The Dakota Sioux Uprising of 1862
In the middle 1800s, the Sioux nation stretched from Minnesota to the Dakotas and into Wyoming and Montana. The eastern Sioux tribes, known as the Santee, or Dakotas, occupied western Minnesota and the upper Mississippi valley. The various bands of the Dakota Sioux – the Mdewakantons, the Wahpetons, the Wahpekutes, and the Sissetons - were the first to come into real contact with Americans and the first to endure dispossession of their traditional lands. Their experiences in the 1850s and after suggested what their relatives on the plains would undergo later.
In the 1850s, Native American civil leaders had ceded most of Minnesota in a series of bitterly controversial treaties. The outbreak of the Civil War, drawing Federal soldiers away from the frontier, allowed a favorable opportunity to strike back. In August 1862, as the Ojibwe (or Chippewa) rose in insurrection in the northern part of the state, the Dakotas also rose up in revolt against white settlers in southern Minnesota. The Dakota Sioux Uprising, one of the bloodiest conflicts in frontier history, is often portrayed as a pure racial conflict: white settlement produced deep resentments among the Indians that finally led to an uprising that cost the lives of hundreds of settlers before finally crushed. Though basically accurate, this portrayal obscures the complexities of an internal conflict within Dakota society over how to respond to the crisis.
In the popular version of these events, the Mdewakanton chief, Little Crow, or Taoyateduta, masterminded a bloody uprising against unprotected settlers. In fact, Little Crow had previously been a strong advocate of peace. He pursued a policy of accommodation while trying to preserve some elements of traditional life. He and his fellow leaders had signed several treaties, in which the Sioux gave up large areas in return for the promise of food and cash annuities, as well as help in education and agriculture. The Dakota leaders clearly sought an understanding with the Federal government, and some sort of assimilation into the mainstream American culture. Little Crow visited Washington; he attended church, wore American-style clothes and otherwise adapted to the new lifestyle.
But the United States did not live up to the treaties. The war distracted Federal attention from what was happening on the frontier. There were widespread complaints of corruption among the government agents, and agreed upon annuities and supplies were slow to arrive. The traditional lifestyle based on hunting was no longer viable, and the Dakota people now were wholly dependent on the promised payments. Privation followed, and individual Dakota warriors began attacking isolated farmers' cabins. Under pressure from his own people, Little Crow was forced to abandon his accommodationist policies and lead his warriors in a war he did not want. A complicated pattern ensued as some Dakota chose to fight against the whites, while others remained on the sidelines or even tried to protect settlers.
The Dakota uprising inflicted hundreds of deaths on settlers and besieged towns like New Ulm, but soon large numbers of Federal troops arrived in the vicinity. For the remainder of the war, Federal forces rampaged across the plains looking for those responsible. The soldiers succeeded in capturing thousands of Dakota Sioux and bringing them to trial at Mankato. Thirty-eight leaders died in the largest mass execution in American history, with hundreds more imprisoned for years at Fort Snelling and Davenport, Iowa.
This episode prompted the expulsion of most of the Dakota people from Minnesota and was the beginning of decades of conflict between the Sioux and the Federal government.
The subsequent reading provides a look at the war from the point of view of Sioux participants and survivors of the conflict.
BIG EAGLE'S DESCRIPTION OF THE DAKOTA UPRISING
Jerome Big Eagle was a prominent Mdewakanton chief who tried to pursue a new life as a farmer, as agreed in treaties with the United States. In his thirties at the time of the uprising, he joined the warriors reluctantly, but he participated in battles at New Ulm and elsewhere. A military commission sentenced Big Eagle to death, but President Lincoln pardoned him in 1864. Decades later, a newspaper reporter interviewed Big Eagle to secure his recollections of the war. Now as an old man, Big Eagle recalled the frustrations that produced the war and some of the divisions among the Dakota people. The tone is a bit defensive, suggesting his awareness of a primarily white readership. His account perhaps also reflects some caution reflecting his role in atrocities against settlers.
JEROME BIG EAGIE
A Sioux Story of the War
[around 1894]
"Of the causes that led to the outbreak of August, 1862, much has been said. Of course it [the war] was wrong, as we all know now, but there were not many Christians among the Indians then, and they did not understand things as they should. There was great dissatisfaction among the Indians over many things the whites did. The whites would not let them go to war against their enemies. This was right, but the Indians did not then know it. Then the whites were always trying to make the Indians give up their life and live like white men - go to farming, work hard and do as they did - and the Indians did not know how to do that and did not want to anyway. It seemed too sudden to make such a change. If the Indians had tried to make the whites live like them, the whites would have resisted, and it was the same way with many Indians. The Indians wanted to live as they did before the treaty of Traverse des Sioux [in 1851] - go where they pleased and when they pleased; hunt game wherever they could find it, sell their furs to the traders, and live as they could.
