The Unjust Execution of the Dakota 38

In 1862, as the Civil War raged across the fields of the south, another American war was coming to an end: the Dakota War, a conflict between the Dakota people and American settlers in Minnesota. Though the United States military won a decisive and punishing victory over the Dakota, they weren’t satisfied: Colonel Henry Hastings Sibley wanted the Dakota warriors left alive at the end of the war put on trial in a military tribunal. The trials were a farce of justice, with sometimes over 40 Dakota men convicted every day between September and November, 1862. At the conclusion of the trials, 392 Dakota men were found guilty and sentenced to death. President Abraham Lincoln reviewed each of the convictions and ultimately commuted the sentences of 264 of the men – and upheld the death sentences of 38. This is the history of the largest mass hanging in United States history, the execution of the Dakota warriors in Mankato, Minnesota, in 1862.

Transcript for: The Unjust Execution of the Dakota 38

Written by Sarah Handley-Cousins, PhD

Recorded by Sarah Handley-Cousins, PhD and Averill Earls, PhD

Sarah: In fall 1862, just days after the United States army met the rebels at the bloody battle in Antietam, another American war was coming to an end: the Dakota War, a conflict between the Dakota people and American settlers in Minnesota. Though the United States military won a decisive and punishing victory over the Dakota, they weren’t satisfied: Colonel Henry Hastings Sibley wanted the Dakota warriors left alive at the end of the war put on trial in a military tribunal.

Averill : The trials were a farce of justice, with sometimes over 40 Dakota men convicted every day between September and November, 1862. At the conclusion of the trials, 303 Dakota men were found guilty and sentenced to death. President Abraham Lincoln reviewed each of the convictions and ultimately commuted the sentences of 265 of the men – but upheld the death sentences of 38.

Sarah: This is the history of the largest mass hanging in United States history, the execution of the Dakota warriors in Mankato, Minnesota, in 1862.

I’m Sarah

And I’m Averill

And we are your historians for this episode of Dig

Sarah: This is actually the second episode that we’ve done on the Dakota people. (Native American history is quickly becoming my podcast subspecialty!) Last year, we had an episode on the Yankton Dakota writer and activist Zitkala Ša, one of my favorite episodes I’ve ever written, so if you want more of the Dakota story, that would be a great companion episode for this one. In that episode, we gave a brief background of who the Dakota are, but I’ll briefly recap here. It’s not possible to give a full history of the Dakota before the war here, of course, so if this sparks your interest, I recommend Guy Gibbon’s book The Sioux: The Dakota and Lakota Nations as a really great introduction to the people, and he has a another book about the Dakota War specifically.

The Dakota are one of the three general ethnic and language groups within the Sioux Nation, called by the people themselves the Oceti Sakawin (ocheti shakoyin) which means in English “The Seven Council Fires.” The proper names of the groups within the Oceti Sakawin is disputed. In the episode on Zitkala Ša, I described them as Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota, but scholars differ on how it’s best to describe the variety of dialects and where to draw the line between distinct groups. I’m going to quote from anthropologist Guy Gibbon just to illustrate how complex this is. “Dakota is an unevenly studied dialect complex, even though it became the largest speech community of the five Siouan languages spoke on the Plains….Some linguists recognize five divisions (Assinboin, Stoney, Yankton-Yanktonai, Santee/Dakota, and Lakota) and many others only four divisions (Santee/Dakota, Lakota, Yanktonai, and Assinboin). In general usage, the language is broken down into three dialects, Dakota (Santee and Yankton), Nakota (Assinboin and Yanktonai), and Lakota (Teton). Although they are sometimes referred to as separate languages, even spatially distant dialects like Santee (Dakota) and Lakota are so close that their speakers can understand each other in the same way that people from England and Texas can understand each other.”^[1]

Averill: The Oceti Sakawin is much more commonly known to Americans as the Sioux, which is the name first used by the French to describe the people. That term was actually based on the words that other tribes, specifically the Ojibwe, used for them: na-towe-ssiwa, or “people of an alien tribe.” The French spelled that Nauddoweissious, and shortened it eventually to just “Sioux.”So not just not their own name, but a name that was like, three times removed. (Not unlike the Iroquois – which the French took from the Algonquin name “Iroqu” for the Haudenosaunee.) Now, many tribes have removed the term Sioux from their tribal names, and instead use Dakota – for instance, the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux, a band within the larger group, recently renamed themselves the Sissteon-Wahpeton Dakota tribe. Following the example of the scholars we consulted, we will use the term Dakota to refer to the tribe as a unit – but will use Sioux when the historical actors themselves used that term. Within the Dakota, there are multiple bands, generally grouped into two larger subdivisions, the Santee (or Eastern Dakota) and Yankton/Yanktonai (or Western Dakota). We’ll try to clarify when we feel like it’s relevant throughout, but for the most part, we will usually simplify our language by just referring to people as “Dakota,” which is accurate but also simplistic.

