November 23, 2016 • 33 mins
In 1862, murder led to war between the Dakota and the United States. What followed was a campaign of retribution against multiple indigenous peoples, many who had nothing to do with the prior conflict, ranging from Minnesota into Dakota Territory.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Are you looking for brand new episodes of a short
how Stuff Works podcast that explains the everyday world around us,
Then check out brain Stuff with me Christian Sager. New
episodes hit every Monday and Wednesday on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify,
or anywhere else you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff
you missed in History Class from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hello,
(00:30):
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy Wilson and I'm
Holly Frying. We are having a little bit of an
unplanned mini series on historical events that are tied directly
to ongoing news. So previously it was our recent two
parter on the Attica prison uprising, which came up over
and over in coverage of the United States prison strike
(00:51):
that started in September, and today it is history that's
connected to the standing Rock Sioux and other Indigenous people's
and the ongoing protests against the the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Two nights before we recorded this episode, events in North
Dakota once again made headlines and what the authorities described
as an ongoing riot and water protectors described as a
(01:13):
peaceful effort to dismantle a barricade that's been blocking access
to a highway for several weeks. Law enforcement used tear
gas and other less than lethal weapons to try to
disperse the crowd, as well as water from a fire
hose or a water cannon, even though the temperature at
that point was below freezing. Law enforcement originally claimed that
(01:34):
the water was only being used to put out fires,
which the protesters had said had been lit only to
stay warm and not to cause damage, but later law
enforcement acknowledged that it had used water to quote repel
some of the protest activities. So, given this episodes relevance
to what is happening right now, we decided to move
(01:54):
it up from its originally scheduled time later in November
to the next episode we had on our calendar. This
history that we're talking about today happened at the same
time as the United States Civil War, and it was
a series of brutal, brutal and violent clashes between North
America's indigenous population and the United States Army. And while
the first of these started after murders were committed by
(02:18):
a group of young Native American men, what followed became
a multi year campaign against the region's indigenous population at
the hands of US military forces. So parts of the
history that we're telling today are truly horrific. Although the
history that we are talking about in this episode uh
ends in the Dakotas, it actually starts in Minnesota. Minnesota
(02:40):
Territory was established in eighteen forty nine, largely from land
that had been part of the Louisiana Purchase, and when
the territory was established, it was almost twice as big
as the state of Minnesota is today, and at its founding,
about five thousand predominantly white settlers and thirty one thousand
indigenous people lived are Many of the indigenous people were Dakota.
(03:04):
The Dakota are part of the Chetti Shikohan, which I
have also heard speakers of various Dakota dialects and languages
pronounced more like a Chetti chakoheen that translates into the
seven council fires. The Chetti Shakohen are made up of
several divisions, which each have their own unique linguistics, social, political,
(03:25):
and cultural distinctions, as well as their own histories and
original territories. These indigenous peoples are often collectively called the
Sue or the Great Sioux Nation, and the term Sue
actually comes from a French translation of an Ojibwe word
for snake rather than a Dakota word, and for that
reason some people prefer not to use the word sue,
(03:46):
but others do, and a number of tribal governments do
use it to refer to themselves, as is so often
the case. In the history of the United States, the
relationship between the US government and the Dakota people, as
well as the other indigenous peoples of the region, was
primarily governed by a series of treaties, and many of
(04:07):
these treaties were questionable at best. The indigenous population signed
many of them under durests or without being given a
clear understanding of what the documents actually said. On top
of that, many of the treaties actual terms, which usually
heavily favored the United States over the native population, were
later undermined and even completely ignored, so that what few
(04:29):
protections the native nations had were then eroded or stripped
away entirely. The series of treaties between the Dakota and
the United States started in eighteen o five, and in
most of them, the Dakota ceded land to the United
States in exchange for money, often a lot less money
than that land was actually worse in negotiation that included
(04:52):
everything from coercion to threats of military force on the
part of the United States. In eighteen fifty one, two
different treaties turned over thirty five million acres of land,
primarily in central and southern Minnesota, to the United States.
This was basically all of the Dakota's remaining territory in Minnesota.
