The Dakota War of 1862, also known as the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862, the Sioux Uprising, the Dakota Uprising, the Sioux Outbreak of 1862, the Dakota Conflict, or Little Crow's War, was an armed conflict between the United States and several eastern bands of Dakota collectively known as the Santee Sioux. It began on August 18, 1862, when the Dakota, who were facing starvation and displacement, attacked the Lower Sioux Agency and white settlements along the Minnesota River valley in southwest Minnesota. The war lasted for five weeks and resulted in the deaths of hundreds of settlers and the displacement of thousands more. In the aftermath, the Dakota people were exiled from their homelands, forcibly sent to reservations in the Dakotas and Nebraska, and the State of Minnesota confiscated and sold all their remaining land in the state. Thirty-eight Dakota men were subsequently hanged for crimes committed during the conflict in the largest mass execution in US history.
All four bands of eastern Dakota had been pressured into ceding large tracts of land to the United States in a series of treaties and were reluctantly moved to a reservation strip twenty miles wide, centered on the Minnesota River. There, they were encouraged by U.S. Indian agents to become farmers rather than continue their hunting traditions. 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 the eastern Dakota. In the summer of 1862, tensions between the eastern Dakota, the traders, and the Indian agents reached a breaking point. On August 17, 1862, four young Dakota men killed five white settlers in Acton, Minnesota, after a disagreement. 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. 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. Little Crow and a group of 150 to 250 followers fled to the northern plains of Dakota Territory and Canada.
During the war, Dakota men attacked and killed over 500 white settlers, causing thousands to flee the area and took hundreds of "mixed-blood" and white hostages, almost all women and children. By the end of the war, 358 settlers had been killed, in addition to 77 soldiers and 36 volunteer militia and armed civilians. The total number of Dakota casualties is unknown, but 150 Dakota men died in battle. On September 26, 1862, 269 "mixed-blood" and white hostages were released to Sibley's troops at Camp Release. Interned at Fort Snelling, 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.
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, in 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 in May 1863, the eastern Dakota and Ho-Chunk imprisoned at Fort Snelling were exiled from Minnesota to a reservation in present-day South Dakota. The Ho-Chunk were later moved to Nebraska near the Omaha people to form the Winnebago Reservation.
In 2012 and 2013, Governor Alexander Ramsey's 1862 call for the Dakota to "be exterminated or driven forever beyond the borders of the State" was repudiated, and 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."
Background
Previous treaties
The eastern Dakota were pressured into ceding large tracts of land to the United States in a series of treaties negotiated with the U.S. government and signed in 1837, 1851 and 1858, in exchange for cash annuities, debt payments, and other provisions. Under the terms of the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux signed on July 23, 1851, and Treaty of Mendota signed on August 5, 1851, the Dakota ceded large tracts of land in Minnesota Territory to the U.S. in exchange for promises of money and supplies.
The treaties of Traverse des Sioux and Mendota committed the Dakota to live on a 20-mile (32 km) wide reservation centered on a 150 mile (240 km) stretch of the upper Minnesota River. During the ratification process, however, the U.S. Senate removed Article 3 of each treaty, which had defined the reservations. 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 lands and funds
When Minnesota became a state in 1858, representatives of several Dakota bands led by Little Crow traveled to Washington to negotiate about implementing the existing treaties. Instead, the Sioux lost the northern half of the reservation along the Minnesota River in the resulting 1858 Dakota Treaty. This loss was a major blow to the standing of Little Crow in the Dakota community.
Two years after statehood, the settler population in Minnesota, meanwhile, had grown to 172,072 in 1860 from just 6,077 in 1850. 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 populations of wild game, such as bison, elk, deer and bear. This shortage of wild game not only made it difficult for the Dakota in southern and western Minnesota to directly obtain meat, but also 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 due to embezzlement, theft, and the Federal Government's preoccupation with the Civil War. Most land in the Minnesota River valley was not arable, and hunting alone could no longer support the Dakota. The Dakota became increasingly discontented over their losses: land; non-payment of annuities, because the Indian agents were late with the U.S. government annuity payments owed to the eastern Dakota; past broken treaties; food shortages due to the agent Thomas Galbraith withholding distributions of rations; and famine following crop failure. 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. Tensions increased through the summer of 1862.
On January 1, 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:
Day also accused Clark Wallace Thompson, Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Northern Superintendency, of fraud.
Negotiations
On August 4, 1862, an incident occurred when 800 Dakota warriors arrived at the Upper Sioux Agency in the northwestern part of the reservation and broke into a warehouse containing sacks of flour. Two companies of Minnesota volunteer infantry, commanded by Lieutenants Timothy Sheehan and Thomas Gere, were at the agency to keep order when the yearly annuity distribution took place. Sheehan's company moved to stop the looting after the warriors had removed 100 sacks of flour, but bloodshed almost occurred when a warrior tried to seize a soldier's gun, which discharged during the scuffle. Sheehan subsequently ordered his men to fall back, realizing the warriors were only seeking food, not combat. The Dakotas ceased looting when Gere aimed a howitzer at the warehouse door, forcing the warriors to pull out of the gun's range. This allowed Sheehan to post a 15-man detachment at the warehouse entrance. Sheehan then appealed to Indian Agent Thomas Galbraith to distribute food to the Dakotas. Galbraith at first refused, citing that food, goods, and money were always distributed together, and that making concessions to the Dakota would make them harder to control, but he finally agreed to distribute two days' worth of flour and pork, under the condition that the warriors leave and only the chiefs return, unarmed, for a council the next day.
At the 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 [sic] we 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 A[ndrew] J 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 Marpiya te najin (He-who-stands-in-the-clouds), 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 disagrees with the modern terminology of calling it the Dakota war, stating 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 severed head was later found with grass stuffed into his mouth. This was in retaliation to an incident weeks prior to the attack, when Myrick had been asked if he was willing to extend credit to the Dakota when the government annuity payments had not arrived, to which Myrick responded "Let them eat grass!". Seth Henshaw, an early settler and township supervisor in Leavenworth, was killed while attempting to escort Mrs. Harrington, Mrs. Hill, and two children to safety.
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, but 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 men 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.