Sarah: The Oceti-Sakawin probably emerged as an alliance of tribes sometime in the 13th or 14th century, when more scattered clan groups likely settled into larger walled villages around the lakes and rivers of what we now refer to as central Minnesota and northwestern Wisconsin. These people harvested wild rice, made maple sugar, and hunted white tail deer, but likely also traveled west into the plains to hunt bison. Over time, some portions of the Oceti Sakawin moved further westward, likely influenced by the territorial pressures that sparked conflict with the neighboring Ojibwe, spurred by the European demand for fur in the Great Lakes. The Nakota (Yankton-Yanktonai) and the Lakota moved into what we now call North and South Dakota, lured, as anthropologist Guy Gibbons writes, by “greater game resources and the promise of the horse, which was present on the souther prarie plains by 1650.” ^[2] By the mid-1700s, the Lakota became a horse culture on the great plains. The Dakota, however, also moved west but not as far, remaining further east, in what we now call western Minnesota. As a result of these moves, their cultures adapted. The Lakota focused on hunting bison and horse culture; the Dakota shifted from wild rice to corn cultivation; and the Yankton-Yanktonai began to adopt cultural practices from their neighbors the Mandan-Hidatsa-Arikara, agricultural tribes who built homes known as “earth lodges,” which were partially dug into the ground with thatched roofs. Because of the power and mobility afforded by the horse, the Lakota became the largest and most powerful of the Oceti Sakawin tribes between the 18th and mid-19th century.

A map depicting the traditional land of the Oceti Sakawin people.

Averill: It was the eastern portion of the Oceti Sakawan – the Dakota – that bore the earliest brunt of contact with Anglo-Americans because of their location closer to the Great Lakes and the fur trade. Beginning in about 1837, the Dakota signed a series of treaties with the United States government that handed over portions of their territoriy in exchange for cash payments and debt repayment. These treaties were hugely influenced by the decline of the fur trade and the influence of the American Fur Company, founded by John Jacob Astor, America’s first multi-millionaire. Influential in arranging these treaties was Henry Hastings Sibley, who had risen through the ranks of John Jacob Astor’s American Fur Company, rising from a teenage clerk to head of the “Sioux Outfit” – essentially a regional manager of a portion of the company. It wasn’t an easy time in the fur trade – overhunting had led to a decline in the game population, and tribes and European fur traders were in fierce competition to remain profitable. In order to kill animals efficiently for trading, the Dakota needed access to gun powder, lead, and shot; these could only be acquired from European-American traders, usually controlled by the American Fur Company themselves. Before Sibley’s arrival, Euro-American traders often used this as an opportunity to establish good will with Indian fur traders, giving different types of goods as gifts and offering easy credit. Sibley cracked down on this, and limited the practice to very specific goods necessary for fur hunting. With little to no cash, Indians relied on credit to get access to these vital goods, leading to fairly significant debts, which appeared on the American Fur Company’s books as “Indian debts.”

Sarah: In 1837, an economic downturn known as the panic of 1837 (so dramatic) meant a huge drop in demand for furs and the American Fur Company found itself in dire straits. Prices for muskrat – which was most of their business by then – plummeted. That same year, the United States signed a series of treaties with tribes including the Dakota aimed at getting the tribes to give up all their lands east of the Mississippi River in exchange for cash payouts. (Remember that this is during the Jackson administration, when the federal government was very focused on removing Indians from lands east of the Mississippi.) Sibley saw this as an opportunity – the American Fur Company could help to shape treaties so they included payments on Indian debts, which would infuse the AFC with cash. For example, in 1837, Sibley signed a federal treaty with the Ojibwe that named his own business partner, Hercules Dousman, as a beneficiary of debt payments. So when the government paid up, that money went not to the Indians, but to Dousman. Later that year, the Mdewakanton Dakota signed a treaty that gave the US government all tribal land east of the Mississippi.

Averill: Even as the Dakota ceded all of that territory, timber traders and land speculators began to infiltrate their remaining land. Worse, the money and goods promised by their 1837 treaty failed to materialize. Things got increasingly tense for the Dakota. The fur trade more or less disappeared, leaving them with little option for survival. In 1844, an outbreak of measles decimated the tribe, and the declining bison population and crop failures left them starving. Some parts of the tribe, like the Mdewakantons, were protected somewhat by the cash the federal government finally started to send.

