Lesson 6.0: Aftermath

Lecture: Punishment of the Dakota
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Small parties of Dakota continued to surrender to Col. Sibley's forces in the days following the Indians' release of their captives. They had been fighting for nearly six weeks and many had exhausted their food supplies. Remaining on the prairie meant death. Sibley, feeling he had accomplished his mission, asked Gen. Pope to be relieved of his command - a request that was denied. President Lincoln, meanwhile, recommended that Sibley be promoted to brigadier general of volunteers.¹

Those Dakota surrendering found little mercy. Beginning on September 28, a five-man military commission held trials at their base near the captive release site (now commonly called Camp Release), for those accused of taking part in the fighting. Joseph Godfrey (or Otakle), first to be tried, was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death by hanging. Godfrey then turned state's evidence and testified in detail against other Dakota men. The commission dealt with 29 cases in the first week of trials with the majority of prisoners convicted and sentenced to death. In two weeks time, more than 120 Dakota had been tried but nearly 300 cases remained open.

Charles Crawford (Wakanhinape) was the son of Akipa, a full-blood Dakota, and Winona Crawford, a mixed-blood who clerked at the the Yellow Medicine agency, was tried twice by the military tribunal and both times acquitted. He detailed his trials:

The day that General Sibley came to Camp Release an officer came to me and told me that I was wanted at headquarters. I went over there and went in. I found in there a number of officers, and among them one whom I knew afterwards to be Colonel Crooks, who wrote a paper about me, stating that I was accused of killing a white man. He asked if that was so. I told him no; and then he said to me:

If you lie about this, there is a man who knows about it and will tell on you. "I then told them, as I have told you here, about going to hunt for my sister, and all that, up to the time that I went to the battle of New Ulm. Then the guard went and brought Lorenzo Lawrence. Lawrence was asked if he knew me, and he said yes; then he was asked if knew of my killing a white man. He said no. "Why do you then accuse this man of killing a white man?" - this question was put to Lawrence. He said he heard that. Then Lawrence was asked how he heard of it, and he said again "Oh I heard of it." Then Lawrence was asked who told him this, and he said that he had heard it, but didn't know exactly where he had heard it. Then Lawrence came out and one Anton [Antoine] Frenier was brought in, who accused me of breaking open a barrel of whisky, getting the Indians drunk, and starting with them on a war party. That is what Frenier accused me of, but that is not true, because I was not there. The second thing I was accused of was by a white man, a soldier [John Magner], that claimed that I was very close to him at the battle of Wood Lake, chasing him, and that he just barely saved his life by my not being able to catch him. At that trial we told of our being on the west side of the battlefield during the battle. When this soldier was questioned, he said that this band was on the east side of the road and on the east of the battle grounds; but we were not on that side at all. That was all of the trial.²

Under one particularly effective ruse, Sibley's men gathered 236 Dakota soldiers for trial without any resistance. An interpreter told the Indians, who gathered under Sibley's promise of protection to all who were innocent, to report to receive their unpaid annuities. The Dakota families reported as ordered, giving their names to clerks and then being told to step into a room to receive their pay. They were then told to give up their weapons, after a promise that they would get them back. The men were then taken prisoner and chained by the ankles, two-by-two. As historian William Watts Folwell later wrote, "...military necessity may have justified this ‘strategy,' but the reader may judge whether it was calculated to increase the Indians' respect either for the truthfulness or the bravery of the white man."³

The five-man commission concluded some cases in three weeks but was under pressure to move faster. The military court responded, holding as many as 40 hearings in a day, with some completed in as little as five minutes. In all, the court tried 392 Indians during the five weeks after fighting ended and sentenced 307 to death and given 16 terms in prison. Sibley approved all decisions except one and sent the results of the trial to Gen. Pope.