(05:12):
One treaty, the Treaty of Traverse to Sue, was an
exchange for more than one point six million dollars. The other,
the Treaty of Mendota, was in change for. It was
an exchange for a little more than one point four
million dollars. However, and neither treaty where the Dakota actually
getting that money itself. They were to be paid the
interest on it periodically for fifty years. The Traverse to
(05:36):
Sue signing also included what came to be known as
a quote trader's paper, which diverted payments from the Dakota
to traders, most of whom were white or part Indigenous,
to pay off debts. Because the trader's paper had not
been read, allowed, or translated, many who signed it believed
it was just another copy of the treaty not a
(05:57):
separate document, and had no idea that it involved diverting
money out of their payments, because the traders themselves were
the ones who kept the records of how much money
they were owed. This also created ongoing questions about whether
the traders were patting the bill. In addition to all
of that, the treaties called for land along both the
(06:19):
north and south sides of the Minnesota River to be
set aside as a reservation for the Dakota to live on. However,
once the treaties were actually approved by the U. S. Senate,
the provisions for the reservation were removed. This left the
Dakota with nowhere to go. Eventually, President Millard Fillmore agreed
that the Dakota could live on that reservation land, but
(06:41):
only until white settlers needed it. The United States decided
it needed that land north of the river in eighteen
fifty eight, leading to another treaty. However, white settlers rushed
into the area before that treaty was ratified, including a
portion of it that was supposed to be set as
side for the Dakota, and many refused to leave. Once again,
(07:04):
the payment for this piece of land was a fraction
of what it was actually worse. Following this series of
treatise in eighteen sixty two, about six thousand, five hundred
Dakota were living in a narrow strip of land south
of the Minnesota River, which was divided into an Upper
and Lower Agency, and many of them, especially in the
(07:24):
Lower Agency, were starving. The previous winter had been hard,
and even though it was now late summer, the season's
harvests had not been enough to really support the population,
and they definitely were not enough to prepare for the
upcoming winter. There was no game to hunt on the
reservation itself, and the white population of Minnesota had increased
(07:45):
dramatically to more than one hundred and seventy thousand people.
This was thanks in part to government incentives like the
Homestead Act, so competition for hunting around the reservation, which
the Dakota weren't really supposed to be doing, was fear.
I should note that it wasn't literally a hundred percent
white population, but in terms of newcomers, it was uh
(08:08):
much much bigger population than it had been even a
decade before. On top of this huge shortage of food,
in August of eighteen sixty two, the annuity payment from
the government that was due to the Dakota from those
eighteen fifty one treaties had been delayed, so that meant
that people living on the reservation didn't have money to
buy food either. Dakota leader Little Crow went to Thomas Galberri's,
(08:33):
the Indian agent responsible for the Lower Agency, to ask
for help. In his words, quote, we have waited a
long time. The money is ours, but we cannot get it.
We have no food, but here these stores are filled
with food. We ask that you, the agent, makes some
arrangements so we can get food from the stores, or
else we may take our own way to keep ourselves
(08:56):
from starving. When men are hungry, they helped themselves. Galbraith
declined to order distributions on credit, and in the words
of trader Andrew Myrick, quote, so far as I am concerned,
if they are hungry, let them eat grass. Things came
to a head on August sevent eighteen sixty two, when
(09:16):
four young Dakotamen killed five white settlers. It's not exactly
clear what led to these murders. The story told most
often is that they were stealing eggs from outside the
house where the settlers were, and an argument started that
escalated into violence. After returning to their their village, the
four young men convinced Little Crow to declare war, and
(09:39):
this was something that Little Crow was really reluctant to do,
but he also recognized that they were sure to face retribution,
especially since some of the white people who had been
killed were women. He assembled a fighting force and raids,
many of them against civilian communities and not military targets,
started the next day. Soon the death toll from these
(10:00):
attacks rose to about two hundred white settlers killed and
more than two hundred more taken hostage. The fighting spread
from there. It's estimated that about one thousand of the
Dakota people participated, and some of them under duress. Others, however,
organized an active resistance, leading evacuations of settlers from the
(10:21):
area and forming the Dakota Peace Party to oppose the
war and try to negotiate for the release of the hostages.
When Minnesota's governor Alexander Ramsay heard of what was going on,
he commissioned Henry H. Sibley to lead a military force
to western Minnesota to try to take care of it.
