Post by mdenney on May 7, 2007 11:15:57 GMT -5
Curtis Kitto "MIKE"
Mazadidi
Wrote this below-
The Exile Of The Dakota People From Minnesota
or
“When they quit crying, that’s when they die.”
By Reuben Wambdi Kitto - Dakota
This artice reminds us of the suffering and deaths that our Dakota ancestors were subjected to while our ancestral lands, Minisota Makoce, were slowly and methodically taken from them.
As living descendants, we keep these sorrowful memories alive in our daily lives, and when we attend our wacipis, powwows, and gatherings.
We remember that more than 400 trials were conducted by an Army tribunal in 39 days; many trials lasting only five minutes.
We remember that 1700 of our ancestors were forced to march from Lower Sioux to a concentration camp in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1862; and that two hundred died during that march and the winter that followed.
We remember the 38 Dakotas who were killed in a mass hanging in Mankato, Minnesota in 1862.
And we remember that of 400 condemned Dakotas, only 247 survived the three year, incarceration in the stockade prison at Davenport, Iowa. Those who died, died from exposure, hunger, illness, and lack of medical attention. Their bodies were thrown down ravines and remain there in unmarked graves.
Since the arrival of colonial Europeans on our continent it has been their policy to eradicate and remove indigenous peoples from traditional lands. This article includes some of the history of that policy in America and provides details about its impact upon Dakota people.
1779: George Washington claimed there was no difference in "Indians from wolves, both being beasts of prey, though they differ in shape.”
These words of hatred gave permission to European Americans to terrorize, kill, maim and destroy indigenous peoples physically and culturally. George Washington’s words were bad enough, but his behavior was unbelievable. He waged a personal war of genocide instructing Major General John Sullivan in 1779 to hunt the Mohawk like wild animals and to, "Lay waste all the settlements around... that the country may not be merely overrun but destroyed," urging the general not to "... listen to any overture of peace before the total ruin of their settlements is effected." Sullivan did this, reporting he had, “... destroyed everything that contributes to their support" turning, "... the whole of that beautiful region from the character of a garden to a scene of drear and sickening desolation."
Washington's troops amused themselves by skinning the bodies of Indians "from the hips downward, to make boot tops or leggins." Note 1.
1830: Congress passed The Indian Removal Act. It could have been titled the Ethnic Cleansing of Indigenous Peoples Act. It allowed for the removal of natives in the east, to areas west of the Mississippi, which are, “... not included in a state or organized territory.”
It further provided that Indian lands “shall revert to the United States if the Indians become extinct or abandon same.” Note 2. The words, “if the Indians become extinct ..." would have been unnecessary were it not contemplated that such extinctions were to come to pass.
1831: The Cherokees in an attempt to use America’s constitution to protect themselves took their case to the Supreme Court. Although Chief Justice John Marshall ruled in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831) that the Cherokees should receive the protection of the U.S. government, the state of Georgia continued to encroach upon Cherokee lands.
Supreme court Chief Justice John Marshall issued a ruling that the Cherokee was a sovereign nation and told the U. S. Government to stop molesting the Native People.
President Jackson’s response was, “John Marshall has made his law, let him enforce it.” Note 3.
Jackson then directed militias hastily formed that comprised renegades and mercenaries to remove the Cherokee from their lands, leading to 4,000 Cherokee deaths by the end of the decade.
It is evident by US Government actions that genocide and ethnic cleansing was national policy. The land greed of the Whites continually forced the Indians westward. Behind the removal policy was the desire of eastern Whites for Indian lands and the wish of eastern states to be rid of independent groups of indigenous peoples within their boundaries.
Note 4.
1830: The Dakota or Eastern Sioux began to suffer from the policy of removal with the signing of the Treaty of Prairie du Chien in 1830, another treaty was signed in Washington in 1837, each ceding traditional homelands and resulting in immediate encroachment of thousands of settlers to their boundaries. The game base dwindled for the Dakota and hunger and starvation grew at an alarming rate. Most of the annuity payments due the Dakota were made directly to traders. Note: 5.
