Black Hills of South Dakota. The Black Hills rise from the horizon, an island in a sea of prairie grass. Its pine forests and granite peaks are an oasis born of. A four-year public institution in Aberdeen, South Dakota.
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Abraham Lincoln: Deciding the Fate of 3. Indians Convicted of War Crimes in Minnesota’s Great Sioux Uprising. He had to decide whether to allow the execution of more than 3. Indians convicted of war crimes in Minnesota’s Great Sioux Uprising. One of the first and bloodiest Indian wars on the western frontier, the Great Sioux Uprising (today called the “Dakota- U.
15, 2016, this article has a new title.-----A History Of The Dakota People In Minnesota-----By Thomas.
S. Conflict) cost the lives of hundreds of Native Americans, white settlers, and soldiers. Army suppressed the uprising it established a commission that condemned 3. Dakota men in trials that were patently unfair.
Federal law, however, required the president’s approval of the death sentences. Translated roughly into English, Dakota means “the allies, and they were a group of seven Indian bands that lived mostly in harmony in the region’s bountiful river valleys. Their only enemy was the Chippewa to the north. The first European explorers there had done little to alter the Indians’ way of life, although the French dubbed them the Sioux—a mutation of the Chippewa word for “snake. Real change began after 1.
Fort Snelling, a sprawling outpost above the mouth of the Minnesota River. After that the stream of white traders and settlers became a flood; land treaties in 1. Minnesota statehood in 1. Dakota off their native lands westward to a narrow, 1. Minnesota River. The exodus also forced the Dakota to change their way of life.
Government agents on the reservation favored those Dakota who settled on plots, learned English, cut their hair, and took up farming. Yet the crops failed year after year, and the Dakota grew dependent upon government gold annuities that were promised by the land treaties, and upon the foods and sundries peddled by white traders.
The Dakota were often left with little after government agents paid annuity moneys first to the traders who had given credit to the Dakota for goods purchased at highly over- inflated prices. Those Dakota who refused to give up their traditional ways were in an even worse position and spent many winters in near- starving conditions. The situation reached its flashpoint in the summer of 1. The financial cost of the Civil War was bleeding the government dry, and rumors flew that there would be no annuity gold for the Dakota. Traders who had liberally given credit in the past now slammed the door. One trader named Andrew Myrick announced that if the Dakota were hungry they could “eat grass.
Tensions mounted until four Dakota led by an Indian named Killing Ghost murdered five white settlers on August 1. Some Dakota leaders sensed this was an opportunity to strike back at the U.
S. Government, and they pressed Chief Taoyateduta, or Little Crow, to strike at the whites while many soldiers were fighting in the Civil War. Little Crow initially wanted no part of a war with the whites, recognizing the calamity that would surely follow. But when faced with a challenge to his authority, he reluctantly relented. Ironically, the annuity gold shipment had left St. Paul that same day.
The Dakota raged across the countryside with a fury. Four to eight hundred white settlers were butchered during the first four days of the rampage, while their farms and fields burned. The Dakota hit first and hard at the reservation agency, killing dozens. One of the victims was trader Myrick.
His killers stuffed his mouth with grass. The Dakota also struck at the region’s army outpost and towns.
They annihilated a detachment of soldiers dispatched from nearby Fort Ridgely before being repulsed in two assaults on the garrison itself. They twice attacked and burned most of the town of New Ulm but failed to capture it from its armed residents. Panic surged throughout Minnesota.
Tens of thousands of terrified settlers fled and virtually depopulated the state’s western regions. Governor Alexander Ramsey dispatched 1,2. Fort Snelling under the command of Henry H. Sibley, a former fur trader, politician and friend of the Dakota. Sibley was not regular army, but he heeded Ramsey’s call and accepted a commission as colonel. Unsure of his authority, Sibley failed to declare martial law and moved excruciatingly slowly. He did not engage the Dakota until early September 1.
Indians surprised and butchered a 1. Birch Coulee. The debacle slowed Sibley even more, and he did not meet Little Crow in full force until September 2.
Wood Lake. The Dakota scattered over the prairie. Sibley finally managed to capture about 1,2. Little Crow was not among them.