Sibilly had no military experience. He was a fur trader,
(10:43):
so he did have connections to some of the Dakota
through that trade, but his lack of strategic experience meant
that he wasn't really able to efficiently pursue the Dakota
fighting force or to protect the white population. By this point,
the area's white settlers were just in a complete panic.
Dakota raids on civilian settlements and attacks on forts and
(11:03):
other military outposts continued until September twenty three, when Sibley's
force defeated Little Crows. Little Crow and his force fled
westward the following day, although Little Crow would eventually return
to the Dakotas, where he would be shot and killed
in eighteen sixty three. On September, the Dakota Peace Party
(11:24):
surrendered the hostages and the war came to an end.
By then, it had gone on for six weeks, and
it was horrible. During that time, more than six hundred
white people had been killed, overwhelmingly civilians, with a huge
number of those being children under the age of ten.
Between seventy five and a hundred Dakota soldiers had died,
(11:44):
and more than seventy white soldiers. However, what happened after
this heaped one atrocity after another onto multiple Native American people's,
including some who had absolutely nothing to do with any
of this. We will talk ab out it uh and
what happened after the Dakota people moved to South Dakota.
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a podcast. After the fighting between the Dakota and the
US Army had ended, government forces captured a number of
dakotamens suspected of being involved and put them on trial.
These trials were speedy and they were heavily biased, with
nearly four hundred of them happening in only six weeks
(13:57):
and the accused having no legal representation. Three hundred three
men were sentenced to death and sixteen were sentenced to prison.
President Abraham Lincoln intervened to prevent all three hundred and
three from being summarily executed after Henry Whipple, the episcopal
Bishop of Minnesota, went to him to explain what had
(14:17):
led up to the violence. Lincoln recommended a punishment that
would deter further violence, but without quote so much severity
as to be real cruelty. He narrowed the execution order
to cover only two men who had been found guilty
of rape, plus thirty seven who had participated not just
in battles against military forces, but in the massacre of civilians.
(14:40):
One man was given a last minute reprieve and the
other thirty eight were executed in a public mass hanging
on December eighteen sixty two. This was the largest mass
execution in the United States history. All the bodies were
buried in a mass grave, but they were shortly dug
up to be used as medical cadavers. Two the men,
it was later discovered, were hanged in error, and one
(15:03):
of those was just a case of mistaken identity. The
following April, the condemned prisoners who had not been executed
were sent to a military prison in Davenport, Iowa, where
one and twenty of them died due to disease and
poor living conditions. President Andrew Johnson would order the release
of the survivors on March twenty two, eighteen sixty six,
(15:25):
after which point they were moved to a reservation in Nebraska.
But the consequences of the war were not just confined
to the men who had been found guilty of participating
in it. On November seven, eighteen sixty two, about one thousand,
seven hundred Dakota, most of them women, children, and elderly people,
were removed via forced march to Fort Snelling on the
(15:48):
Mississippi River. Along the way, they were attacked by a
mob of white settlers, where many of them were beaten
and one of the babies was killed. The surviving Dakota
were then held in internment camps. In February and March
of eighteen sixty three, Congress revoked all of the treaties
between the United States and the Dakota and passed the
(16:08):
Dakota Expulsion Act, which made it illegal for Dakota to
live in Minnesota. It wasn't the only expulsion act that
was passed at around this time. A Winnebago Removal Act
was also passed in February of eighteen sixty three. So
in May of eighteen sixty three, Minnesota's surviving Dakota, along
with about two thousand ho Chunk who had not been
(16:29):
part of this war at all, were forcibly expelled from
the state and moved west into Dakota Territory in what's
now South Dakota. The Dakota Expulsion Act has never been repealed.
The US government and local authorities were concerned that the
Dakota would retaliate, especially after some smaller raids and skirmishes
(16:50):
crossed back over the border into Minnesota, and in spite
of the executions, the expulsion from Minnesota, the internment camps,
and all of that, their worst people who had lost
family members in the Dakota War who wanted further revenge
and retribution. As a result, two different expeditions moved into
Dakota Territory in eighteen sixty three. One was led by
(17:13):
General Sibley, who crossed into Dakota Territory from Minnesota, and
the other was led by General Alfred Sully, who followed
the Missouri River up from the south. The plan was
for the two forces to catch the remaining Dakota in
a pincer from two different directions, but this plan did
not work out. Though the river was drier than normal,
(17:34):
which caused a delay in General Sully's riverboat journey northward.