1851: Treaty of Traverse des Sioux. After years of mounting pressure from white settlers and facing huge debts to fur traders, the Dakota sign a treaty giving up all of their lands west of the Mississippi River. However, the U.S. Senate, whose ratification is required, unilaterally strikes out the provision granting the Dakota a reservation in Minnesota. Territorial governor Alexander Ramsey takes credit for saving the deal by getting the president to allow the Dakota a reservation on a five-year lease. The Dakota are relocated to a strip of land bordering the Minnesota River in west-central Minnesota.
1858: Dakota leaders on a diplomatic visit to Washington D.C. are told they did not own the reservation land. Faced with more debt and threatened with expulsion, they are forced to sell the northern half of their reservation.
1862: August-September: Frustrated by broken promises, reservation policies that forced cultural change, failed crops, delinquent annuities, and the refusal of the government agent and traders to release food to starving families, Dakota men went to war to reclaim their land. As a result, over 500 settlers were killed, leaving 23 southwestern Minnesota counties virtually depopulated by the mass exodus. The U.S. Army under General Henry Sibley defeat the Dakota in six weeks. Over 6,000 Dakota refugees flee to Dakota Territory and Canada and about 2,000 are taken prisoner.
1862: Minnesota Governor Alexander Ramsey declared on September 9, that, "The Sioux Indians of Minnesota must be exterminated or driven forever beyond the borders of the state."
1862: On September 22, President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation freeing the slaves, effective 1 January 1863.
1862: Six days later, a five man military tribunal was set up to conduct trials of the Dakotas. Trials began on September 28 at Camp Release then moved to Lower Sioux. After two weeks 120 cases had been tried with 300 cases still remaining. The remaining cases were accelerated to 40 per day with many taking only 5 minutes. Trials were completed 31 days later on November 5, 1862. In all, 392 prisoners were tried; of those 307 received death sentences.
1862: December 6, President Lincoln, the great emancipator, possibly due to the incongruity of just having signed the Emancipation Proclamation, disappointed most Minnesotans by lowering the number of death sentences to thirty nine; one prisoner was later reprieved.
1862: From November 7 through November 13 more than 1700 Dakota Prisoners, most of them women and children are forced by Army troops to march 150 miles from Lower Sioux, Morton, Minnesota, to a concentration camp on the river flats below Fort Snelling, Minneapolis, Minnesota. As many as 200 died or were killed during the march or while incarcerated over the ensuing cold winter months. Note 6.
[Photo of Ft. Snelling Concentration Camp]
1862: On the cold morning of December 26, thirty eight Dakota men are hanged before a crowd of 3,000 in Mankato, Minnesota. It remains the largest mass execution in US history. Note 7.
[Drawing of gallows for the 38]
The elapsed time between the end of the trials to the date of carrying out death sentences was 51 days. None of the prisoners was represented by a defense attorney and there were no provisions for appeals of any kind. Where were the keepers of the US Constitution when they tried the Dakota? That is not a rhetorical question.
The answer is, the ethnic cleansing of Dakota people from Minnesota was one part of the fulfillment of a larger national policy of genocide. Governor Alexander Ramsey had declared on September 9, 1862, that "The Sioux Indians of Minnesota must be exterminated or driven forever beyond the borders of the state."
The treatment of Dakota people, including the hanging in Mankato and the forced removal of Dakota people from Minnesota, were the first phases of Ramsey's plan. His plan was further implemented when bounties, which eventually reached $200, were placed on the scalps of Dakota people.
“Because it was harder to get a scalp from a fighting age man, bounty hunters often targeted children, more lucratively pregnant women. The woman would be killed and scalped, then her belly opened and the fetus scalped as well.” Note 8.
Future punitive expeditions were then sent out over the next few years to hunt down those Dakota who had not surrendered and to ensure they would not return.
These acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing conformed to US policy and Minnesota’s Governor Ramsey’s plan to clear the way for White settlement of Minnesota.
1863: The policy of eradication and removal of the Dakota from ancestral lands in Minnesota was now almost complete.
The surviving prisoners who had spent the winter of 1862-63 in the concentration camp below Ft. Snelling still had to be removed from the state’s boundaries. As many as 200 Dakotas died or were killed during the forced march and during incarceration that winter.
The removal “…to a location beyond Minnesota’s boundaries.” was begun on May 4. The prisoners with Army escorts were taken on steamboats down the Mississippi River to St. Louis, Missouri, then north on the Missouri River to a location in Dakota Territory near Ft. Randall.
[Map showing the routes of the Steamboats Davenport, Northerner, and Florence on the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers]
1863: On May 4, the Steamboat Davenport left St. Paul just after 6 PM with 762 Dakota prisoners en route to Fort Randall, under the escort of Captain Sanders and 40 men of Company G, 10th Minnesota Volunteers. Note 9.
Diary excerpts: Details of the tortuous trip were recorded by one of the soldiers, John Smith. He noted that they passed Redwing on a cold morning of May 5, Dubuque on May 6, and “…also saw the place at Davenport where the condemned Indians are kept.”
It is unclear whether either group of prisoners was aware that for a short period of time, they were within a few yards of each other as the Steamboat Davenport passed Camp Mc Clellan.
On May 8, they arrived at St. Louis where the prisoners were transferred to the Steamboat Florence. John Smith’s diary notation said, “There was considereably [sic] a crowd around the boat today to see the Indians. Fight with Indians today. Several killed.”
On May 9, the Florence proceeded to the mouth of the Missouri River and on its slow journey north.
May 15, “… about 7 miles below Fort Leavenworth . . Guerilla attack in evening. Had fighting.”
May 16, “The mate got his leg broke and one of the Dakota women died on board the boat.”
May 17, “Arrived in St. Joseph about 6 pm. Buried a papoose today.”
In the meantime, a second steamboat, the Northerner, with 547 Dakota prisoners aboard and being escorted by the rest of the men of Company G, left St. Paul, Minnesota and arrived in Hannibal, Missouri. The soldiers herded the prisoners onto railroad cars and transported them by rail from Hannibal to St. Joseph, to join the first load of prisoners on board the Steamboat Florence.
When the Steamboat Florence departed St. Joseph on May 18 with 1330 prisoners and a company of soldiers on board, it was loaded beyond its capacity.
May 18, “Came about 75 miles from St. Joseph. Buried 2 papooses in one grave one having died last night. A fine day today.”
May 23, “Arrived at Council Bluffs in the forenoon and also Omaha, the capital of Nebraska Territory. Stayed there a few hours having broken the wheel. Left there in the evening and broke the rudder after going a short distance and remained anchored in the river all night.”
May 24, “One of the Indian Missionaries preached a sermon in the afternoon.”
May 25, “Arrived almost at Sioux City and put up for the night. There has been 13 deaths among the Indians since leaving Fort Snelling.”
May 26, “Arrived at Sioux City early in the morning. It was a fine location. Remained there a few hours and proceeded up river. The mouth of the Big Sioux river is a few miles above Sioux City. The river on the upper Missouri is better fitted for purposes of navigation than upon the lower Missouri.”
May 28, “Arrived at Ft Randall in the afternoon and found orders to the [agency?] Would have to proceed miles above Ft Randall. Timber is scarce along the river.”
May 30, “Arrived at the Agency about 150 miles above Ft. Randall at 9 am and disembarked the Sioux's.” Note 9.
The chosen site for the new home of the exiled Dakotas was Crow Creek, near the east bank of the Missouri River, 150 miles above Ft. Randall in Dakota Territory. Crow Creek was a drought stricken place. More than 300 people, mostly children, died of exposure and starvation the first winter.
