Dakota War

The Dakota War of 1862, also known as the Sioux Uprising, the Dakota Uprising, the Sioux Outbreak of 1862, the Dakota Conflict, the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862, or Little Crow's War, was an armed conflict between the United States and several bands of eastern Dakota also known as the Santee Sioux. It began on August 18, 1862, at the Lower Sioux Agency along the Minnesota River in southwest Minnesota.

The eastern Dakota were pressured into ceding large tracts of land to the United States in a series of treaties signed in 1837, 1851 and 1858, in exchange for cash annuities, debt payments, and other provisions. All four bands of eastern Dakota, particularly the Mdewakanton, were displaced and reluctantly moved to a reservation that was twenty miles wide, ten on both sides of the Minnesota River. There, they were encouraged by U.S. Indian agents to become farmers rather than continue their hunting traditions. Meanwhile, the settler population in Minnesota Territory had grown from 6,077 in 1850 to 172,072 in 1860, after it had become a state. A crop failure in 1861, followed by a harsh winter along with poor hunting due to depletion of wild game, led to starvation and severe hardship for many of the eastern Dakota. In the summer of 1862, tensions between the eastern Dakota, the traders, and the Indian agents reached a breaking point, because the Indian agents were late with the U.S. government annuity payments owed to the eastern Dakota. The traders refused to extend credit to the tribesmen for food, in part because the traders suspected the payments might not arrive at all due to the American Civil War.Mary Lethert Wingerd, ''North Country: The Making of Minnesota'' (2010) p. 302.

On August 17, 1862, four young native men killed five white settlers in Acton, Minnesota. That night, a faction led by Chief Little Crow decided to attack the Lower Sioux Agency the next morning in an effort to drive all settlers out of the Minnesota River valley. In the weeks that followed, Dakota warriors attacked and killed hundreds of settlers, causing thousands to flee the area,Anderson, Gary Clayton (2019). ''Massacre in Minnesota: The Dakota War of 1862, the Most Violent Ethnic Conflict in American History.'' Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. and took hundreds of "mixed-blood" and white hostages, almost all women and children. The demands of the Civil War slowed the U.S. government response, but on September 23, 1862, an army of volunteer infantry, artillery and citizen militia assembled by Governor Alexander Ramsey and led by Colonel Henry Hastings Sibley finally defeated Little Crow at the Battle of Wood Lake.

By the end of the war, 358 settlers had been killed, in addition to 77 soldiers and 29 volunteer militia. The total number of Dakota casualties is unknown. On September 26, 1862, 269 "mixed-blood" and white hostages were released to Sibley's troops at Camp Release. Approximately 2,000 Dakota surrendered or were taken into custody, including at least 1,658 non-combatants, as well as those who had opposed the war and helped to free the hostages. Meanwhile, Little Crow and a group of 150 to 250 followers fled to the northern plains of Dakota Territory and Canada. In less than six weeks, a military commission, composed of officers from the Minnesota volunteer Infantry, sentenced 303 Dakota men to death. President Abraham Lincoln reviewed the convictions and approved death sentences for 39 out of the 303. On December 26, 1862, 38 were hanged in Mankato, Minnesota with one getting a reprieve. This was the largest one-day mass execution in American history. The United States Congress abolished the eastern Dakota and Ho-Chunk (Winnebago) reservations in Minnesota and declared their treaties null and void. In May 1863, the eastern Dakota and Ho-chunk imprisoned at Fort Snelling were exiled from Minnesota. They were placed on riverboats and sent to a reservation in present-day South Dakota. The Ho-Chunk were also initially forced to the Crow Creek reservation, but later moved to Nebraska near the Omaha people to form the Winnebago Reservation.