By the time he got to the Upper Missouri area
in what's now North Dakota, General Sibley had already moved
through the area and then gone on. However, on September three,
eighteen sixty three, three men led by Colonel Albert E. House,
who were part of Silly's force, spotted un encampment of
(17:55):
Native Americans at white Stone Hill. This was a really large,
multi tribal gathering of people who were hunting, trading, celebrating,
and preparing for winter. They had about four hundred thousand
pounds of bison meat drawing on racks, and about half
of the men when he spotted them were away from
the encampment hunting. Although some of the people there were
(18:18):
refugees from the Dakota War, none of them had actually
participated in the fighting there. Instead, they were predominantly yank Tonay,
as well as hunk Papa Lakota and Seahasapa Lakoda, which
are also known as Blackfeet. Like the Dakota, all of
these are part of the Seven Council Fires. House centimetis
(18:38):
trader named Frank La from Wise and another man back
to Sally to get reinforcements. While they were gone, Household
the assembled camp that he wanted to talk, and he
asked them to surrender all of their chiefs. Although they
did offer to send some of the chiefs, they didn't
offer to send all of them, and House, not sure
whether these particularly these particular chief were actually important or not,
(19:02):
refused that offer. This led to about three hours of negotiations,
ending in a standoff. During all this time, many in
the encampment were packing up and preparing to leave. It
was towards the end of the gathering anyway, and it
just seemed safer to go. Preparations became even more hurried
when they spotted Sully and his force approaching from about
(19:24):
a mile away. When he got there, which was as
the sun was setting, Sully found House attempting to surround
the encampment, although he didn't really have enough men to
do it. Even though a man named Patanka or big Head,
was waving a white flag, Sully and his force charged
through the middle of the encampment. Most of the people
who were killed in this first charge were women, children,
(19:45):
and elderly men, and his companies split up and then
tried to surround the fleeing people, including many who were
trying to escape down a near a nearby ravine. Efforts
to cut off and encircle the fleeing people included cavalry
and artillery, and while some managed to scather in other directions,
many fled into a ravine that then became the scene
(20:08):
of a massacre. Estimates range from one hundred to four
hundred Native Americans killed and about one hundred and fifties surrendered.
Because it was dark by the time the shooting was over,
many who were wounded wound up being left untended. Overnight,
the U. S Army saw about twenty fatalities, many of
whom had been caught in crossfire. Then, under Sully's command,
(20:33):
the soldiers gathered up everything that was useful from the encampment, wagons,
food tools, tepees, and all of that drying bison meat,
and they set it on fire. In the words of
soldier Effie Caldwell quote, Sully ordered all the property destroyed, tepees,
buffalo skins, and all their things, including tons and tons
(20:54):
of dried buffalo meat and tallow. It was gathered in wagons,
piled in a hollow and burned and the melted tallow
ran down the valley into a stream. Hatchets, camp kettles,
and all things that would sink were thrown into a
small lake. This obviously left everyone who had been gathered
there completely destitute, and on the next day Silly sent
(21:17):
scouts to round up people who had escaped. He took
all the prisoners he found to Crow Creek, which is
essentially a pow camp turned into a reservation. Conditions at
Crow Creek were deplorable, with the primary source of food
being a max a mix of entrails, flour, beans, and
meat of questionable quality cooked together in a cottonwood vat,
(21:39):
which became known as cottonwood soup. A lot of people
died there from starvation and digestive diseases. On September five,
the fighting continued at Apple Creek, with the surviving Native
force pushing the U. S. Cavalry back until they could
cross the water, getting women and children to safety. Ongoing
(22:00):
skirmish has continued until July of eighteen sixty four, which
saw an incredibly similar encounter between the U. S. Army
under Sully and the Native American forces in the Killed
Deer Mountains. On July three, with the aid of artillery.
The army killed about a hundred Indigenous people and then
once again burned all of their food, equipment, and supplies.