"Then the Indians did not think the traders had done right. The Indians bought goods off them on credit, and when the government payments came the traders were on hand with their books, which showed that the Indians owed so much and so much, and as the Indians kept no books they could not deny their accounts, but had to pay them, and sometimes the traders got all their money. I do not say that the traders always cheated and lied about these accounts. I know many of them were honest men and kind and accommodating, but since I have been a citizen I know that many white men, when they go to pay their accounts, often think them too large and refuse to pay them, and they go to law about them and there is much bad feeling. The Indians could not go to law, but there was always trouble over their credits. Under the treaty of Traverse des Sioux the Indians had to pay a very large sum of money to the traders for old debts, some of which ran back fifteen years, and many of those who had got the goods were dead and others were not present, and the traders' books had to be received as to the amounts, and the money was taken from the tribe to pay them. Of course the traders often were of great service to the Indians in letting them have goods on credit, but the Indians seemed to think the traders ought not to be too hard on them about the payments, but do as the Indians did among one another, and put off the payment until they were better able to make it.
"Then many of the white men often abused the Indians and treated them unkindly. Perhaps they had excuse, but the Indians did not think so. Many of the whites always seemed to say by their manner when they saw an Indian, 'I am much better than you,' and the Indians did not like this. There was excuse for this, but the Dakotas did not believe there were better men in the world than they. Then some of the white men abused the Indian women in a certain way and disgraced them, and surely there was no excuse for that.
"All these things made many Indians dislike the whites. Then a little while before the outbreak there was trouble among the Indians themselves. Some of the Indians took a sensible course and began to live like white men. The government built them houses, furnished them tools, seed, etc., and taught them to farm. At the two [government Indian] agencies, Yellow Medicine and Redwood, there were several hundred acres of land in cultivation that summer. Others stayed in their tepees. There was a white man's party [accomodationist leadership] and an Indian party [traditionalist leadership]. We had politics among us and there was much feeling. A new chief speaker for the tribe was to be elected. There were three candidates - Little Crow, myself, and Wa-sui-hi-ya-ye-dan (Traveling Hail). After an exciting contest Traveling Hail was elected. Little Crow felt sore over his defeat. Many of our tribe believed him responsible for the sale of the north ten-mile strip [of land along the Minnesota River], and I think this was why he was defeated. I did not care much about it. Many whites think that Little Crow was the principal chief of the Dakotas at this time, but he was not. Wabasha was the principal chief, and he was of the white man's party; so was I; so was old Shakopee, whose band was very large. Many think if old Shakopee had lived there would have been no war, for he was for the white men and had great influence. But he died that summer, and was succeeded by his son, whose real name was Ea-to-ka (Another Language), but when he became chief he took his father's name, and was afterwards called 'Little Shakopee,' or 'Little Six,' for in the Sioux language 'Shakopee' means six. This Shakopee was against the white men. He took part in the outbreak, murdering women and children, but I never saw him in a battle, and he was caught in Manitoba and hanged in 1864. My brother, Medicine Bottle, was hanged with him.
"As the summer advanced, there was great trouble among the Sioux - troubles among themselves, troubles with the whites, and one thing and another. The war with the South was going on then, and a great many men had left the state and gone down there to fight. A few weeks before the outbreak the president [Lincoln] called for many more men, and a great many of the white men of Minnesota and some half-breeds enlisted and went to Fort Snelling to be sent South. We understood that the South was getting the best of the fight, and it was said that the North would be whipped....
"It began to be whispered about that now would be a good time to go to war with the whites and get back the lands. It was believed that the men who had enlisted last had all left the state, and that before help could be sent the Indians could clean out the country, and that Winnebagoes, and even the Chippewas, would assist the Sioux [and in fact the Ojibwes did rise up at about the same time]. It was also thought that a war with the whites would, cause the Sioux to forget the troubles among themselves and enable many of them to pay off some old scores. Though I took part in the war, I was against it. I knew there was no good cause for it, and I had been to Washington and knew the power of the whites and that they would finally conquer us. We might succeed for a time, but we would be over powered and defeated at last. I said all this and many more things to my people, but many of my own bands were against me, and some of the other chiefs put words in their mouths to say to me. When the outbreak came Little Crow told some of my band that if I refused to lead them to shoot me as a traitor who would not stand up for his nation, and then select another leader in my place.
