnesota State University, Mankato Library, the Blue Earth County Historical archives and the Mankato public library featuring the collaborative efforts in “2000 Mahkato Mdewakanton Education Day” School District/Dakota project and a second documentary featuring “The return of the Hochunk to Mankato” people from Winnebago, NE in 2005.
There is more information out there than some may realize – maybe it is just a matter of informing people where to go if they have an interest.
Sally Jo remembers correctly. I grew up in the St. Peter (MN) school system, too. My dad, Bob Wettergren (who died last February), also told me the stories. He would drive by the location of the hanging and point it out to us when we were children. We also need to remember that there actually were some good relations between the Dakota and settlers/missionaries from the East. Dad told me about Dr. Daniels who had chloroform. Dakota would come from miles around and camp on his lawn while he treated them. We need to remember Bishop Whipple (Episcopal) who wrote to Abraham Lincoln and went to Washington, D.C., to plead for the lives of the Dakota who were to be executed. I’ve read that Lincoln personally read each case. There are published histories of the conflict. Nick, please remember that there were good and bad people on both sides.
Nick: Your work and that of dedicated people such as my former Minnesota State University, Mankato, colleague Sheryl Dowlin keeps alive the spirits of these departed.
Your readers might also wish to be aware of new research Prof. Gwen Westerman and her students at MSU are doing on this shameful moment in our state’s history.
Here’s a link from the MSU webpage which can take you to the original story on Westerman in the New York Times.
http://www.mnsu.edu/news/read/?id=1292335907&paper=topstories
I’m sure there were 2 others hanged the following day making a total of 40. There are many firsthand accounts of the wars. For example, the compilation by Charles Bryant, titled Indian Massacre in Minnesota, included these descriptions of events, taken from an interview with Mrs. Justina Krieger:
“Mr. Massipost had two daughters, young ladies, intelligent and accomplished. These the savages murdered most brutally. The head of one of them was afterward found, severed from the body, attached to a fish-hook, and hung upon a nail. His son, a young man of twenty-four years, was also killed. Mr. Massipost and a son of eight years escaped to New Ulm.”[23]:141
“The daughter of Mr. Schwandt, enceinte [pregnant], was cut open, as was learned afterward, the child taken alive from the mother, and nailed to a tree. The son of Mr. Schwandt, aged thirteen years, who had been beaten by the Indians, until dead, as was supposed, was present, and saw the entire tragedy. He saw the child taken alive from the body of his sister, Mrs. Waltz, and nailed to a tree in the yard. It struggled some time after the nails were driven through it! This occurred in the forenoon of Monday, 18th of August, 1862.”[23]:300-301
The genocide continues to this day, take a look at Pine Ridge and the conditions there, read the FACTS on infant mortality, teenage suicide and life expectancy to name a few. Most people have internet access ignorance is no excuse unless you care not to see how your fellow humans are being treated. Please remember written history is generally biased on the view of the victor!
Thanks for keeping the facts on this tragedy alive Nick.
Two more Dakota soldiers were hanged at Fort Snelling in 1865 after being drugged and captured in Canada and dragged back to Minnesota. They were Shakopee and Medicine Bottle. Shakopee, whose name meant Six, or Little Six, was honored with the name of the old bingo parlor run by the Mystic Lake/Shakopee tribe: White bingo players blithely lost their money for years in the Little Six Bingo Parlor, unaware that the name had significance.
Mr. Lincoln capitulated….a less than honorable president.
38 war criminals who murdered unarmed civilians.
Good riddance.
Speaks volumes about your lack of character that you lionize murderers.
Thanks for your cowardly comment. It’s very helpful. Often, when I tell people that there still are a lot of ignorant haters who steadfastly avoid any attempt to understand what happened in 1862, or why, they don’t believe that people can be that willfully backwards. Thanks for proving my case.
I have lived in the Mankato area since 1976 and have been aware, in a very general sense, of the execution of the 38 Dakota warriors. It makes me very sad and I know that I am ignorant concerning the facts of the matter on either side. The facts that I have seen have shown an injustice done to the Dakota people.
I would like to thank Nick for his dedication to this matter. It is because of his dedication over many years that we now can start to investigate the facts and make efforts to reconcile our differences. It seems apparent, with very little evidence, that the Dakota people are deserving of an apology and an acknowledgment of our wrong doing.
One thing that people in this area will tell you about is the turkey vultures that soar above the river just under Look Out Drive. The wind coming off the convergence of the Minnesota and Blue Earth rivers, coupled with the steep rise of the hillside, give the birds currents that seem to make them just float. They just circle effortlessly for hours. It is a very beautiful and peaceful sight. I take my lunch in that area quite often in the summer when the weather is nice.
A documentary on PBS, called The Dakota Exile, mentioned these birds. The Dakota people believe that these birds are the spirits of the 38 Dakota warriors that were executed.
Please forgive my ignorance in this matter and my inability to express myself adequately.
Thank you for letting me share my thoughts.
I found a reference online for The Dakota Exile: http://www.mnvideovault.org/mpml_player_embed.php?vid_id=8009&select_index=0
I have recently started a relationship with a wonderful woman who is of Sioux heritage. I had expressed an interest in her culture because of my connection and set off trying to find answers to the many questions about this terrible time in our history. You would think as an outsider that the indigent people of this country were being given what was owed to them as reparations for the atrocities that had been committed against them that is still affecting them today.
She is guiding me in my quest to understand the true nature of this violent relationship between the Indian nations and the federal government. There is direct correlation between the treatment that they received which resembled the harsh treatment received by slaves by whites who seemed to be hell bent on eliminating anyone who looked differently and devoid of white skin.
Not only was they swindled out of their land but they were the target of genocide as it were with the slaves. Many Americans are totally unaware of this history and I am sure that if the facts were known and taught in the schools, they would have a better understanding of their history and know the TRUTH.
I have not seen the movie “Lincoln” so I can’t speak to if the movie addressed the historical events during this horrific era in the 19th century. I am not sure I want to at this juncture because he is presented as being this great president who emancipated the slaves but his actions against the Indian nations makes me look at him with a different perspective.
The events at Wounded Knee, SD is another tragedy that shook me to my core because you have to ask yourself what kind of people would do such unimaginative things to the human race but in reading accounts of the treatment received by slaves shows they did not care about nobody but the development of the United States by any means necessary. At this juncture, I am learning to control my reflex to regurgitate because it is enough to make you sick to your stomach.