Kunsi Naomi Cavender, Dakota of Santee, Nebraska, in 1990, related her Grandmother’s story. She was six years old when the Dakotas arrived at Crow Creek by steamboat, and recalled that “… there was no food, and the soldiers told them to boil little green cottonwood berries. The soup made us sick.”
Elmer Weston, Dakota, lived near Flandreau, South Dakota. In 2002 he was 81. His ancestors were sent to Crow Creek in 1863. When he was a boy, he knew people who lived through the 1862 war. One woman told him she saw a lot of children die at Crow Creek. "They didn't get any food when they were there. They get some kind of a sickness where they cry - you know they're sick. They cry, they cry. When they quit crying, that's when they die.”
As Dakota descendants, how do we endure and continue to live with the knowledge of what happened to our ancestors?
We endure by remembering the 38 in our wacipis.
We endure by retracing the footsteps of our ancestors who were forced to march 150 miles in 1862, from Lower Sioux to a concentration camp at Ft. Snelling.
We endure by having Dakota Prisoner Memorials in Davenport to touch the earth of our ancestors whose bodies are still there in unmarked graves.
“By acknowledging and telling the truth about what happened in the State of Minnesota, we are able to start healing. This healing initially happens on a personal level, beginning with our own tears, but those tears are the medicine given to us by our creator. Once the healing begins, it acts like a pebble thrown into a still pond. The effects go from our own personal awareness to our families and loved ones. Hopefully, this truth telling will have positive effects on everyone.” Ramona Stately Iyupseyusewin - Dakota, April 16, 2007.
“How will the future generations characterize your role in the Dakota struggle for justice in the twenty first century?" Waziyatawin Angela Wilson - Dakota, April 12, 2006
Article by Reuben Wambdi Kitto, Jr. – Dakota – 18 April 2007
Reference Notes:
Note 1. Anthony F.C. Wallace, Death and Rebirth of the Seneca (Knoph, 1979)
Note 2. Indian Removal Act, approved May 28, 1830.
Note 3. Speech by Stephen Breyer, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States, May 23, 2003
Note 4. A History of Indian Policy, Lymen, Tyler S., 1973
Note 5. Handbook of North American Indians, Vol 13, Part 2.
Note 6. “In the Footsteps of Our Ancestors,” Waziyata Angela Wilson, (Living Justice Press, 2006
Note 7. The Sioux Uprising of 1862, Kenneth Carley, MN Historical SocietyPress, 1961
Note 8. Author Professor Ward Churchill Speech, March 28, 2007, Marshall Independent, Dana Yost, Editor
Note 9. Booklet, Tales Of The Tenth Regiment, Minnesota Volunteers, 1862-1863
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author's Note:
Mike,
Here's the article. I'm also sending you a map that I made up that is helpful to look at while reading about the steamboat trips. Sota didn't include the map with the article which makes it a little touch to follow, especially the part about the Soldier's diary documentation of the trip on the Steamboat Davenport and then transfer to the Steamboat Florence. The Florence is the one that Two Bulls drew (the mural in the Santee Community Center). I have more pictures that I sent to the editors to be considered along with the article. I think the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe (FSST) and Santee editors plan to use all of them. The Sota paper seems to me to be online only and sans graphics. FSST has an online version and they also print a hard copy version for their members who don't have computers. Don't know what Santee does. I didn't even know they had a newsletter until two weeks ago. If you want the other graphics, I'll be happy to send them. I think your work has a firewall because it seems that you rarely get attachments that I send there. That's why I'm sending these to your home address.
Reuben
Wayruga, Cituwe, Mazaadidi, Richard, Reuben Sr., Reuben Jr.
1.
Steamboat Florence
imageshack.com/i/poNMhDj9p
img466.imageshack.us/img466/2061/whentheyquitcryingiswhedx0.png
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.
