Indian Incident in 1862 Still Stirs Deep Emotion
LEAD: A mile from his home on the Lower Sioux Reservation, David Larsen, the Dakota tribal chairman, drove by one of several local monuments to his people's darkest moment.
A mile from his home on the Lower Sioux Reservation, David Larsen, the Dakota tribal chairman, drove by one of several local monuments to his people's darkest moment.
''I feel a tug at my heart,'' Mr. Larsen said as his automobile rolled past a plaque marking the site of military trials that sent 38 Dakota Indians to the gallows.
In the largest mass execution in United States history, the Dakotas were publicly hanged 125 years ago Saturday in nearby Mankato for battling white settlers, battles that resulted in the death of about 500 whites and an unknown number of Dakotas.
The 46-year-old tribal chairman said he felt anger and bitterness that white history still blamed the Indians.
Minnesota's ''Year of Reconciliation,'' a series of proclamations and symposiums aimed at easing the bitter feelings that are a legacy of the 1862 conflict, ends Saturday. #2 Views of Events State officials and academicians who planned the events have deemed them a success.
''We discover by reconciling our past, we find ways to build our futures together,'' Gov. Rudy Perpich said at an Oct. 31 ceremony dedicating a historical marker at a onetime Dakota internment camp.
But Mr. Larsen and others on the 250-member reservation in southwestern Minnesota say they were glad the ''Year of Reconciliation'' was finally over.
''It's a farce,'' said Vernell Wabasha, manager of a reservation pottery shop. Her husband's great-great-grandfather was a principal chief at the time of the conflict.
''As far as I'm concerned, there wasn't any change, except more white people coming in looking at us again,'' she said. ''You can't change history. It's history and it's going to be that way. The whole year should have been looking ahead at Indians' future, changing things.''
Mr. Larsen added: ''People are still making a buck off our hard times. It's just so frustrating. What gets me is this could have been so much better if they had at least got some of us involved.'' Origin of Conflict
Accounts differ as to how the 1862 conflict started.
History books say four Dakota tribe members stole eggs from a white settler's farm after an unsuccessful hunting trip, and that by the time they left the farm five whites were dead.
The Dakotas dispute that account, saying the conflict began decades earlier when whites invaded their territory, driving away the game the Dakotas depended on for food.
Roger Head, executive director of the State Indian Affairs Council, said people on both sides felt bad about the Dakota conflict. ''People just didn't want to talk about it,'' he said.
''I think we have accomplished our goals: reconciliation,'' said Mr. Head. ''I really believe there's a greater understanding.''
Mr. Larsen and other Indian leaders did participate in the forums and ceremonies of the past year, though he insists he was included ''only after I raised Cain.'' A Call for Pardons
He said news accounts brought the Dakotas some of their only positive public relations in 200 years. The St. Paul Pioneer Press Dispatch published an extensive series on the Dakota conflict over the year and led an editorial campaign for a posthumous pardon for the 38 Indians who were hanged.
Yet here on the reservation, the pardon proposal is dismissed as one more guilt-motivated gesture. The Dakota contend the postwar trials, held just outside today's reservation boundary, were a mockery that sent mostly innocent Indians to their deaths or prison.
''How can they pardon somebody when the people didn't do anything wrong?'' Mrs. Wabasha asked.
''Once again, they didn't ask us,'' said Mr. Larsen, a school counselor in nearby Redwood Falls. ''They just went ahead and did this.''
After hearing of the Indians' objections, proponents of the pardon quietly dropped the idea, said Patrice Vick, a spokeswoman for the Governor.
A real accomplishment of the Year of Reconciliation, Mr. Larsen said, is promotion of a more neutral vocabulary for describing the conflict and its participants. The traditional white name for the war, ''The Great Sioux Uprising,'' is anathema to the Indians.
The Dakota dislike the European term ''Sioux'' because they say it connotes fierceness and defiance. ''Dakota,'' Mr. Larsen explained, means ''friend'' in Indian tongue. They also reject the term ''uprising,'' contending their ancestors were provoked by cruel treatment and betrayal.
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