Sarah: It was two treaties signed in 1851 that proved a major turning point in the tribe’s relationship with the United States government. First, they signed the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux in July, which ceded 21 million acres of Dakota land in what we now call Iowa, Minnesota, and South Dakota to the United States government. In exchange, the federal government pledged to pay 1.6 million dollars. Sibley, by then a delegate to the House of Representatives for the Minnesota territory, did a lot of lobbying to get it through – he won the support of Christian missionaries in the region by assuring them that the loss of that much land would force the Dakota to give up hunting and become settled farmers, thus becoming more “civilized.” The 1.6 million dollar payout was the equivalent of 7.5 cents an acre. Just a month later, they signed a second treaty, the Treaty of Mendota, which created two reservations for the Dakota to live on, governed by the Upper Sioux Agency and the Lower Sioux Agency. (Sibley went on from this victory for the capitalists to become the first governor of Minnesota, elected in 1858.)

Averill: When Congress received the treaty for their approval and ratification, however, they made a change to the document – unbeknownst to the Dakota. Article III of the treaty – which described the land reserved for the tribe – was removed. Because of this, there was no legal definition of the boundaries of the Dakota reservation land. In 1858, a group of Dakota men led by Mdewakanton chief Taoyateduta traveled to Washington, DC to try to settle the reservation dispute with Congress. (Taoyateduta translates to something like “His Red Nation” or “His Red People, but he was better known in English as Little Crow) Taoyateduta was sharp, great at finding ways to make money, like running a liquor business to sell booze to white fur trappers. He had a reputation as a young man for being a “young prince,” the son of a chief who liked women and whiskey – but then as an adult, Taoyateduta matured when he won the fierce struggle over who would succeed his father in leadership. As a tribal leader, he helped to curb alcohol abuse in the tribe, which earned him the respect of whites. Taoyateduta was a signer on the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux and the Treaty of Mendota. Now, Taoyateduta had to negotiate yet again to try to finalize the boundaries of the reservation. Taoyateduta and the other Dakota men thought they were going to Washington to discuss the treaties of 1851 – but in the end, they had little choice but to sign a new treaty, one that took even more of their reservation land. This treaty cut the territory down to just what lay south of the Minnesota River, stripping the tribe of all the land they traditionally controlled north of the river.

A view of Mendota from Fort Snelling, by Seth Eastmen | Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons

Sarah: The loss of land cost Taoyateduta dearly. After the 1851 set back and the 1858 failure, his reputation was shaky. As far as the tribe was concerned, Taoyateduta had betrayed the Mdewakanton by losing more Dakota land to the government. He was no longer a respected leader. By 1862, he lost a vote to become the Mdewakanton’s tribal representative. Instead, the tribe voted in a man named Wa-sa-hi-ya-hi-dan, who was a farmer rather than a hunter or fur trader. Taoyateduta saw this as a shift in tribal priorities and tried to change accordingly. Maybe what they needed to do was become more like the white men. He converted to Christianity, cut his hair, and even wore American style suits. But despite his hopes, this did not seem to change the way that white men treated him or his fellow tribal members.

Averill: In the summer of 1862, things between the Dakota and the white settlers were incredibly tense. The Dakota were starving. Several bands, the Sisseton, Wahpeton, Mdewakanton and Wahpekute, all converged on the Upper Sioux Reservation, where they hoped they could get the Indian agent to provide them with rations. But the agent at the reservation, Thomas Galbraith, would only distribute food to the members of the Dakota tribe that he recognized as ‘belonging’ to that reservation, and no others, unless they paid for it. But the tribe was still awaiting its annuity from the federal government, which was running late – since the previous spring, the federal government’s priority had become winning the Civil War, not making good on their promises to Indians. In July, some Dakota men raided a government warehouse at one of the reservation agencies, trying to find supplies. In response, the government dispatched the Fifth Minnesota Volunteers, led by Lieutenant Timothy Sheehan, worried about an outbreak of violence. After some negotiations, Sheehan managed to convince the gathered Dakota to try again to hunt instead of waiting on the annuity and government rations.

Sarah: But just weeks later, at the Redwood agency in the Lower Sioux reservation, there was another conflict. This time, Dakota leaders asked the federal government representative, Andrew Myrick, and Indian agent Thomas Galbraith, if the government traders could extend credit for the tribe to use to purchase goods. Myrick refused. Taoyateduta tried to explain the situation to the traders. “We have waited a long time. The money is ours, but we cannot get it. We have no fod, but here are these stores, filled with food. We ask that you, the agent, make some arrangement by which we can get food from the stores, or else we may take our own way to keep ourselves from starving. When men are hungry, they help themselves.”^[3] Myrick was not impressed by this warning, and shot back: “So far as I am concerned, if they are hungry, let them eat grass.” This did not go over well with the Dakota, who started letting out war whoops to signal their anger and offense. This only further angered the traders, who stopped offering any credit at all, and hung signs in their stores reading “NO CREDIT FOR INDIANS.”^[4]