Sibley intended to prosecute as war criminals those Indians who had participated in the rebellion. Sibley ordered a commission of five military officers to try the prisoners summarily and “pass judgment upon them, if found guilty of murders or other outrages upon the Whites, during the present State of hostilities of the Indians. Major General John Pope, recently banished to Minnesota by President Lincoln after Pope’s humiliating defeat at the Civil War’s Battle of Second Bull Run, saw an opportunity to redeem himself at the Dakota’s expense. He immediately approved Sibley’s plans.
This breakneck pace continued, and by November 3—a mere five weeks later—the commission had conducted 3. Observer Reverend J. P. Williamson noted that the trials took less time than the state courts required to try a single murder defendant.
The accused were hauled before the commission, sometimes manacled together in groups, and were arraigned through an interpreter. The charges ranged from rape to murder to theft, although most Dakota were accused of merely participating in battles. The defendants entered a plea, and those who pleaded not guilty had an opportunity to speak. The commission then called and examined its own witnesses, but it did not permit the Dakota to have counsel for their defense.
As one man who assisted in gathering evidence against the Indians noted, “. Most of the evidence turned out to be hearsay, with witnesses declaring what they heard others say about particular killings. Some witnesses said they merely saw a defendant “whooping around or bragging about killings. The commission relied heavily on six witnesses, each of whom offered evidence in dozens of trials. The most damning of these was Joseph Godfrey, a mulatto who had lived among the Dakota and taken a Dakota wife.
He was one of the first tried and convicted of engaging extensively in “massacres, but the commission, impressed with Godfrey’s courtroom presence, recommended imprisonment instead of hanging because he was willing to testify against other defendants. The court reporter noted that Godfrey’s “observation and memory were remarkable. Not the least thing had escaped his eye or ear. Such an Indian had a double- barreled gun, another a single- barreled, another a long one, another a lance, and another one nothing at all.
In a remarkable irregularity the commission even allowed him to question particular witnesses. The Dakota quickly dubbed him Otakle, or “One Who Kills Many. Most defendants admitted to participating in some sort of warfare, whether in battles, attacks on armed settlements, or skirmishes with settlers.
After news of the first few death sentences spread among the prisoners, however, many defendants then claimed they did not shoot at settlers or soldiers, or they did not hit them because of poor aim, or their weapons did not fire. Some testified they merely watched others fight or commit atrocities. Others offered evidence that they had saved the lives of whites, but the commission largely ignored it, even when the accounts were corroborated. Sibley and Pope desperately wanted to begin the executions immediately, but the sentences required presidential review. On November 7 Pope telegraphed the names of the condemned to Lincoln, at a cost of $4. The editors of the New York Times berated Pope for his profligacy and suggested the amount be deducted from his salary. Lincoln responded three days later, asking Pope to send “the full and complete record of these convictions” and to identify “the more guilty and influential of the culprits.” Lincoln pointedly added, “Send all by mail.” Pope grudgingly complied but said, “The only distinction between the culprits is as to which of them murdered most people or violated most young girls.
All of them are guilty of these things in more or less degree. Pope’s opinions were only the tip of the iceberg.
As Lincoln began his deliberations, people on both sides of the issue bombarded him with letters and telegrams. Politicians, army officers, and clergy called on the president at the White House, each adding his take on the situation and offering advice. Lincoln dutifully and patiently listened.
One of his own secretaries, John Nicolay, had been in Minnesota at the time of the conflict, and he told Lincoln that from “the days of King Philip to the time of Black Hawk, there has hardly been an outbreak so treacherous, so sudden, so bitter, and so bloody, as that which filled the State of Minnesota with sorrow and lamentation . These two peoples cannot live together.” A “resolution” from St. Paul residents declared, “The blood of hundreds of our murdered fellow citizens cries from the ground for vengeance . The Indian’s nature can no more be trusted than the wolf’s.” Pope chimed in again as well, warning Lincoln that the “indiscriminate massacre” of all Dakota would occur if the president was too lenient. One man stood almost alone with a voice of moderation. Bishop Henry Whipple, head of the Minnesota Episcopal Church, spoke often of the hypocrisy of federal Indian policies.
In a newspaper editorial he wrote, “. Who is guilty of the causes which desolated our border? At whose door is the blood of these innocent victims? I believe that God will hold the Nation guilty.” Whipple was a cousin to Henry Halleck, Lincoln’s general- in- chief, so the bishop gained an audience with the president in November and urged clemency. Lincoln was impressed. On a personal level, he and his wife, Mary, still grieved over the death, nine months earlier, of their 1.