Here's the article. I'm also sending you a map that I made up that is helpful to look at while reading about the steamboat trips. Sota didn't include the map
img466.imageshack.us/img466/8595/whentheyquitcryingiswhewa9.png
Mazadidi
Wrote this below-
The Exile Of The Dakota People From Minnesota
or
“When they quit crying, that’s when they die.”
By Reuben Wambdi Kitto - Dakota
This artice reminds us of the suffering and deaths that our Dakota ancestors were subjected to while our ancestral lands, Minisota Makoce, were slowly and methodically taken from them.
As living descendants, we keep these sorrowful memories alive in our daily lives, and when we attend our wacipis, powwows, and gatherings.
We remember that more than 400 trials were conducted by an Army tribunal in 39 days; many trials lasting only five minutes.
We remember that 1700 of our ancestors were forced to march from Lower Sioux to a concentration camp in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1862; and that two hundred died during that march and the winter that followed.
We remember the 38 Dakotas who were killed in a mass hanging in Mankato, Minnesota in 1862.
And we remember that of 400 condemned Dakotas, only 247 survived the three year, incarceration in the stockade prison at Davenport, Iowa. Those who died, died from exposure, hunger, illness, and lack of medical attention. Their bodies were thrown down ravines and remain there in unmarked graves.
Since the arrival of colonial Europeans on our continent it has been their policy to eradicate and remove indigenous peoples from traditional lands. This article includes some of the history of that policy in America and provides details about its impact upon Dakota people.
1779: George Washington claimed there was no difference in "Indians from wolves, both being beasts of prey, though they differ in shape.”
These words of hatred gave permission to European Americans to terrorize, kill, maim and destroy indigenous peoples physically and culturally. George Washington’s words were bad enough, but his behavior was unbelievable. He waged a personal war of genocide instructing Major General John Sullivan in 1779 to hunt the Mohawk like wild animals and to, "Lay waste all the settlements around... that the country may not be merely overrun but destroyed," urging the general not to "... listen to any overture of peace before the total ruin of their settlements is effected." Sullivan did this, reporting he had, “... destroyed everything that contributes to their support" turning, "... the whole of that beautiful region from the character of a garden to a scene of drear and sickening desolation."
Washington's troops amused themselves by skinning the bodies of Indians "from the hips downward, to make boot tops or leggins." Note 1.
1830: Congress passed The Indian Removal Act. It could have been titled the Ethnic Cleansing of Indigenous Peoples Act. It allowed for the removal of natives in the east, to areas west of the Mississippi, which are, “... not included in a state or organized territory.”
It further provided that Indian lands “shall revert to the United States if the Indians become extinct or abandon same.” Note 2. The words, “if the Indians become extinct ..." would have been unnecessary were it not contemplated that such extinctions were to come to pass.
1831: The Cherokees in an attempt to use America’s constitution to protect themselves took their case to the Supreme Court. Although Chief Justice John Marshall ruled in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831) that the Cherokees should receive the protection of the U.S. government, the state of Georgia continued to encroach upon Cherokee lands.
Supreme court Chief Justice John Marshall issued a ruling that the Cherokee was a sovereign nation and told the U. S. Government to stop molesting the Native People.
President Jackson’s response was, “John Marshall has made his law, let him enforce it.” Note 3.
Jackson then directed militias hastily formed that comprised renegades and mercenaries to remove the Cherokee from their lands, leading to 4,000 Cherokee deaths by the end of the decade.
It is evident by US Government actions that genocide and ethnic cleansing was national policy. The land greed of the Whites continually forced the Indians westward. Behind the removal policy was the desire of eastern Whites for Indian lands and the wish of eastern states to be rid of independent groups of indigenous peoples within their boundaries.
Note 4.
1830: The Dakota or Eastern Sioux began to suffer from the policy of removal with the signing of the Treaty of Prairie du Chien in 1830, another treaty was signed in Washington in 1837, each ceding traditional homelands and resulting in immediate encroachment of thousands of settlers to their boundaries. The game base dwindled for the Dakota and hunger and starvation grew at an alarming rate. Most of the annuity payments due the Dakota were made directly to traders. Note: 5.