"But after the first talk of war the counsels to the peace Indians prevailed, and many of us thought the danger had all blown over. The time of the government payment was near at hand, and this may have had something to do with it. There was another thing that helped to stop the war talk. The crops that had been put in by the "farmer" Indians were looking well, and there seemed to be a good prospect for a plentiful supply of provisions for them the coming winter without having to depend on the game of the country or without going far out to the west on the plains for buffalo. It seemed as if the white men's way was certainly the best. Many of the Indians had been short of provisions that summer and had exhausted their credits and were in bad condition. "Now," said the farmer Indians, "if you had worked last season you would not be starving now and begging for food. The "farmers" were favored by the government in every way. They had houses built for them, some of them even had brick houses, and they were not allowed to suffer. The other Indians did not like this. They were envious of them and jealous, and disliked them because they were favored. They called them 'farmers,' as if it was disgraceful to be a farmer. They called them 'cut-hairs,' because they had given up the Indian fashion of wearing the hair, and 'breeches men,' because they wore pantaloons, and 'Dutchmen,' because so many of the settlers on the north side of the river and elsewhere in the country were Germans. I have heard that there was a secret organization of the Indians called the 'Soldiers' Lodge,' whose object was to declare war against the whites, but I knew nothing of it.
"At last the time for the payment came and the Indians came in to the agencies to get their money. But the paymaster did not come, and week after week went by and still he did not come. The payment was to be in gold. Somebody told the Indians that the payment would never be made. The government was in a great war, and gold was scarce, and paper money had taken its place, and it was said the gold could not be had to pay us. Then the trouble began again and the war talk started up. Many of the Indians who had gathered about the agencies were out of provisions and were easily made angry. Still, most of us thought the trouble would pass, and we said nothing about it I thought there might be trouble, but I had no idea there would be such a war. Little Crow and other chiefs did not think so. But it seems some of the tribe were getting ready for it....
"At this time my village was up on Crow creek, near Little Crow's. I did not have a very large band - not more than thirty or forty fighting men. Most of them were not for the war at first, but nearly all got into it at last. A great many members of the other bands were like my men; they took no part in the first movements, but afterward did. The next morning, when the force started down to attack the agency, I went along. I did not lead my band, and I took no part in the killing. I went to save the lives of two particular [white] friends if I could. I think others went for the same reason, for nearly every Indian had a friend that he did not want killed; of course he did not care about anybody's else [sic] friend. The killing was nearly all done when I got there. Little Crow was on the ground directing operations. The day before, he had attended church there [the Episcopal mission] and listened closely to the sermon and had shaken hands with everybody. So many Indians have lied about their saving the lives of white people that I dislike to speak of what I did. But I did save the life of George H. Spencer at the time of the massacre. I know that his friend, Chaska, has always had the credit of that, but Spencer would have been a dead man in spite of Chaska if it had not been for me. I asked Spencer about this once, but he said he was wounded at the time and so excited that he could not remember what I did. Once after that I kept a half-breed family from being murdered; these are all the people whose lives I claim to have saved. I was never present when the white people were willfully murdered. I saw all the dead bodies at the agency. Mr. Andrew Myrick, a trader, with an Indian wife, had refused some hungry Indians credit a short time before when they asked him for some provisions. He said to them: 'Go and eat grass.' Now he was lying on the ground dead, with his mouth stuffed full of grass, and the Indians were saying tauntingly: 'Myrick is eating grass himself.'
When I returned to my village that day I found that many of my band had changed their minds about the war, and wanted to go into it. All the other villages were the same way. I was still of the belief that it was not best, but I thought I must go with my band and my nation, and I said to my men that I would lead them into the war, and we would all act like brave Dakotas and do the best we could. All my men were with me; none had gone off on raids, but we did not have guns for all at first....
"Soon after the battle [of Wood Lake] I, with many others who had taken part in the war, surrendered to Gen. Sibley. Robinson [Robertson] and the other half-breeds assured us that if we would do this we would only be held as prisoners of war a short time, but as soon as I surrendered I was thrown into prison. Afterward I was tried and served three years in the prison at Davenport and the penitentiary at Rock Island for taking part in the war. On my trial a great number of the white prisoners, women and others, were called up, but not one of them could testify that I had murdered any one or had done anything to deserve death, or else I would have been hanged. If I had known that I would be sent to the penitentiary I would not have surrendered, but when I had been in the penitentiary three years and they were about to turn me out, I told them they might keep me another year if they wished, and I meant what I said. I did not like the way I had been treated. I surrendered in good faith, knowing that many of the whites were acquainted with me and that I had not been a murderer, or present when a murder had been committed, and if I had killed or wounded a man it had been in fair, open fight. But all feeling on my part about this has long since passed away. For years I have been a Christian and I hope to die one. My white neighbors and friends know my character as a citizen and a man. I am at peace with every one, whites and Indians. I am getting to be an old man, but I am still able to work. am poor, but I manage to get along."
link below-
www.stolaf.edu/people/fitz/COURSES/Dakotawar.htmDisclaimer
www.stolaf.edu/cwis_policies/personal_disclaimer.html