Taoyateduta, photographed in 1858 in Washington, DC | Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons

Averill: A few days later, angry and hungry, a conflict within small group of Dakota men about whether or not to steal eggs from the farm of some settlers escalated. In an attempt to prove to one another that they weren’t afraid to confront whites, four Dakota men killed six settlers in Acton, Minnesota. The Dakota were split over how to respond. Some wanted to preemptively go to war – after all, they argued, the Americans wouldn’t think twice about killing all of them to punish the crimes of a few. Others, including Wa-sa-hi-ya-hi-dan and Taoyateduta thought this escalation was foolish. Wa-sa-hi-ya-hi-dan simply stated, “We should not talk war with the Americans.” Taoyateduta went further. He may not have been their formal representative, but still served as a respected military leader. He tried to tell the angry Dakota that while they might succeed in killing some Americans, it wouldn’t make a difference, “You may kill one, two, yes, as many as the leaves in the forest yonder, and their brothers will not miss them. Kill one, two, ten, and ten times ten will come kill you.”^[5] Though he disagreed with the strategy, Taoyateduta ultimately pledged that if the tribe insisted on fighting, he would join them. “You are fools,” he reportedly said, “You cannot see the face of your chief; your eyes are full of smoke….you will die like the rabbits when the hungry wolves hunt them in the Hard Moon of January. Taoyateduta is not a coward; he will die with you.”^[6] From that point, the Dakota effectively declared war on the United States.

Sarah: This is a powerful story. But we need to stop and take a look at this a little harder. Most sources, including the hugely influential 1970s history of Native American relations with the United States government, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown, repeated the insult uncritically. It makes for a powerful anecdote, and it tees up the outbreak of war pretty well. But some scholars are more skeptical of the story. Writing in Minnesota History in 1983, Native American history scholar Gary Clayton Anderson, points out that the most immediate accounts, including those written by Thomas Galbraith, do not include the insult on that day. Instead, it seems likely that Myrick or another trade representative made that remark to the Dakota at some earlier point, probably about two weeks earlier, – certainly still an insult, but not leading to the more clear cut story that emerged later. Further, there are few sources that this tense meeting even took place. Anderson also points out that evidence suggests that food was not scarce around the Redwood agency, which had a bumper crop that year. Instead, Anderson suggests that the conflict was more complex. The Dakota at the Upper Sioux Reservation didn’t farm as much and game for hunting was scarce, so they were legitimately suffering from a lack of food. They were frustrated that their more traditional way of life was eroding under the pressure to assimilate and become farmers, like the Dakota at the Lower Sioux reservation. The Upper Sioux Reservation Dakota also felt strongly that their annuities shouldn’t go directly to the traders to pay off their debts, but rather to the tribe, who would determine where it went. There were disagreements over the government food stores, which the Indians believed were rightfully theirs (part of their treaty agreements) and which the whites believed were theirs, intended for white agency workers. In the end, instead of being the resultsghghfgchdgdcfgsdfsfdgsd cs ddfdvasca sgd of one tense moment, the war was born out of the long build up of resentment at the oppression, deprivation, and unfair treatment the Dakota received on behalf of the United States government.^[7]

Averill: Either way, the murders of the white settlers in Acton served as a catalyst. The morning after the Dakota made their decision to declare war, the Dakota men arrived at the Redwood agency painted for battle and attacked. Their first kills were the clerks and traders at the Redwood agency store who had refused them goods, including Andrew Myrick, whose decapitated head was left with his mouth stuffed with grass. Over the following days, the war only expanded as Dakota warrior units, called ‘soldier lodges,’ gathered and joined the fight. To quote historian John Bessler, “As the conflict spread like wildfire, twenty-three counties were depopulated of white settlers. Whole families were killed, cabins looted, barns and haystacks set aflame, and horses and cattle stolen.”^[8] They took some captives, mostly white women and girls, who warriors saw as potential wives.

Sarah: Within days, the governor of Minnesota, Alexander Ramsey, dispatched Henry Hastings Sibley, the fur trader and former governor, to lead a volunteer unit of about 1400 men. Sibley was commissioned in as a Colonel, and while he had absolutely zero military experience, he had long experience with the Dakota and spoke their languages. Fighting back against the Dakota was more complicated in 1862 than it may have been otherwise – the nation was already drawing heavily on volunteers to fight in the federal army, and everything the Minnesotans needed to fight was already being used on the battlefronts in the south – horses, cannons, ammunition, food, etc. But in September, things shifted when General John Pope, removed from command after helping lose the Battle of Second Bull Run, was reassigned to Minnesota. Pope ordered Sibley to “exterminate the Sioux,” and was able to secure thousands of rounds of fresh ammunition and additional soldiers to achieve that end.