The condemned men and Indian women as cooks and laundresses set out for Mankato. There were 417 in all. At Henderson, a crowd of men, women and children rushed the Indians before the soldiers guarding them could interfere. A number of Indians were beaten, some severely injured. One white woman rushed up to a nursing mother and snatched her child. The attacker violently smashed the Indian child's head against the ground. The infant died a few hours later.⁴

Wakanajaja (or George Crooks), nearly seven years old, was among a group of Dakota loaded into Red River carts and started for the Lower Agency and Mankato. He was crowded into a cart and bound together with two men and his 16-year old brother. Near New Ulm the caravan was set upon by a group of men and women waving their arms and shouting loudly. The ox cart driver tried to turn away from the crowd but the mob reached Wakanajaja's cart. He recalled, "We were pounded to a jelly, my arms, feet, and head resembled raw beef steak. How I escaped is a mystery to me. My brother was killed and when I realized he was dead I felt the only person in the world to look after me was gone and I wished at the time they had killed me. "Sibley later reported that it took a bayonet charge by his men to drive back the infuriated crowd. On the night of December 4, a mob from Mankato marched toward the military camp where the prisoners were being held, intent on killing the captives. They too were stopped by Sibley's guards.⁵

President Lincoln felt the nearly unanimous pressure from Minnesota to execute the convicted prisoners. Sibley, Pope and Gov. Ramsey were in favor as was the press. The loudest voice raised in defense of the Indians was that of Episcopal Bishop Henry Whipple. In a letter to the St. Paul Pioneer he wrote that the question of punishment should "not be settled by passion." Lincoln reduced to 39 the number of Indians to be killed. One of the condemned Dakota was later removed from the death list. In Minnesota, Lincoln's decision was viewed by the non-Indian population as far too lenient.⁶

Rdainyanka dictated a letter to his father-in-law Wabasha telling of his feelings of betrayal. "You have deceived me. You told me that if we followed the advice of General Sibley, and give ourselves up to the whites, all would be well; no innocent man would be injured. I have not killed, wounded, or injured a white man, or any white persons. I have not participated in the plunder of their property; and yet to-day I am set apart for execution, and must die in a few days, while men who are guilty will remain in prison. My wife is your daughter, my children are your grandchildren. I leave them all in your care and under your protection. Do not let them suffer; and when my children are grown up, let them know that their father died because he followed the advice of his chief, and without having the blood of a white man to answer for to the Great Spirit. My wife and children are dear to me. Let them not grieve for me. Let them remember that the brave should be prepared to meet death; and I will do as becomes a Dakota."⁷

The 38 condemned Dakota began chanting death songs in their prison on the morning of December 26, 1862. They continued while they were prepared for execution on the gallows erected in the Mankato public square. Their arms were bound and a white cap, with which their faces would be covered, placed on their heads. The men protested the use of the caps considering their use humiliating. At 10 A.M. they were taken to the large scaffold built with a drop-away platform. The scaffold was surrounded by a protective cordon of 1,400 soldiers.

As a measured drum beat commenced, William Duley, who had survived an Indian attack at Lake Shetek advanced and cut the rope. The platform fell away. The crowd let out one "not loud, but prolonged cheer ....and then all were quiet and earnest." The rope holding Rdainyanka, Wabasha's son-in-law, broke and, although he appeared dead, his body was again hanged. Army physicians checked the 38 bodies and declared all dead. America's greatest mass execution was over.

Two more executions of Indians associated with the uprising were held in November, 1865. Shakopee and Medicine Bottle were kidnapped in Canada near the American border and returned to Fort Snelling where they were sentenced to death. They were hanged on November 11.