(22:22):
Treaties signed in October of eighteen sixty five officially ended
the fighting. All of these events also eventually led into
the Treaty of Fort Laramie in eighteen sixty eight, which
we talked about in more detail in our podcasts on
Calamity Jane. That treaty established the Great Sioux Reservation, which
included territory known as the Black Hills, but after gold
(22:44):
was found in the Black Hills, the United States went
back on that agreement. This eventually went to the Supreme
Court in the United States versus Student Nation of Indians,
in which the court ordered that the United States financially
compensate the Student Nation, but the nation refused that payment,
saying what it wanted was the originally promised land. And
we're going to talk about how perspectives on this incident
(23:07):
changed over the next one years. But first we're gonna
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(24:34):
In the immediate aftermath of the white Stone Hill massacre,
the U. S. Army's position was that it was an
important and decisive victory over the Dakota, which, as a reminder,
was not even the people who were really there. Sully
and his men were praised for their efforts, and in
Sally's word, quote it is to be regretted that I
(24:57):
could not have had an hour or two more of daylight,
for I feel sure if I had, I could have
annihilated the enemy as it was. I believe I can
safely say I gave them one of the most severe
punishments that the Indian have ever received. But in November
of eighteen sixty three, Sam Brown, who was working as
(25:17):
an interpreter at Crow Creek, wrote a letter to his
father in which he said, quote, I hope you will
not believe all that is said of Sully's successful expedition
against the Sioux. I don't think he ought to brag
of it at all, because it was what no decent
man would have done. He pitched into their camp and
just slaughtered them worse a great deal than what the
(25:40):
Indians did in eighteen sixty two. He killed very few
men and no hostile ones prisoners. And now he returned
saying that we need fear no more, for he has
wiped out all hostile Indians from Dakota. If he had
killed men instead of women and children, then it would
have been a success. And the worse of it, they
had no hostile intention whatever. The Nebraska second pitched into
(26:04):
them without orders, while the Iowa six were shaking hands
with them. On the other side, they even shot their
own men. Then, in nineteen fourteen or nineteen fifteen, a
man named Takes his Shield, who had survived the massacre,
directed Richard Cottonwood and creating a pictograph. This was the
first real documentation of the Native Americans perspective on what
(26:28):
had happened, although most interpretations of it today are based
on the writing of Reverend Aaron mcgaffee Bead, who was
an Episcopal missionary, which was done in nineteen thirty two.
Bead acknowledge that his ability to interpret it was not
nearly as robust as an actual member of the tribes
would be. The pictograph, which we will link to in
(26:49):
the show notes, depicts a large camp of two groups
of Sue, one who typically fought with spears and the
other who fought with arrows, all camped together in one
circle beside a small lake. Then a large army of
mounted soldiers sweeps through the camp. Most try to flee,
with a woman hitching a trevois to a horse and
(27:11):
using it to pull children away. The pictograph continues to
show the soldiers sweeping through and surrounding targets, who in
turn are not trying to fight back. They're trying to
flee and get women and children to safety. The pictograph
definitely shows the event as a massacre, not a battle,
with none of the indigenous people depicted as fighting. According
(27:31):
to Bede's interpretation, the pictograph only shows the portions of
the incident that happened in daylight, since after dark the
events could be heard and not seen. In more recent times,
La Donna Brave Bull Allered standing Rock Sue, tribal historian
whose land is home to the Sacred Stone Camp, protesting
the Dakota access Pipeline has researched, written, and spoken extensively
(27:56):
about the history of this battle and how it fits
into the greater history of the Standing Rock, Sue and
other divisions of the Sioux Nation. In a series of videos,
she notes that at least three quarters of Sully's expedition
were people who had family members who had been killed
in the Dakota Uprising, and we're seeking revenge. Another thing
that she notes is how much effort was put into
(28:17):
trying to get women and children to safety, tying them
to horses and dogs, and trying to get the animals
to simply flee the camp with them. Alert has descended
from Mary Big Moccasin, who was nine during the white
Stone Hill massacre and was shot in the leg or
hip but survived. Uh So, that's not the most fun
(28:38):
episode we've ever done. Well, I feel almost guilty, going, hey,
let's talk about listener mail. Well, and our listener mail
is also a little more on the serious side today.