Averill: Sibley and Taoyateduta exchanged letters as Sibley tried to convince the Dakota to agree to a truce. The Dakota war chief’s letter from September 7 explained the Dakota’s reasoning for fighting, citing Myrick’s insult. (I smoothed the spelling for ease of reading, but retained his phrasing.) “Dear Sir – For what reason we have commenced this war I will tell you. It is on account of Maj Galbraith we made a treaty with the Government a big for what little we do get and then can’t get it til our children was dying with hunger – it is with the traders that commence Mr Myrick told the Indians that they would eat grass or their own dung. Then Mr Forbes told the lower Sioux that they were not men, then Robert he was working with his friends how to defraud us of our money, if the young braves have push the white men I have done this myself.” These were all accurate claims – even Sibley himself had schemed to ensure that treaties benefited white Americans far beyond what they offered the Dakota.

Sarah: The Dakota discussed Sibley’s request for a truce, but most of the warriors were opposed to stopped the war. One man, Rdainyanka, put their desire to keep fighting this way: “I have no confidence that the whites will stand by any agreement they make if we give them (some prisoners the Dakota had taken) up … Ever since we treated with them their agents and traders have robbed and cheated us. Some of our people have been shot, some hung; others placed upon floating ice and downed; and many have been starved in their prisons….Let us, then, kill as many of the whites as possible, and let the prisoners die with us.” Taoyateduta agreed. “Did we ever do the most trifling thing, and the whites not hang us? As for me, I will kill as many of them as I can, and fight them until I die. Disgrace not yourself by a surrender to those who will hang you up like dogs. But die if die you must, with arms in your hands like warriors and braves of the Dakota.”^[9]

Averill: But very quickly, the army was able to get the upper hand. In late September, a Dakota ambush on Sibley’s men encamped at Lone Tree Lake went sideways, and the Indians took heavy losses. Demoralized by this failure, Taoyateduta and the Dakota men who most wanted to keep fighting fled, planning to avoid capture by spreading out into the plains. The Dakota who favored stopping the war, on the other hand, turned their captives, and themselves, over to Sibley. President Abraham Lincoln was so impressed with Sibley’s victory that he promoted him to brigadier general. Determined to not only win the war, but ensure the Dakota were permanently dociled, Sibley set up a military tribunal (consisting of five men) to try the “mulatto, mixed bloods, and Indians engaged in the Sioux raids and massacres.” The Indians were charged with civil crimes, such as murder, rather than treated as enemy combatants.

Sarah: The resulting trials moved at a lightning pace. In the earliest trials, the freed prisoners offered testimony about their treatment (which didn’t seem that bad). For most of the trials, the testimony was exactly the same. One man, David Faribault, testified at 65 different trials, another, Joseph Godfrey, turned states evidence after his own conviction and testified at 55 in exchange for a shorter sentence. Much of the testimony offered was hearsay. Over 100 trials ended in death sentences based solely on the accused’s own statements as the only evidence, and none of the Dakota were given legal representation. Between September 28 and November 3, 1862, the tribunal heard 392 cases and issued 303 death sentences; there was one day where the tribunal head and decided 42 cases. Some of the trials lasted five minutes. Having achieved convictions, Sibley now wanted to move ahead with executions as soon as possible – he wanted this swift punishment to serve as an example to the remaining Dakota not to try the state of Minnesota or the federal government again. General John Pope and Henry Sibley agreed that the speedy trials might have resulted in some innocent Indians being convicted, but neither of them cared. Pope wrote to Sibley: “I don’t know how you can discriminate now between Indians who say they are and have been friendly and those who have not.” He concluded, though, with this: “I distrust them all.” That distrust was enough for him to give Sibley the go ahead to execute them all, “whatever the number.” Sibley agreed, writing, “It is probable that there are some innocent men among the prisoners, but it is impossible to winnow them out now.” Sibley reviewed each death sentence himself, but rejected only one for a lack of evidence. This brought the number of sentences to 302.

Sarah: Few advocated for the Indians. The main voice speaking out for mercy was Bishop Henry Whipple. A religious leader in the mode of Charles Grandison Finney, Whipple was an Episcopalian educated at Oberlin who focused much of his early career advocating for the rights of the poor. In 1858, Whipple was called to Minnesota to act as the state’s first Episcopalian bishop. Immediately, Whipple became a reformer focused on the rights of the Dakota. During the trials, Whipple wrote tirelessly to speak out against the unfair treatment of the Indians. The war was the natural result of the government’s ill treatment of the Dakota. When it came to the deaths of white settlers, Whipple asked, “At whose door is the blood of these innocent victims?” It wasn’t, he suggested, at the Dakota’s door, but at the door of the corrupt and greedy representatives of the United States.