In 2012 and 2013, Ramsey's call for the Dakota to "be exterminated or driven forever beyond the borders of the State" was repudiated. In 2019, an apology was issued to the Dakota people for "150 years of trauma inflicted on Native people at the hands of state government." In 2021, the Minnesota state legislature and the Minnesota Historical Society (MNHS) transferred ownership of 115 acres of land back to the Lower Sioux Indian Community (LSIC), including about half of the lands near the Lower Sioux Agency and part of the historic site of battle. The MNHS and the LSIC have been jointly administering the site.

Background

Previous treaties

The United States government and Dakota leaders negotiated the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux on July 23, 1851, and Treaty of Mendota on August 5, 1851, by which the Dakota ceded large tracts of land in Minnesota Territory to the U.S. in exchange for promises of money and supplies.

From that time on, the Dakota were to live on a 20-mile (32  km) wide Indian reservation centered on a 150 mile (240 km) stretch of the upper Minnesota River. However, the U.S. Senate removed Article 3 of each treaty, which set out reservations, during the ratification process. In addition, much of the promised compensation went to traders for debts allegedly incurred by the Dakota, at a time when unscrupulous traders made enormous profits on their trade. Supporters of the original bill said these debts had been exaggerated.

Encroachments on Dakota funds

When Minnesota became a state in 1858, representatives of several Dakota bands led by Little Crow traveled to Washington to negotiate about enforcing existing treaties. But instead, they lost the northern half of the reservation along the Minnesota River. This was a major blow to the standing of Little Crow in the Dakota community.

The land was divided into townships and plots for settlement. Logging and agriculture on these plots eliminated surrounding forests and prairies, which interrupted the Dakota's annual cycle of farming, hunting, fishing and gathering wild rice. Hunting by settlers dramatically reduced the wild game available, such as bison, elk, deer and bear. Not only did this decrease the meat available for survival of the Dakota in southern and western Minnesota, but it directly reduced their ability to sell furs to traders for additional supplies.

Although payments were guaranteed, the U.S. government was two months behind on both money and food when the war started because of men stealing food. The Federal government was preoccupied by waging the Civil War. Most land in the river valley was not arable, and hunting could no longer support the Dakota community. The Dakota became increasingly discontented over their losses: land, non-payment of annuities, past broken treaties, plus food shortages and famine following crop failure. Tensions increased through the summer of 1862.

On 1 January 1862 George E. H. Day (Special Commissioner on Dakota Affairs) wrote a letter to President Lincoln. Day was an attorney from Saint Anthony who had been commissioned to look into the complaints of the Sioux. He wrote:
:I have discovered numerous violations of law & many frauds committed by past Agents & a superintendent. I think I can establish frauds to the amount from 20 to 100 thousand dollars & satisfy any reasonable intelligent man that the indians whom I have visited in this state & Wisconsin have been defrauded of more than 100 thousand dollars in or during the four years past. The Superintendent Major Cullen, alone, has saved, as all his friends say, more than 100 thousand in four years out of a salary of 2 thousand a year and all the Agents whose salaries are 15 hundred a year have become rich." Day also accuses Clark Wallace Thompson, Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Northern Superintendency, of fraud."Thompson, Clark Wallace," ''MNOPEDIA'' Minnesota Historical Society, Colin Mustful, July 201

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Negotiations

On August 4, 1862, representatives of the northern Sissetowan, Sisseton and Wahpeton Dakota bands met at the Upper Sioux Agency in the northwestern part of the reservation and successfully negotiated to obtain food. When two other bands of the Dakota, the southern Mdewakanton and the Wahpekute, turned to the Lower Sioux Agency for supplies on August 15, 1862, they were rejected. Indian Agent (and Minnesota State Senator) Thomas Galbraith managed the area and would not distribute food to these bands without payment.

At a meeting of the Dakota, the U.S. government and local traders, the Dakota representatives asked the representative of the government traders, Andrew Jackson Myrick, to sell them food on credit. His response was said to be, "So far as I am concerned, if they are hungry let them eat grass or their own dung." But the context of Myrick's comment at the time, early August 1862, is historically unclear. Another version is that Myrick was referring to the Dakota women, who were already combing the floor of the fort's stables for any unprocessed oats to feed to their starving children, along with a little grass.

