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Books 1-10.
Books 11-20.
Books 21-30.
Books 31-40.
Books 41-50.
Books 51-60.
Books 61-70.
Books 71-80.
81. The Dakota Indian Internment at Fort Snelling, 1862-1864 by Corinne L. Monjeau-Marz. You may have heard of the conflict that happened here during the American Civil War; while the men of the First Minnesota were out east fighting for the Union, back at home a two-year drought, the corruption of the frontier Indian agents, and decades of broken treaties and promises resulted in what is variously called the Sioux Uprising or the Dakota War. It wasn't a long war; it began in August and was essentially over by late September. Over three hundred Dakota men were sentenced to die for their involvement; the number was later reduced to 38 by President Lincoln.
Part of what's interesting and tragic about the aftermath of the war is that some 1600 Dakotas were held in Fort Snelling from the fall of 1862 to the spring of 1863. The majority of them were women and children, and the few men who were held there had mostly been either uninvolved in the conflict, or actively worked to protect settlers and/or prevent the war. In fact one of the primary reasons that they were held in a stockade below Fort Snelling was for their own protection, since the whites in the state were so terrified and incensed by what had happened that they took any and all opportunities to retaliate with random mob violence. Monjeau-Marz reprints a first-hand account from one Samuel Brown of how, in transit from the army camp in the western part of the state back to Fort Snelling, the Dakotas were attacked by a mob at Henderson, Minnesota:
Without question, atrocities had taken place on both sides, but this account of the treatment of the unarmed and defeated Dakota dependents--the warriors had either fled or were transported separately--chills me. And this was only the beginning of the diaspora; at Fort Snelling the Dakotas were besieged by epidemics of measles and diphtheria, mistreatment by soldiers and townsfolk, and generally treated like exhibits for curious whites who were permitted to visit the stockade almost at will. Monjeau-Marz exhaustively chronicles all of this, with an emphasis on hard data from army records and primary sources, but she stops short of chronicling the journey to Crow Creek Reservation which took place in the spring and summer of 1863. This is a valuable book, although I dearly wish there was an Index in it.
Books 11-20.
Books 21-30.
Books 31-40.
Books 41-50.
Books 51-60.
Books 61-70.
Books 71-80.
81. The Dakota Indian Internment at Fort Snelling, 1862-1864 by Corinne L. Monjeau-Marz. You may have heard of the conflict that happened here during the American Civil War; while the men of the First Minnesota were out east fighting for the Union, back at home a two-year drought, the corruption of the frontier Indian agents, and decades of broken treaties and promises resulted in what is variously called the Sioux Uprising or the Dakota War. It wasn't a long war; it began in August and was essentially over by late September. Over three hundred Dakota men were sentenced to die for their involvement; the number was later reduced to 38 by President Lincoln.
Part of what's interesting and tragic about the aftermath of the war is that some 1600 Dakotas were held in Fort Snelling from the fall of 1862 to the spring of 1863. The majority of them were women and children, and the few men who were held there had mostly been either uninvolved in the conflict, or actively worked to protect settlers and/or prevent the war. In fact one of the primary reasons that they were held in a stockade below Fort Snelling was for their own protection, since the whites in the state were so terrified and incensed by what had happened that they took any and all opportunities to retaliate with random mob violence. Monjeau-Marz reprints a first-hand account from one Samuel Brown of how, in transit from the army camp in the western part of the state back to Fort Snelling, the Dakotas were attacked by a mob at Henderson, Minnesota:
[W]e found the streets crowded with an angry and excited populace, cursing, shouting, and crying. Men, women, and children, armed with guns, knives, clubs, and stones, rushed upon the Indians as the [wagon] train was passing by and, before the soldiers could interfere and stop them, succeeded in pulling many of the old men and women, and even children, from the wagons by the hair of the head and beating them, and otherwise inflicting injury upon the helpless and miserable creatures.
I saw an enraged white woman rush up to one of the wagons and snatch a nursing babe from its mother's breast and dash it violently upon the ground. The soldiers instantly seized her and led, or rather, dragged the woman away and restored the papoose to its mother, limp and almost dead. Although the child was not killed outright, it died a few hours later. After the body was quietly laid away in the crotch of a tree a few miles below Henderson and not far from Faxon.
Without question, atrocities had taken place on both sides, but this account of the treatment of the unarmed and defeated Dakota dependents--the warriors had either fled or were transported separately--chills me. And this was only the beginning of the diaspora; at Fort Snelling the Dakotas were besieged by epidemics of measles and diphtheria, mistreatment by soldiers and townsfolk, and generally treated like exhibits for curious whites who were permitted to visit the stockade almost at will. Monjeau-Marz exhaustively chronicles all of this, with an emphasis on hard data from army records and primary sources, but she stops short of chronicling the journey to Crow Creek Reservation which took place in the spring and summer of 1863. This is a valuable book, although I dearly wish there was an Index in it.