Averill: Whipple also disagreed with the ways that the trials had distinguished guilt from innocence in the uprising. After all, he reasoned, the Dakota were a “independent nation,” one that must be treated as enemy combatants, not civilians committing crimes. Killing in a state of war is not a crime unless it’s egregious and in violation of the laws of war. This was something that the federal government and US Army was well aware of. In 1862, the US Army commissioned legal scholar Franz Leiber to write a set of war laws, which became, in 1863, the Leiber Code. The code governed the conduct of the war and set parameters for how “civilized” armies made war. The code, for instance, says that “military necessity admits of all direct destruction of life and limb of armed enemies,” but does not “admit of cruelty, that is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or revenge.” One aspect of the Lieber code is also the legal protections offered for prisoners of war, soldiers who are captured as part of a battle. Prisoners of war must not be summarily executed (‘give them no quarter’), cannot be punished or labeled a criminal, and the code mandates the exchange of prisoners. Perhaps the case could be made that some of the Dakota had committed egregious acts that broke the laws of war, but most, Whipple argued, were essentially soldiers in an enemy army, who should be treated as prisoners of war, not wanton murderers. “We cannot hang men by the hundreds,” he wrote, “we have no right to do so.”

Sarah: Sibley was aware of this potential legal snafu, but disregarded it. The military tribunal had used one basic charge for nearly every case: that the [named Indian] “did, between the 19th of August and 28th day of September, join and participate in various murders and outrages committed by the Sioux Indians on the Minnesota Frontier.” Under this definition, it seemed to suggest that the war itself was a “outrage,” rather than a war. Sibley wrote to General Pope that he would execute the Dakota in spite of this, stating he would move forward even if the trials weren’t “exactly to form.”^[10] Though Sibley wanted to move quickly, Pope reminded him that Abraham Lincoln would not permit any executions without his personal review and authorization. Pope sent Lincoln a list of the names of the condemned men, expecting him to simply sign off.

Averill: But Lincoln respected and loathed, almost more than any part of the job, the role of reviewing all federal death sentences. Lincoln was not a violent man and hated the idea of cold-blooded killing, even for military ends. He remarked to a friend, “doesn’t it strike you as queer that I, who couldn’t cut the head off of a chicken and was sick at the sight of blood, should be cast into the middle of a great war, with blood flowing all around me?”^[11] Earlier in the war, he’d been roundly criticized by his own friends and allies for stopping an order issued by an US Army officer to shoot any civilian who bore arms. He thought it was inhumane: “They say that I destroy discipline and am cruel to the Army when I will not let them shoot a soldier now and then, But I cannot see it. If God wanted me to see it, he would let me know, and until he does, I shall go on pardoning and being cruel to the end.”^[12] He only authorized such retributive violence once, in response to war crimes committed against Black soldiers, in which he stated that “for every soldier of the United States killed in violation of the laws of war, a rebel soldier shall be executed.”^[13] He hated having to review death sentences, but did so carefully, seriously, and thoughtfully. He refused to carry out executions for things like sleeping on duty or abandoning a post, even when military law allowed for it. He regularly pardoned or commuted the sentences of men convicted for desertion – in 1862, for instance, he reviewed 13 death sentences for desertion and only upheld 2.

Sarah: Knowing Lincoln’s tendency toward mercy, Minnesotans were uneasy. Three of the state’s congressmen, Morton Wilkinson, Cyrus Aldrich, and William Windom, wrote to the president to beg him to go through with the executions even as he was reviewing the cases. “Those Indians whom (as we understand) you propose to pardon and set free [murdered] one thousand of our people … [captured] moer than one hundred women and girls, and in nearly every instance, treated them with the most fiendish brutality.” The congressmen were suggesting that the Dakota had committed mass rapes – though they provided no evidence. They also refuted the idea that this was a war, therefore bound by the laws of war: “These Indians are called by some prisoners of war. There was no war about it. It was a wholesale robbery, rape, and murder.”^[14] Another Senator wrote to Lincoln suggesting that clemency would lead to more “Indian trouble:” “Every guilty Indian should perish – not one should be spared that he might boast to the Indians of the Plains of his brutal feats.” In Minnesota, the convicted Indians were also at risk of mob violence. The prisoners were encamped in an open field, and on December 4, two hundred armed men attacked the camp, no doubt in hopes of lynching Indians. Meanwhile, Bishop Whipple continued to try to stop the mass execution, writing to Lincoln. He also begged Sibley again to reconsider. Sibley responded: “A great crime against our common humanity demands an equally great atonement.”^[15]