The effect of Myrick's statement on Little Crow and his band was clear, however. In a letter to General Sibley, Little Crow said it was a major reason for commencing war:

"Dear Sir – For what reason we have commenced this war I will tell you. it is on account of Maj. Galbrait icwe made a treaty with the Government a big for what little we do get and then cant get it till our children was dying with hunger – it is with the traders that commence Mr AdrewJ Myrick told the Indians that they would eat grass or their own dung."

On August 16, 1862, the treaty payments to the Dakota arrived in St. Paul, Minnesota, and were brought to Fort Ridgely the next day. They arrived too late to prevent violence.

War

Incident in Acton and aftermath

On August 17, 1862, four young Dakota men on a hunting trip killed five settlers near a settlement in Acton Township, Minnesota. Some accounts say that the men acted on a dare, following an argument about whether or not they should steal eggs. Others say that the men were provoked when the farmer refused to give them food or water, or liquor. The victims included Robinson Jones, who ran a post office, lodge, and store, and four others, including his wife and 15-year-old adopted daughter.

Realizing that they were in trouble, the four men – Wahpeton men who had married Mdewakanton women – returned to Rice Creek village to tell their story to Red Middle Voice, the head of their band, and Cut Nose, the "head soldier" of their lodge. Red Middle Voice lobbied his nephew Chief Shakopee III for support, and together they traveled to Little Crow's village near the Lower Sioux Agency.

In the middle of the night, a war council was convened at Little Crow's house, also including other Mdewakanton leaders such as Mankato, Wabasha, Traveling Hail, and Big Eagle. The leaders were divided about the course of action to take; according to many accounts, Little Crow himself had initially been against an uprising and agreed to lead it only after an angry young brave called him a coward. By daybreak, Little Crow ordered an attack on the Lower Sioux Agency to take place that morning.

Historian Mary Wingerd has stated that it is "a complete myth that all the Dakota people went to war against the United States" and that it was instead "a faction that went on the offensive". She estimates that fewer than 1,000 mostly Mdewakanton men out of a population of more than 7,000 Dakota were involved in the "Sioux uprising". According to Wingerd, up to 300 Sissetons and Wahpetons may have joined in the fighting – only a fraction out of the 4,000 who lived near the Upper Sioux Agency – in defiance of their tribal elders, who opposed participation in what they warned would be a suicidal offensive.

Attack at the Lower Sioux Agency

On August 18, 1862, Little Crow led a group in a surprise attack on the Lower Sioux (or Redwood) Agency. Trader Andrew Myrick was among the first who were killed. Wounded, he escaped through an attic window, but was gunned down while running for the cornfields. Myrick's decapitated head was later found with grass stuffed into his mouth, in retaliation for Myrick's response, "Let them eat grass!" when asked weeks before if he was willing to extend credit to the Dakota when the government annuity payments had not arrived. Killing was suspended for a time while the attackers turned their attention to raiding the stores for flour, pork, clothing, whiskey, guns, and ammunition, allowing others to flee for Fort Ridgely, fourteen miles away. A total of thirteen clerks, traders, and government workers were killed at the agency; another seven were killed as they fled; ten were taken captive; and approximately 47 people escaped.

B Company of the 5th Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment sent troops from Fort Ridgely to quell the uprising, were defeated at the Battle of Redwood Ferry. Twenty-four soldiers, including the party's commander (Captain John Marsh), were killed in the battle. Throughout the day, Dakota war parties swept the Minnesota River Valley and near vicinity, killing many settlers. Numerous settlements including the townships of Milford, Leavenworth and Sacred Heart, were surrounded and burned and their populations nearly exterminated.