Little Crow and a group of some 300 followers left Minnesota following the fighting at Wood Lake. They first stayed with a group of Standing Buffalo's band, largely Sissetons, north of Big Stone Lake on the Minnesota border with Dakota Territory. An appeal to Standing Bull from Sibley calling upon him to surrender and refuse assistance to Little Crow reached the group. Standing Bull's people weighed Sibley's request and Little Crow's plea for help. Little Crow warned the Sisseton that Sibley was intent on killing all the Dakota people. After a council, Standing Bull told Little Crow, "You have already made much trouble for my people. Go to Canada or where you please, but go away form me and off the lands of my people."⁸

For white Minnesotans, there was little difference between the "friendly" Indians who had not been involved in the fighting, and the hostile who did take part in the war. On September 9, Gov. Ramsey had stated that, "The Sioux Indians of Minnesota must be exterminated or driven forever beyond the borders of the State." He suggested that all treaties with the Indians be canceled and their annuity money given to white victims of the war. Congress accepted Ramsey's idea and on February 16, 1863 earmarked $200,000 to aid war victims , adding another $1, 170,734 the following year.⁹

In early 1863 Minnesota Senator Morton Wilkinson and Congressman William Windom introduced laws to remove both the Sioux and Winnebago [the Winnebago, Sioux-speaking Prairie Algonquians,¹⁰ who lived on a reservation south of Mankato and had taken no part in the fighting]. The acts called for the Indians to be relocated on unoccupied land adapted for agricultural purpose, beyond the borders of any state. The Winnebago removal became law on February 21 and the Dakota act on March 3.¹¹

The convicted Dakota men being held in Mankato were the first to be moved. Christian missionaries baptized nearly all of the more than 300 prisoners, 274 on February 3, 1863 alone. A steamboat arrived for the prisoners, who, guarded by the Seventh Minnesota Regiment, boarded. First to move on to the vessel were 15 to 20 women housekeepers followed by 48 men who the tribunal found innocent of crimes. Then came the prisoners chained in pairs and a military escort of 85 soldiers. Officials later took most of the women and all the men found innocent off the boat and placed them in the Fort Snelling camp. The others went to a prison at Davenport, Iowa where they would be held for three years. Forty were pardoned in 1864 and in April, 1866 the remaining Dakota were freed. About 120 died while at Davenport.

The Dakota at Fort Snelling suffered through a dismal winter in which a large number died. In May 4, 1863 the deportation of more than 1,300 Dakota began. Some 770 and a military escort of 40 men boarded the steamer Davenport, just 35 wide and 205 long for the trip downriver to St. Louis. At St. Louis, the Indians transferred to another vessel and started their trip up the Missouri River. On May 5, 547 Dakota boarded a steamer at Fort Snelling to begin their journey. They were taken off the boat at Hannibal, Missouri and loaded into railroad freight cars, sixty to a car, and taken to St. Joseph on the Missouri River. There they met the earlier departing Fort Snelling group, joining them on their already crowded steamer. A large number of the more than 1,300 Indians became ill by drinking poor water and eating musty hardtack and briny pork. They were taken to Crow Creek in today's southeastern South Dakota, and assigned the area as a reservation. The site, plagued by drought, soon became the burial site of a number of new residents.

In the meantime, the Winnebago people had been removed from their Minnesota lands and were now being sent to Crow Creek. The first Winnebago arrived at the new reservation several weeks after the Dakota. By June 24 the transfer of 1,950 Winnebago and 1,300 Dakota had nearly been completed.

The now banished Dakota and Winnebago hated Crow Creek and also harbored suspicions about each other. Many Winnebago moved south toward the Omaha Reservation where they were later allowed, by treaty, to remain. The Dakota remaining at Crow Creek battled starvation. Government officials, aware the Indians could not survive, shipped pork and flour unfit for soldiers, to the reservation. Missionary John P. Williamson managed to get authorization for a buffalo hunt with a provision that he join the hunters. The party of hunters returned with enough food to get the Indians through the first winter at Crow Creek. After three rugged years at Crow Creek, the Dakota were moved to the Santee Reservation in northeastern Nebraska, where conditions gradually improved.

In April 1863, Little Crow and a group of 60 men traveled to St. Joseph, Canada, some 30 miles west of Pembina where he attempted to follow up on overtures other Dakota had made to the British in Canada. He also requested Canadian assistance in freeing the Dakota still held prisoner in Minnesota. Little Crow's men also wore British medals given the Mdewakanton for the assistance they gave to British forces during the War of 1812. A British official present wrote that the Dakota spoke of, "great friendship to the people [of the colony], but they vowed vengeance on the Americans." Little Crow then moved on to Pembina were he tried to enlist the Pembina Ojibway in his war. Red Bear, the Ojibway leader was not interested and met Little Crow while draped in an American flag.