A Dakota woman and children while in captivity at Fort Snelling. There are claims that this perhaps portrays one of Taoyateduta’s wives and children. | Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons

Averill: Lincoln refused to sign off on Pope’s simple list of convicts, and instead wrote back asking for full case files and notes on each individual condemned. When they arrived, he had two aides, George Whiting and Francis Ruggles, read the files and make notes on the case for his review. Based on their reports, in early December, Lincoln wrote out his own directive to Sibley, ordering that 39 of the 302 Dakota be hanged. He indicated each Dakota man that should be killed not only by case number, but wrote out his full name. Minnesotans weren’t happy about this, and led by Minnesota senator Morton Wilkinson, the United States senate passed a resolution calling on Lincoln to explain himself. On December 11, he wrote a response detailing his decision making process. He wrote that he was “anxious to not act with so much clemency as to encourage another outbreak on the one hand, nor with so much severity as to be real cruelty on the other,” and thus carefully read each case file. In the end, his aides only found two cases that supported the claim of rapes (instead of widespread ‘outrages’) and a few more that he felt met the definition of “massacre” rather than “battle.”

Sarah: Sibley received the execution order on December 15. He then wrote to Lincoln requesting to commence the execution on December 26 – they needed more time to prepare, in particular because they could not locate enough rope to make sufficient nooses. Without extra time, they would only have one rope -meaning they would have to execute the Dakota one at a time. A few days later, Lincoln wrote to Sibley again. There were two men, both named Chaskaydon, but only one was on Lincoln’s execution order; one of the Chaskaydon, who used the English name Robert Hopkins, was not slated to die. Lincoln wanted to make doubly that the innocent man was not put to death. Again, on December 23, Lincoln updated his execution orders when Sibley shared new information about one man, Tatimima (Round Wind), that cast doubt on his guilt. This brought the number of condemned men to 38.

Averill: Colonel Stephen Miller – who would become the governor of Minnesota just over a year later – had the responsibility of delivering the news to the condemned Dakota. Through a translator, he told the men that “their Great Father at Washington, after carefully reading what the witnesses testified to in their several trials, has come to the conclusion that they have each been guilty of wantonly and wickedly murering his white children.” Separating the condemned from the pardoned was a mess. Lincoln had noted the pardoned men in his order by using their case numbers, but as interpreter Stephen Riggs wrote, “no one could remember which number attached to which person.”^[16] Given the racism embedded in every interaction in Minnesota and the sloppy, fast trials, it seems very likely that many of the men condemned to die were innocent of anything that could be considered a war crime. One Dakota wrote to his father-in-law, “I have not killed, wounded, or injured a white man, or any white persons, yet today I am set apart for execution, and must die in a few days.”^[17]

Averill: And indeed, we know that several were absolutely hung on trumped up evidence or by mistake – including the man, Chaskaydon, who Lincoln was so careful to point out was not to be included among the condemned, even though his name was similar to a man whose execution he upheld. Rather than commit atrocities, he had saved the life of a woman named Sarah Wakefield, who had lobbied for his release and was greatly relieved when she saw Lincoln had not upheld his conviction. When she came to find him, assuming he had been released, she was told he had been hanged. He had said before his execution that “he saved Mrs. Wakefield and the children; and now he dies while she lives.”^[18] The Dakota were allowed to make final statements, recorded by the clergy who ministered to them. White Dog was angry that he was not able “to tell things as they were” and refute “false testimony brought against him.” Tazoo spoke directly to the Dakota who had counseled them not to fight the whites: “You were right when you said the whites could not be exterminated, and the attempt was folly.”

Sarah: On December 26, 1862, the now 38 men were taken to the execution site. They wore feathers in their hair, their skin was ceremonially painted, and they sang death songs as they marched. White caps were placed over their heads, but they continued to declare their individuality, calling their names out to one another and chanting, “This is me” in Dakota. As the rope was cut, some of them clasped hands and died that way, holding on to one another. The gathered crowd of white Minnesotans cheered. It was, and remains, the largest mass execution in American history.

I read some oral histories of Dakota people reflecting on this moment from today’s perspective, and one man, named Albert Taylor, said this about the moment: “I prayed, and then I sang, I sang some songs that came to me that the white man said they were praying their death song. But you know, it’s a beautiful song that they were singing, that: “Okantanka, God, I’m going home, I’m going home.” That’s what the song means. And here, they’re trying to say that we’re singing our death song. See, they assume that.” I find this really powerful, this misunderstanding that Mr. Taylor points out – and I don’t want to speak for him or over-assume what he meant, but how I read this is that he is saying white men assumed this was a dirge, but it was a beautiful song, a song of the next place. They were going home.