1851: Treaty of Traverse des Sioux. After years of mounting pressure from white settlers and facing huge debts to fur traders, the Dakota sign a treaty giving up all of their lands west of the Mississippi River. However, the U.S. Senate, whose ratification is required, unilaterally strikes out the provision granting the Dakota a reservation in Minnesota. Territorial governor Alexander Ramsey takes credit for saving the deal by getting the president to allow the Dakota a reservation on a five-year lease. The Dakota are relocated to a strip of land bordering the Minnesota River in west-central Minnesota.
1858: Dakota leaders on a diplomatic visit to Washington D.C. are told they did not own the reservation land. Faced with more debt and threatened with expulsion, they are forced to sell the northern half of their reservation.
1862: August-September: Frustrated by broken promises, reservation policies that forced cultural change, failed crops, delinquent annuities, and the refusal of the government agent and traders to release food to starving families, Dakota men went to war to reclaim their land. As a result, over 500 settlers were killed, leaving 23 southwestern Minnesota counties virtually depopulated by the mass exodus. The U.S. Army under General Henry Sibley defeat the Dakota in six weeks. Over 6,000 Dakota refugees flee to Dakota Territory and Canada and about 2,000 are taken prisoner.
1862: Minnesota Governor Alexander Ramsey declared on September 9, that, "The Sioux Indians of Minnesota must be exterminated or driven forever beyond the borders of the state."
1862: On September 22, President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation freeing the slaves, effective 1 January 1863.
1862: Six days later, a five man military tribunal was set up to conduct trials of the Dakotas. Trials began on September 28 at Camp Release then moved to Lower Sioux. After two weeks 120 cases had been tried with 300 cases still remaining. The remaining cases were accelerated to 40 per day with many taking only 5 minutes. Trials were completed 31 days later on November 5, 1862. In all, 392 prisoners were tried; of those 307 received death sentences.
1862: December 6, President Lincoln, the great emancipator, possibly due to the incongruity of just having signed the Emancipation Proclamation, disappointed most Minnesotans by lowering the number of death sentences to thirty nine; one prisoner was later reprieved.
1862: From November 7 through November 13 more than 1700 Dakota Prisoners, most of them women and children are forced by Army troops to march 150 miles from Lower Sioux, Morton, Minnesota, to a concentration camp on the river flats below Fort Snelling, Minneapolis, Minnesota. As many as 200 died or were killed during the march or while incarcerated over the ensuing cold winter months. Note 6.
[Photo of Ft. Snelling Concentration Camp]
1862: On the cold morning of December 26, thirty eight Dakota men are hanged before a crowd of 3,000 in Mankato, Minnesota. It remains the largest mass execution in US history. Note 7.
[Drawing of gallows for the 38]
The elapsed time between the end of the trials to the date of carrying out death sentences was 51 days. None of the prisoners was represented by a defense attorney and there were no provisions for appeals of any kind. Where were the keepers of the US Constitution when they tried the Dakota? That is not a rhetorical question.
The answer is, the ethnic cleansing of Dakota people from Minnesota was one part of the fulfillment of a larger national policy of genocide. Governor Alexander Ramsey had declared on September 9, 1862, that "The Sioux Indians of Minnesota must be exterminated or driven forever beyond the borders of the state."
The treatment of Dakota people, including the hanging in Mankato and the forced removal of Dakota people from Minnesota, were the first phases of Ramsey's plan. His plan was further implemented when bounties, which eventually reached $200, were placed on the scalps of Dakota people.
“Because it was harder to get a scalp from a fighting age man, bounty hunters often targeted children, more lucratively pregnant women. The woman would be killed and scalped, then her belly opened and the fetus scalped as well.” Note 8.
Future punitive expeditions were then sent out over the next few years to hunt down those Dakota who had not surrendered and to ensure they would not return.
These acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing conformed to US policy and Minnesota’s Governor Ramsey’s plan to clear the way for White settlement of Minnesota.
1863: The policy of eradication and removal of the Dakota from ancestral lands in Minnesota was now almost complete.
The surviving prisoners who had spent the winter of 1862-63 in the concentration camp below Ft. Snelling still had to be removed from the state’s boundaries. As many as 200 Dakotas died or were killed during the forced march and during incarceration that winter.
The removal “…to a location beyond Minnesota’s boundaries.” was begun on May 4. The prisoners with Army escorts were taken on steamboats down the Mississippi River to St. Louis, Missouri, then north on the Missouri River to a location in Dakota Territory near Ft. Randall.
[Map showing the routes of the Steamboats Davenport, Northerner, and Florence on the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers]
1863: On May 4, the Steamboat Davenport left St. Paul just after 6 PM with 762 Dakota prisoners en route to Fort Randall, under the escort of Captain Sanders and 40 men of Company G, 10th Minnesota Volunteers. Note 9.
Diary excerpts: Details of the tortuous trip were recorded by one of the soldiers, John Smith. He noted that they passed Redwing on a cold morning of May 5, Dubuque on May 6, and “…also saw the place at Davenport where the condemned Indians are kept.”
It is unclear whether either group of prisoners was aware that for a short period of time, they were within a few yards of each other as the Steamboat Davenport passed Camp Mc Clellan.
On May 8, they arrived at St. Louis where the prisoners were transferred to the Steamboat Florence. John Smith’s diary notation said, “There was considereably [sic] a crowd around the boat today to see the Indians. Fight with Indians today. Several killed.”
On May 9, the Florence proceeded to the mouth of the Missouri River and on its slow journey north.
May 15, “… about 7 miles below Fort Leavenworth . . Guerilla attack in evening. Had fighting.”
May 16, “The mate got his leg broke and one of the Dakota women died on board the boat.”
May 17, “Arrived in St. Joseph about 6 pm. Buried a papoose today.”
In the meantime, a second steamboat, the Northerner, with 547 Dakota prisoners aboard and being escorted by the rest of the men of Company G, left St. Paul, Minnesota and arrived in Hannibal, Missouri. The soldiers herded the prisoners onto railroad cars and transported them by rail from Hannibal to St. Joseph, to join the first load of prisoners on board the Steamboat Florence.
When the Steamboat Florence departed St. Joseph on May 18 with 1330 prisoners and a company of soldiers on board, it was loaded beyond its capacity.
May 18, “Came about 75 miles from St. Joseph. Buried 2 papooses in one grave one having died last night. A fine day today.”
May 23, “Arrived at Council Bluffs in the forenoon and also Omaha, the capital of Nebraska Territory. Stayed there a few hours having broken the wheel. Left there in the evening and broke the rudder after going a short distance and remained anchored in the river all night.”
May 24, “One of the Indian Missionaries preached a sermon in the afternoon.”
May 25, “Arrived almost at Sioux City and put up for the night. There has been 13 deaths among the Indians since leaving Fort Snelling.”
May 26, “Arrived at Sioux City early in the morning. It was a fine location. Remained there a few hours and proceeded up river. The mouth of the Big Sioux river is a few miles above Sioux City. The river on the upper Missouri is better fitted for purposes of navigation than upon the lower Missouri.”
May 28, “Arrived at Ft Randall in the afternoon and found orders to the [agency?] Would have to proceed miles above Ft Randall. Timber is scarce along the river.”
May 30, “Arrived at the Agency about 150 miles above Ft. Randall at 9 am and disembarked the Sioux's.” Note 9.
The chosen site for the new home of the exiled Dakotas was Crow Creek, near the east bank of the Missouri River, 150 miles above Ft. Randall in Dakota Territory. Crow Creek was a drought stricken place. More than 300 people, mostly children, died of exposure and starvation the first winter.