Captives

During the chaos of the initial attacks, some Dakota tried to warn their friends at the Lower Sioux Agency to flee. Even those participating in the attacks made exceptions for who was killed. Reverend Samuel Hinman later recounted that Little Crow himself had come to the Episcopal mission when the shootings started, glared at him, and left, allowing Hinman and his assistant Emily West to escape to Fort Ridgely. George Spencer, a clerk in the trading store, credited Little Crow's head soldier Wakinyantawa (His Own Thunder) for saving his life by placing him under his protection.

Spencer then became one of the few white men taken captive during the war; the rest of the captives were predominantly women and children. A large number of captives were "mixed-blood" Dakota. Although there were repeated threats against the lives of mixed-blood settlers, even the most violent warriors exercised restraint when reminded that by killing mixed-blood Dakota, they would risk retribution from their victims' "full-blood" kinsmen.

The large number of captives taken in the early days of the conflict presented a dilemma for the Dakota war leaders. Big Eagle and others argued that they should be returned to the fort, but Little Crow insisted that they were valuable to the war effort and should be kept as hostages for their own protection. While the captives were initially held by the soldiers who had captured them, as the days progressed, the logistics of feeding and taking care of the captives were divided up more broadly among families in Little Crow's encampment.

The subject of the rape and abuse of captives during the Dakota War is controversial. Of the white women and girls who were taken captive over the course of war, up to 40 were between the ages of twelve and forty. Historian Gary Clayton Anderson states that nearly all of the young girls taken captive and most of the middle-aged women were forced into relationships which Dakota men perceived as "marriage." He lists "the chance to obtain a wife" as one of the many different motives young Dakota warriors had for participating in the early days of the conflict, along with revenge, plunder, and the chance to gain honors in warfare. There was at least one widely reported case of rape on the first evening of the conflict, August 18, 1862. There were also three well documented cases of female captives who were "adopted" and protected by Dakota families from potential aggressors.

Early Dakota offensives

Confident with their initial success, the Dakota continued their offensive and attacked the settlement of New Ulm, Minnesota, on August 19, 1862, and again on August 23, 1862. Dakota warriors had initially decided not to attack the strongly defended Fort Ridgely along the river, and turned toward the town, killing settlers along the way. By the time New Ulm was attacked, residents had organized defenses in the town center and were able to keep the Dakota at bay during the brief siege. Dakota warriors penetrated parts of the defenses and burned much of the town. By that evening, a thunderstorm dampened the warfare, preventing further Dakota attacks.

Regular soldiers and militia from nearby towns (including two companies of the 5th Minnesota Infantry Regiment, then stationed at Fort Ridgely) reinforced New Ulm. Residents continued to build barricades around the town.

The Dakota attacked Fort Ridgely on August 20 and 22, 1862. Although the Dakota were not able to take the fort, they ambushed a relief party from the fort to New Ulm on August 21. The defense at the Battle of Fort Ridgely further limited the ability of the American forces to aid outlying settlements. The Dakota raided farms and small settlements throughout south central Minnesota and what was then eastern Dakota Territory.

State military response

On August 19, 1862, Minnesota Governor Alexander Ramsey asked his long-time friend and political rival, former Governor Henry Hastings Sibley, to lead an expedition up the Minnesota River for the relief of Fort Ridgely, and gave him an officer's commission as Colonel of Volunteers. Sibley had no previous military experience, but was familiar with the Dakota and the leaders of the Mdewakanton, Wahpekute, Sisseton and Wahpeton bands, having traded among them since arriving in the Minnesota River Valley 28 years beforehand as a representative of the American Fur Company.

End of siege at Fort Ridgely

After receiving a message written by Lieutenant Timothy J. Sheehan about the seriousness of the attacks on Fort Ridgely, Colonel Sibley decided to wait for reinforcements, arms, ammunition and provisions before leaving St. Peter. On August 26, Sibley marched toward Fort Ridgely with 1400 men, including six companies of the 6th Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment and 300 "very irregular cavalry." On August 27, a vanguard of mounted men under Colonel Samuel McPhail arrived at Fort Ridgely and lifted the siege; the rest of Sibley's force arrived the next day and established a camp outside the fort. Many of the 250 refugees, some of whom had been confined within Fort Ridgely for eleven days, were transported to St. Paul on August 29.