Still seeking an alliance with the British in Canada, Little Crow's group moved on to Fort Garry (today's Winnipeg) on May 27. His people arrived at the fort dressed in spoils of war from the Minnesota frontier. Women appeared in silk dresses and leather gaiters and carried parasols and umbrellas; the men in fine broadcloth coats and pants. Little Crow wore a black coat with velvet collar, a breechcloth of broadcloth and deerskin leggings. He wore a fine shawl around his neck and another as a sash. He told Canadian officials his people were "fighting with the rope around their necks," and asked for arms and ammunition to carry on his war.

The Dakota leader eagerly talked with newspaper reporters at Fort Garry. Little Crow had detailed information on the executions at Mankato and had learned about the imprisonment of other Dakota. There would be no help to the Mdewakanton from Canada, however. Officials there were well aware of American expansionists interested in annexing Canadian lands and did not want to disturb relations with the United States.

Little Crow, now with 16 men, one woman and his 16-year old son Wowinape, returned to Minnesota. During June and July several attacks of soldiers and settlers occurred in Kandiyohi, Wright and Stearns counties with six killed. Among the dead was Capt. John S. Cady, who was leading a group of the Eighth Minnesota Regiment. Little Crow's group was in the area and later suspected of the attacks. Heyoka, one of the Little Crow group, later gave his leader a coat taken from the body of James McGannon, who had been killed near Fairhaven, in southeastern Stearns County

On July 3, Little Crow and his son were seen six miles northwest of Hutchinson picking berries by two area farmers Nathan Lamson and his son Chauncey. The elder Lamson crept near the two Indians before firing his rifle at them. Lamson's shot hit Little Crow above the hip. The Dakota leader returned fire, slightly wounding his attacker. Chauncey Lamson and Little Crow then exchanged shots and the Indian leader fell mortally wounded. Chauncey Lamson, believing father to be dead, hurried to Hutchinson for help.

Wowinape put a new pair of moccasins on his father for his trip into the afterlife then wrapped the body in a blanket. At day-break, investigators led by Chauncey Lamson, returned to the scene to find the body of an Indian carefully laid out with a new pair of moccasins. They were unaware of the identity of the Dakota man. Upon return to Hutchinson, the party met Nathan Lamson who explained how he survived. He had waited until there was no sound from the Indians and then slipped away to town.

The dead Dakota man was taken to Hutchinson where the body was scalped and mutilated before being buried in a pile of animal entrails. Several of those who viewed the body said the corpse was that of Little Crow, a fact confirmed 26 days later when Wowinape was captured and told his story. Little Crow's skull and forearms were later obtained by the Minnesota Historical Society and displayed as an attraction at its museum.
NOTE: The Minnesota Historical Society acquired Indian remains over the years. In 1988 the Society adopted a resolution of apology to the Indian people for such actions. In 1971 Little Crow's remains, at the request of his grandson, had been taken to South Dakota by an MHS staff member and buried in a private family plot.

General Pope, fearing more Indian assaults in the coming summer of 1863 organized a punitive expedition under orders to go into Dakota Territory and seek out hostiles. Pope's two-pronged assault plan featured Sibley leading a group north and west from Fort Ridgely and Gen. Alfred Sully taking another force up the Missouri River. The two forces would link near Devils Lake. It was hoped that the unfriendly Dakotas would be caught between the two armies. Sibley's forces encountered Dakota in late July and in fought three battles in nine days time, pushing the Indians westward.