Averill : In addition to the hanging, Minnesota and the federal government took further steps to ensure that the Dakota were well and fully crushed. Most of the executed Dakota were buried in a shallow mass grave. Many were then exhumed and distributed to physicians, including William Worral Mayo, the founder of the Mayo Clinic. Those remains were then dissected and preserved and used to teach anatomy for decades. They cut off all annuity payments, and in 1863, Congress voided the treaties and reclaimed all Dakota reservation land in Minnesota. Very few, who had demonstrated their loyalty to the government, were allowed to remain near Mendota and Faribault. The Dakota that remained on those reservations were forcibly moved to reservations in the Dakota and Nebraska territories. The men who were convicted but not condemned to die by Lincoln remained in prison until 1866, when they were pardoned by President Andrew Johnson and removed to reservations in Nebraska. All Dakota people were expelled from Minnesota, and the state issued a bounty of $25 to anyone who killed a Dakota man found remaining illegally inside the state and presented a scalp as evidence. Later orders raised the possible payout to $200.

Sarah: Taoyateduta, (better known to the Americans as Little Crow) the war chief of the Dakota uprising, had not been captured when the Dakota surrendered. Instead, he and a small band fled, escaping to Canada before returning to Minnesota in 1863. While gathering raspberries in early July 1863 with his son, he was sighted by two men out deer hunting. Nathan Lamson, the white farmer who saw the Dakota war chief, didn’t know it was “Little Crow,” but did know that he could make some cash by killing an Indian. In return, the state of Minnesota wrote Lamson a check for $500 for “great service to the state.”. Chauncey earned another $75 for collecting a “scalp.” On the 4th of July, 1863, Taoyateduta was displayed on mainstreet in Hutchinson, Minnesota, where local boys set off firecrackers in his ears and nostrils. His body was then disposed in a garbage dump, and his severed head taken by the military. His scalp, decorated with feathers, was displayed in the office of the state adjutant general for years. Over the following years, his scalp, skull, and other parts of his body were all eventually placed on display in the Minnesota Historical Society, where they remained in public view until 1915. The historical society only released his remains in 1971, when they finally allowed his grandson to bury him. In 1996, the remains of one of the Dakota who was dissected by William Mayo, Marpiya Okinajin (One Who Stands On a Cloud or Cut-Nose) was positively identified by the Mayo Clinic and finally, in 1998, returned to the Mdewakanton Dakota for burial, and he is interred near the old Redwood agency, on what is now reconstituted Lower Sioux Community land.

Taoyateduta was buried in South Dakota, on the Flandreau Santee Sioux Reservation, where the Mdewakanton Dakota continue to live today. In 2012, the Minneapolis Star Tribune ran a series on the Dakota War on its 150th anniversary. The final installment ended with a description of Taoyateduta’s reburial. On September 27, 1971, Taoyateduta’s descendents gathered to bury their Grandfather. His great-great-grandson, a pastor named Floyd Louis Heminger, said prayers in both English and Dakota, when suddenly a flock of hundreds of crows flew into the sky out of the Great Sioux River near the cemetery. They veered to the northeast, toward Minnesota. Another great-great-grandson, Billy Gilbert, recalled: “Then they flew around the people and headed east as if to say, “We recognize you and we’ve come to get you and we’re taking your spirit home where you were born where you lived, where you walked and hunted, where you were just a father in your community, an everyday man and leader. We’re taking you home now.”

Bibliography & Further Reading

Watch this documentary about a group of Dakota people riding on horseback from South Dakota to the site of the hanging in Mankato, Minnesota.

Listen to this great This American Life episode about the mass execution.

Bessler, John D. Legacy of Violence: Lynch Mobs and Executions in Minnesota. University of Minnesota Press, 2003.

Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West. Henry Holt and Company, 1970.

Gibbons, Guy. The Sioux: The Dakota and Lakota Nations. Blackwell Publishers, 2003.

Anderson, Gary Clayton. “Myrick’s Insult: A Fresh Look at Myth and Reality,” Minnesota History 48 (Spring 1983): 198-206.

^[1] Guy Gibbons, The Sioux: The Dakota and Lakota Nations (Blackwell Publishers, 2003),187.

^[2] Gibbons, The Sioux, 3.

^[3] Dee Brown, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (Henry Holt and Company, 1970), 57.

^[4] John D. Bessler, Legacy of Violence: Lynch Mobs and Executions in Minnesota (University of Minnesota Press, 2003), 30.

^[5] Bessler, Legacy of Violence, 32.