There are two noteworthy incidents in Minnesota history that I feel a tie to.
First, of course, is the Cloquet/Moose Lake Fire in 1918, because I grew up in Cloquet and my paternal grandmother and her family lived through that fire. Second is the 1862 Sioux Massacre; not because anyone in my family was involved, but for the reason that it was my mother’s thesis topic. For our family vacation the summer she was working on it, we towed a pop-up tent camper around southern Minnesota for a week so my dad could take photos of every battlefield, every historical marker, every building that had some historical significance with this war with the Sioux.
I remember being bored out of my mind; I was in sixth grade and that was definitely not what I considered a vacation. My dad took photos of this field or that monument, while my mom took notes; then we’d all get back in the car, drive to the next historical spot and do it again.
The end of this week marks the 150th Anniversary of the start of the Sioux Massacre. The Minneapolis Star Tribune is running a wonderful 6-part series on the timeline and causes of the war, the starvation of the Sioux, the treaties never honored, the money promised but never fully paid or paid late, etc. The story can be downloaded as an e-book at startribune.com/ebooks, or read in this week’s daily newspaper or online at startribune.com/dakota. Twin cities public television will broadcast two documentaries about the war, and the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul has an exhibit (for more info visit minnesotahistorycenter.org).
As an adult, I am much more interested in the Sioux Massacre story now, than I was on our “vacation” so many years ago. In fact, I find myself driving down to Mankato and New Ulm to take photos to illustrate stories for my “On this Date in Minnesota History” blogs. Yes, I recognize the irony. So far, I’m not finding half of the historical places my dad photographed, and he and my mom found them all without the internet. How is that possible?
Were your ancestors in Minnesota in 1862?
Did any of your relatives participate in the Civil War or the war with the Sioux?
LLet me help you find out what parts of history your family had a role in.
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Dakota (Sioux) Memorial – 1862
Photo taken by Pamela J. Erickson. Released into the public domain August 15, 2015, as long as acknowledgement included.
Located in front of the Blue Earth County Public Library on East Main Street at North Riverfront Drive in Mankato.
Inscription:
The last act of the Minnesota Dakota (Sioux) War took place here in Mankato on December 26, 1862 when thirty-eight Dakota Indians died in a mass execution on this site.
The Dakota War was a culmination of years of friction between Dakota and whites as settlement pushed into Indian hunting grounds. Government agents and missionaries hoped the Dakota could be taught to live as farmers and worship as Christians but Chief Big Eagle said many years later, “It seemed too sudden to make a change . . . If the Indians had tried to make the whites live like them, the whites would have resisted and it was the same with many Indians.” The Minnesota uprising was one of the nation’s most costly Indian wars, both in lives lost and property destroyed. It resulted in the near depletion of the frontier and the exile of the Dakota from Minnesota.
At the war’s conclusion several hundred Indians were tried by a five man territory commission and on November 5, 1862, 303 were sentenced to death. Henry B. Whipple, Episcopal Bishop of Minnesota met with President Abraham Lincoln on behalf of the Indians. After listening to the bishop and personally reviewing the trial records, Lincoln commuted the death sentence for all but thirty-eight prisoners.
At 10 am on December 26, 1862, the condemned men, chanting the Dakota death song, marched in single file to a scaffold guarded buy 1,400 troops in full battle dress. A crowd of citizens were on hand to witness the largest mass execution in United States history.
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The first memorial reconciliation ceremony, sponsored by the Native Americans and Mankato community, was held on this site November 5, 1978, in an endeavor to move forward together as one people striving for social change and equality through education and understanding.
http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=14195
Reconciliation Park
Photo taken by Pamela J. Erickson. Released into the public domain August 15, 2015, as long as acknowledgement included.
Reconciliation Park is across the street from the Dakota (Sioux) Memorial. It was dedicated on September 19, 1997. It is at the site of the largest mass execution in U.S. history where 38 Dakota Indians were hanged by the government in 1862.
http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=14195
+Memorial+%E2%80%93+1862.JPG)
