Speaker Tells the Story of the U

Speaker tells the story of the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862 from Dakota perspective

By John Givan editor

Along with the fun and accolades handed out at this year’s CURE annual meeting, there was a somber subject for attendees to consider. This year’s annual meeting featured a presentation by Dr. Angela Wilson, known to her community by her native name “Waziyatawin.” She is a Wahpetunwan Dakota from the Pezihutazizi Otunwe (Yellow Medicine Village) near Granite Falls. Wilson received her doctorate in 2000 from Cornell University and served for seven years in the History Department at Arizona State University before she left as a tenured, associate professor in 2007. She currently lives in Granite Falls.

The connection between Wilson, her people, and the Minnesota River Watershed goes back hundreds of years. The Dakota held more than 54 million acres of land before white settlers came to Minnesota. Today they hold 3,281 acres in several reservations along the river.

Beginning her talk with a greeting in the Dakota language, Wilson presented the history of the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862 from the Dakota perspective. At the outset, Wilson told the audience, “This message of truth-telling is not always welcome.” From the Dakotas perspective, they were defending their land, their families, and their way of life within their homeland. “All aspects of Dakota life were under attack” by white efforts to make the Dakota do things the white man’s way, “ said Wilson.

What she related was based upon oral traditions handed down beginning with Dakotas who lived through the war. In Wilson’s own family, the oral traditions go back to her great-grandmother, who was 10 years old in 1862. She passed her memories of the war on to her daughter. “My grandmother taught me many important lessons,” said Wilson.

Saying that a statement made by Minnesota Gov. Alexander Ramsey in 1862 that “The Sioux Indians of Minnesota must be exterminated or driven forever beyond the borders of the state” was the underpinning of the ideology regarding and the treatment of the Dakota people, Wilson told of what she had learned from her grandmother regarding how the Dakota were treated.

An estimated 1,700 Dakota women and children were forced to march from the Lower Sioux Agency near Morton to Ft. Snelling, a distance of 150 miles, in seven days. They were attacked by civilians and soldiers along the way. Women could not leave the column to relieve themselves in private. A $25 bounty was placed on Dakota scalps. By September of 1862 it had increased to $200. Nathan Lamson received a $500 check from the state of Minnesota for killing Little Crow, one of the leaders of the Dakota, near Hutchinson.

“Still, that was not enough,” said Wilson. She told of two more leaders who were drugged and brought back to Ft. Snelling from Canada where they had taken refuge. They were hanged on Nov. 11, 1865.

Most Minnesotans have heard about the mass hanging of 38 Dakota men at Mankato on Dec. 26, 1862, and how President Abraham Lincoln commuted the death sentences of more than 300 others. But most people may not be aware that it was the largest mass, simultaneous hanging in world history. It was in the Guinness Book of World Records until the 1990s, according to Wilson. “People have said the Dakota should be grateful Pres. Lincoln spared so many,” said Wilson. “From the Dakota perspective, we have nothing to be grateful for.”

Another 300 women and children were estimated to have died at Ft. Snelling during the winter of 1862-1863 of disease, starvation, malnutrition and exposure. Drawing parallels with modern events, Wilson called it “concentration camp confinement.” What happened to the Dakota people closely fits the first three criteria enumerated in Article II of the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, claimed Wilson. Two other criteria also appear to have been met, as well. “What happened clearly constitutes genocide,” Wilson stated. “Minnesota offers one of the clearest examples because the intent was so well documented from the beginning (Gov. Ramsey’s statement).”

Such sentiments persisted. In 1894, an article in the Granite Falls Tribune about the dedication of the Camp Release monument advocated forced removal or extermination of the Dakotas.

Waziyatawin’s most recent publication, “In the Footsteps of Our Ancestors: The Dakota Commemorative Marches of the 21st Century” (Living Justice Press 2006), is an edited collection that tells the stories of the Dakota Death March in December of 1862 and the commemorative walks that have been held in recent years to honor the memory of those who endured the forced removal. Wilson said she had experienced a growing awareness of reconnection — with the land, with her identity as a Dakota, with other Dakotas, and with her ancestors — as a result of the walks.

The challenge, she said, is to think critically of our place in this land. People must challenge the narrative of the war of 1862, support truth telling, and support justice. Justice, in her mind, means returning land to the Dakota first and foremost. “Twelve million acres could be returned to the Dakota without affecting any private property,” said Wilson.

Next would come reparations. And then the Dakota and the whites could talk about peaceful coexistence.

“You can’t peacefully coexist without justice,” said Wilson.