Real Time Photo-Dakota Indians outside the home of missionary Thomas Williamson, 1862 Traverse des Sioux ~ St. Paul, Minnesota
"They expected the Indian people to adapt to all the change overnight"
Before ratifying the treaty in 1852, the U. S. Senate eliminated the clause that provided for a reservation. This left the Dakota with no place to live. President Fillmore arranged for them to occupy land along the Minnesota River that had been previously set aside for reservations-until it was needed for white settlement. The Dakota were allotted food & assigned a government agent who would teach them Euro-American-style farming.
"They expected the Indian people to adapt to all the change overnight. In a very short time, they were to give up centuries of their cultural lifestyle & become farmers. It was to sudden."
Dakota leader & educator Elden Lawrence, 2000
Aftermath: The U. S. Dakota Conflict
By the summer of 1862, the Dakota were furious. Their annuity payments were late, & even though there was food & other supplies in the warehouses. traders refused to extend them credit to buy what they needed. On a hot summer morning at the Lower Siouz Agency, the trader Andrew Myrick was reported to have said about the hungry Dakota, "So far as I am concerned, if they are hungry, let them eat grass." Tensions burst on August 17, when four Dakota men killed five settlers in Meeker County. Six weeks of often vicious fighting followed that left hundreds of white settlers & Dakota dead. "The Sioux Indians of Minnesota," wrote Governor Alexander Ramsey, "must be exterminated or driven forever beyond the borders of the state." More than 300 Dakota men were sentenced to be hanged. Of those, 38 men were hung in Mankato in the largest mass execution in U.S. history. The rest were sent to prison. The U.S. -Dakota treaties were canceled, & the annuity money remaining from the agreement was used to reimburse white settlers for destroyed property.
Real Time Photo-Dakota Indians outside the home of missionary Thomas Williamson, 1862 Traverse des Sioux ~ St. Paul, Minnesota
"They expected the Indian people to adapt to all the change overnight"
Before ratifying the treaty in 1852, the U. S. Senate eliminated the clause that provided for a reservation. This left the Dakota with no place to live. President Fillmore arranged for them to occupy land along the Minnesota River that had been previously set aside for reservations-until it was needed for white settlement. The Dakota were allotted food & assigned a government agent who would teach them Euro-American-style farming.
"They expected the Indian people to adapt to all the change overnight. In a very short time, they were to give up centuries of their cultural lifestyle & become farmers. It was to sudden."
Dakota leader & educator Elden Lawrence, 2000
Aftermath: The U. S. Dakota Conflict
By the summer of 1862, the Dakota were furious. Their annuity payments were late, & even though there was food & other supplies in the warehouses. traders refused to extend them credit to buy what they needed. On a hot summer morning at the Lower Siouz Agency, the trader Andrew Myrick was reported to have said about the hungry Dakota, "So far as I am concerned, if they are hungry, let them eat grass." Tensions burst on August 17, when four Dakota men killed five settlers in Meeker County. Six weeks of often vicious fighting followed that left hundreds of white settlers & Dakota dead. "The Sioux Indians of Minnesota," wrote Governor Alexander Ramsey, "must be exterminated or driven forever beyond the borders of the state." More than 300 Dakota men were sentenced to be hanged. Of those, 38 men were hung in Mankato in the largest mass execution in U.S. history. The rest were sent to prison. The U.S. -Dakota treaties were canceled, & the annuity money remaining from the agreement was used to reimburse white settlers for destroyed property.