Sully surprised a large group of Indians at Whitestone Hill in today's southern North Dakota on August 21 and attacked while the Indians were breaking camp. Sully lost 20 killed and 38 wounded and around 200 Dakota died. Samuel Brown, a witness to the attack, reported:

I don't think he [Sully] out to brag of it at all, because it was, what no decent man would have done, he pitched into their camp and just slaughtered them, worse a great deal than what the Indians did in 1862, he killed very few men and took no hostile one prisoners, he took some but they were friendly Yanktons, and he let them go again... it is lamentable to hear how those women and children were slaughtered it was a perfect massacre, and now he returns saying that we need fear no more, for he has ‘wiped out all hostile Indians from Dakota,' if the had killed men instead of women & children, then it would have been a success, and the worse off, they had no hostile intention whatever...¹²

Sully took another expedition into the Dakotas in 1864 and on July 28 encountered a large Dakota camp. In a protracted fight, known as the Battle of Killdeer Mountain Sully defeated the Indians, forcing the the them to retreat.

War with the Dakota would flare up for years following the fighting in Minnesota. Most prominent of those battles was that at the Little Bighorn River in June, 1876 in which Col. George A. Custer and his contingent of the U. S. Seventh Cavalry was wiped out by a combined Dakota and Cheyenne force. Custer and some 250 soldiers died in a battle that shocked Americans, celebrating that summer the nation's centennial. Custer's Last Stand became an American legend along with the story of Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull and Gall, the men who led their combined Indian army.

Resistance from the Dakota was eventually crushed in December, 1890 at Wounded Knee, South Dakota when the Seventh Cavalry massacred 146 Dakota men, women and children after the men refused to lay down their weapons. Wounded Knee proved to be the last battle between American Indians and whites.

Conference Center Discussion:
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As we come to the end of this course, it would seem appropriate that class members share their feelings on Minnesota's Own Civil War - The Dakota Uprising of 1862. How do you view the conflict after studying it more carefully? Does that long-ago conflict still echo in Minnesota today? And don't be limited by the questions I'm listing here. Please feel free to explore with each other issues that arose during our studies.

Reading Assignment:
Anderson, Gary C. and Alan R. Woolworth (eds.) Chapter IX "Wood Lake and Camp Release," pages 219-229; from Through Dakota Eyes.

Writing Assignment:
In the conclusion of his biography of Little Crow, Gary Clayton Anderson writes of the dilemma faced by his subject, and indeed by thousands of Dakota people on the Minnesota frontier of 1862. Read Anderson's conclusion and give your written opinion, one to two pages, on this dilemma for the Dakota.

Little Crow was a consistent spokesman for the Mdewakanton Sioux, a man who sought power and honors, as does any politician, but who had an accurate vision of what realistically was necessary in order to coexist with the advancing Americans. He supported as much as possible the traditional world view that went with being an Indian; yet he adopted from the white world whatever seemed necessary to survive. When forced to chose between the two worlds in which he tried to live, however, he elected to side with that of his ancestors, despite the possibility that a majority of his relatives would refuse to accept such a decision and oppose the war. For a Sioux Indian, no choice could have been more difficult; the agony of it brought him back to the Minnesota frontier where he sought death and an ultimate release from the earthly world that had been lost to him forever.¹³

Footnotes for Lesson 6.0
Note: Click on the footnote number to return to the main lecture text.

¹ Here and below, Carley, pp. 67-75. Folwell, "The Punishment of the Sioux," in A History of Minnesota, vol. 2:190-211.

² "Charles R. Crawford's Testimony," in Through Dakota Eyes, 257-158.

³ Folwell, 2:194-195.

⁴ "Samuel J. Brown's Recollections," in Through Dakota Eyes, 227.

⁵ George Crooks Account, in Through Dakota Eyes, 261-262.

⁶ Carley, The Sioux Uprising of 1862, 72-73.

⁷ Ibid.

⁸ Here and below, Gary Clayton Anderson, Little Crow, Spokesman for the Sioux, 167-179.

⁹ Carley, 76-82.

¹⁰ Carl Waldman, Atlas of the North American Indian, New York: Facts on File, 1985, 31.

¹¹ Here and below Carley, 76-80.

¹² Carley, 89-91.

¹³ Anderson, 179.

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Updated 6/14/02