Militia units under Sibley's command to Fort Ridgely:
* Captain William J. Cullen's mounted St. Paul Cullen Guards
*Captain Joseph F. Bean's company "The Eureka Squad"
* Captain David D. Lloyd's company organized in Rice County
* Captain Calvin Potter's company of mounted men
* Captain Mark Hendrick's battery of light artillery
*Captain J.R. Sterrett's company of mounted men raised at Lake City

Defense along southern and southwestern "frontier"

On August 28, Governor Ramsey sent Judge Charles Eugene Flandrau to the Blue Earth country to secure the state's southern and southwestern "frontier," extending from New Ulm to the northern border of Iowa. On September 3, Flandrau received his officer's commission as a colonel in Minnesota's volunteer militia. He set up his headquarters at South Bend, four miles southwest of Mankato, where he maintained a guard of 80 men. Flandrau organized a line of forts, garrisoned by soldiers under his command, at New Ulm, Garden City, Winnebago, Blue Earth, Martin Lake, Madelia and Marysburg. Flandrau and his companies were relieved on October 5, 1862, by the 25th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment.

Iowa Northern Border Brigade

In Iowa, alarm over the Dakota attacks led to the construction of a line of forts from Sioux City to Iowa Lake. The region had already been militarized because of the Spirit Lake Massacre in 1857. After the 1862 conflict began, the Iowa Legislature authorized "not less than 500 mounted men from the frontier counties at the earliest possible moment, and to be stationed where most needed," though this number was soon reduced. Although no fighting took place in Iowa, the Dakota uprising led to the rapid expulsion of the few remaining unassimilated Dakota.

Encounters in early September

Battle of Birch Coulee

On August 31, while Sibley trained new soldiers and waited for additional troops, guns, ammunition and food, he sent a group of 153 men on a burial expedition to find and bury dead settlers and soldiers, and ascertain what had happened to Captain John S. Marsh and his men during the attack at Redwood Ferry. The company included members of the 6th Minnesota Infantry Regiment and mounted men of the Cullen Frontier Guards, as well as teams and teamsters sent to bury the dead, accompanied by approximately 20 civilians who had asked to join the burial party. In the early morning hours of September 2, 1862, a group of 200 Dakota warriors surrounded and ambushed their campsite, kicking off a 31-hour siege known as the Battle of Birch Coulee, which continued until Colonel Henry Hastings Sibley finally arrived with more troops and artillery on September 3. The state military suffered its worst casualties during the war, with 13 soldiers dead on the ground, nearly 50 wounded, and more than 80 horses killed, while only 2 Dakota soldiers were confirmed dead.

Attacks in northern Minnesota and Dakota Territory

Farther north, the Dakota attacked several unfortified stagecoach stops and river crossings along the Red River Trails, a settled trade route between Fort Garry (now Winnipeg, Manitoba) and Saint Paul, Minnesota, in the Red River Valley in northwestern Minnesota and eastern Dakota Territory. Many settlers and employees of the Hudson's Bay Company and other local enterprises in this sparsely populated country took refuge in Fort Abercrombie, located in a bend of the Red River of the North about south of present-day Fargo, North Dakota. Between late August and late September, the Dakota launched several attacks on Fort Abercrombie; all were repelled by its defenders, including Company D of the 5th Minnesota Infantry Regiment, which was garrisoned there, with assistance from other infantry units, citizen soldiers and "The Northern Rangers."