Kunsi Naomi Cavender, Dakota of Santee, Nebraska, in 1990, related her Grandmother’s story. She was six years old when the Dakotas arrived at Crow Creek by steamboat, and recalled that “… there was no food, and the soldiers told them to boil little green cottonwood berries. The soup made us sick.”
Elmer Weston, Dakota, lived near Flandreau, South Dakota. In 2002 he was 81. His ancestors were sent to Crow Creek in 1863. When he was a boy, he knew people who lived through the 1862 war. One woman told him she saw a lot of children die at Crow Creek. "They didn't get any food when they were there. They get some kind of a sickness where they cry - you know they're sick. They cry, they cry. When they quit crying, that's when they die.”
As Dakota descendants, how do we endure and continue to live with the knowledge of what happened to our ancestors?
We endure by remembering the 38 in our wacipis.
We endure by retracing the footsteps of our ancestors who were forced to march 150 miles in 1862, from Lower Sioux to a concentration camp at Ft. Snelling.
We endure by having Dakota Prisoner Memorials in Davenport to touch the earth of our ancestors whose bodies are still there in unmarked graves.
“By acknowledging and telling the truth about what happened in the State of Minnesota, we are able to start healing. This healing initially happens on a personal level, beginning with our own tears, but those tears are the medicine given to us by our creator. Once the healing begins, it acts like a pebble thrown into a still pond. The effects go from our own personal awareness to our families and loved ones. Hopefully, this truth telling will have positive effects on everyone.” Ramona Stately Iyupseyusewin - Dakota, April 16, 2007.
“How will the future generations characterize your role in the Dakota struggle for justice in the twenty first century?" Waziyatawin Angela Wilson - Dakota, April 12, 2006
Article by Reuben Wambdi Kitto, Jr. – Dakota – 18 April 2007
Reference Notes:
Note 1. Anthony F.C. Wallace, Death and Rebirth of the Seneca (Knoph, 1979)
Note 2. Indian Removal Act, approved May 28, 1830.
Note 3. Speech by Stephen Breyer, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States, May 23, 2003
Note 4. A History of Indian Policy, Lymen, Tyler S., 1973
Note 5. Handbook of North American Indians, Vol 13, Part 2.
Note 6. “In the Footsteps of Our Ancestors,” Waziyata Angela Wilson, (Living Justice Press, 2006
Note 7. The Sioux Uprising of 1862, Kenneth Carley, MN Historical SocietyPress, 1961
Note 8. Author Professor Ward Churchill Speech, March 28, 2007, Marshall Independent, Dana Yost, Editor
Note 9. Booklet, Tales Of The Tenth Regiment, Minnesota Volunteers, 1862-1863
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author's Note:
Mike,
Here's the article. I'm also sending you a map that I made up that is helpful to look at while reading about the steamboat trips. Sota didn't include the map with the article which makes it a little touch to follow, especially the part about the Soldier's diary documentation of the trip on the Steamboat Davenport and then transfer to the Steamboat Florence. The Florence is the one that Two Bulls drew (the mural in the Santee Community Center). I have more pictures that I sent to the editors to be considered along with the article. I think the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe (FSST) and Santee editors plan to use all of them. The Sota paper seems to me to be online only and sans graphics. FSST has an online version and they also print a hard copy version for their members who don't have computers. Don't know what Santee does. I didn't even know they had a newsletter until two weeks ago. If you want the other graphics, I'll be happy to send them. I think your work has a firewall because it seems that you rarely get attachments that I send there. That's why I'm sending these to your home address.
Reuben
Wayruga, Cituwe, Mazaadidi, Richard, Reuben Sr., Reuben Jr.
1.
Steamboat Florence
imageshack.com/i/poNMhDj9p
img466.imageshack.us/img466/2061/whentheyquitcryingiswhedx0.png
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2.
Here's the article. I'm also sending you a map that I made up that is helpful to look at while reading about the steamboat trips. Sota didn't include the map
img466.imageshack.us/img466/8595/whentheyquitcryingiswhewa9.png