In the meantime, steamboat and flatboat traffic on the Red River came to a halt. Mail carriers, stage drivers and military couriers were killed while attempting to reach settlements such as Pembina, North Dakota; Fort Garry; St. Cloud, Minnesota; and Fort Snelling. Eventually, the garrison at Fort Abercrombie was relieved by a Minnesota Volunteer Infantry from Fort Snelling, and the civilian refugees were removed to St. Cloud.

Army reinforcements

Due to the demands of the American Civil War, Adjutant General Oscar Malmros and Governor Alexander Ramsey of Minnesota had to repeatedly appeal for assistance from the governors of other northern states, the United States Department of War, and President Abraham Lincoln. Finally, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton formed the Department of the Northwest on September 6, 1862 and appointed General John Pope, who had been defeated in the Second Battle of Bull Run, to command it, with orders to quell the violence "using whatever force may be necessary." Pope reached Minnesota on September 16. Recognizing the severity of the crisis, Pope instructed Colonel Henry Hastings Sibley to move decisively, but struggled to secure additional Federal troops in time for the war effort. Pope also requested "two or three regiments" from Wisconsin. In the end, only the 25th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment arrived on September 22, and was sent to defend temporary military posts along the "Minnesota frontier".

Recruitment for the Minnesota infantry had restarted in earnest in July 1862, following President Lincoln's call for 600,000 volunteers to fight with the Union Army in the Civil War. With the outbreak of war in Minnesota in August, the state adjutant general's headquarters ordered the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiments, which were still being constituted, to dispatch troops under Sibley's command as soon as companies were formed. Many enlisted soldiers who had been furloughed until after harvest were quickly recalled, and new recruits were urged to enlist, furnishing their own arms and horses if possible.

Concerned that his troops lacked experience, Sibley urged Ramsey to hasten the return of the 3rd Minnesota Infantry Regiment to Minnesota, following their humiliating surrender to the Confederates in the First Battle of Murfreesboro. The enlisted men of the 3rd Minnesota were formally exchanged as paroled prisoners on August 28. Placed under the command of Major Abraham E. Welch, who had served as a lieutenant in the 1st Minnesota Infantry Regiment, they joined Sibley's forces at Fort Ridgely on September 13.

Battle of Wood Lake

The final decisive battle of the war took place at the Battle of Wood Lake on September 23, 1862, and was a victory for the U.S. forces led by Colonel Henry Hastings Sibley. Following the arrival of more troops, guns, ammunition and provisions, Sibley's entire command had departed Fort Ridgely on September 19. According to one estimate, he had 1,619 men in his army, including the 270 men of the 3rd Minnesota, nine companies of the 6th Minnesota, five companies of the 7th Minnesota, one company of the 9th, 38 Renville Rangers, 28 mounted citizen guards, and 16 citizen-artillerists. Sibley planned to meet Little Crow's warriors on the open plains above the Yellow Medicine River, where he believed his better organized, better equipped forces with their rifled muskets and artillery with exploding shells would have an advantage against the Dakota with their double-barreled shotguns.

Meanwhile, Dakota runners were reporting Sibley's movements every few hours. Chief Little Crow and his soldiers' lodge received word that Sibley's troops had reached the Lower Sioux Agency and would arrive at the area below the Yellow Medicine River around September 21. On the morning of September 22, Little Crow's soldiers' lodge ordered all able-bodied men to march south to the Yellow Medicine River. While hundreds of soldiers marched willingly, others went because they had been threatened by the soldiers' lodge headed by Cut Nose (Marpiya Okinajin); they were also joined by a contingent from the "friendly" Dakota camp who sought to prevent a surprise attack on Sibley's army. A total of 738 men were counted when they reached a point a few miles from Lone Tree Lake, where they had learned that Sibley had set up camp. A council was called, and Little Crow proposed attacking and capturing the camp that night. However, Gabriel Renville (Tiwakan) and Solomon Two Stars argued vehemently against his plan, saying that Little Crow had underestimated the size and strength of Sibley's c