It is from Samari. Tomari says, Dear Holly and Tracy,
my name's Tomari, and a as a keen stuff you
missed in history class, listener often thought about writing in
(28:58):
with episode suggestions in spite of the fact that you
have a long enough list as it is. But today
my letter takes a different note. I know this is
a dark time for anyone who believes in truth and
justice in the face of oppression, fear, and hatred. I
wanted to thank both of you for providing myself and
the other podcast listeners with knowledge and perspective on historical injustices.
(29:21):
If I hadn't heard your episodes about the Tulsa in
New Orleans race riots and the ongoing mistreatment of activists
who should have been seen as heroes in their time,
like Buyard Rustin and Sylvia Rivera, I doubt very much
I would have realized the strength and support people need
to overcome ignorance. The most acceptable story format of linear
progress good overcoming evil is not a simple reality. What
(29:44):
history has shown us is that every time humanity makes
a social achievement, it can also counter this change with
hateful backlash driven by what people are most afraid of.
Yet in the face of this, it is a dedication
to carrying on spreading truth and generating thought and empathy
for other humans, which will always triumph. Thank you for
making us stronger and wiser by the dedication you show
(30:06):
to the subjects of your podcast, and for always being
a beak, a bright beacon of education to show us
the way out of darkness. She she thanks us then,
and so she's always looking forward to our next episode,
and then suggests a couple of episode suggestions. So, first
of all, thank you, tomari I'm trying to pull myself
(30:28):
together to say that's one of the nicest things someone's
ever said to me. Me too, So Tomorrow sent us
this mail on a day I will candidly say, you
and I were both having a real hard time. So
thank you tomari Uh for sending us the kind of
message that that makes us feel like the work we
(30:49):
are doing is important. But the other reason that I
wanted to read this message today is to say candidly
something that we have been doing since Holly and I
came onto the show in two thousd in thirteen, which
we haven't really talked specifically about, which is selecting episodes
that are either tied to things that are specifically happening
(31:12):
right now, which today's episode obviously does, but also episodes
that shine more light onto the bigger arc of what's
happening in the world and especially in the United States,
which is where we live. The first time I think
we ever did that. We we came on the show
(31:32):
in March, and the first episode that that fit into
this was in April, so the following month when we
did our two part series on Loving versus Virginia, which
was a story about injustice and of overcoming injustice that
we talked about because it kept being cited as a
precedent in Supreme Court cases about same sex marriage. Um,
(31:58):
I just want to say, we are going to continue
to do episodes like this. We're going to continue to
talk about the things that shed light onto why the
world is the way it is and the things that
we as a nation are struggling with. We are still
gonna do weird, silly episodes like Margarine. Also, you know,
(32:19):
we will still have all of our unearthed episodes at
the end of the year. We will still have stuff
that we think is just goofy and cool. But we
are also definitely going to continue to talk about things
that are related to universal human rights that everyone deserves, uh,
and to the the idea that justice is important and
(32:39):
is something that the United States as a nation should
be standing for. So thank you again. So much tomorrow again,
this was uh some note we got on on a
real hard day and it made that real hard day
a little bit better. If you would like to write
to us about this or any other podcast, where a
history podcast at how stuff work dot com. We're also
(33:01):
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and learn about just about anything your heart desires. You
can come to our website missed in history dot com.
(33:21):
We will put a link to that pictograph in the
show notes all of our other research on this episode
in the show notes, Uh, there will, of course, and
the list of sources be the links to the videos
we were talking about toward the end all of that.
So you can do all that and a whole lot
more at how stuff works dot com or miss than
history dot com for more on this and thousands of
(33:44):
other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com.
Are you looking for brand new episodes of a short
how Stuff Works podcast that explains the everyday world around us,
Then check out brain Stuff with me Christian Sager. New
episodes hit every Monday and Wednesday on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify,
or anywhere else you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff
you missed in History Class from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hello,
(00:30):
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy Wilson and I'm
Holly Frying. We are having a little bit of an
unplanned mini series on historical events that are tied directly
to ongoing news. So previously it was our recent two
parter on the Attica prison uprising, which came up over
and over in coverage of the United States prison strike
(00:51):
that started in September, and today it is history that's
connected to the standing Rock Sioux and other Indigenous people's
and the ongoing protests against the the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Two nights before we recorded this episode, events in North
Dakota once again made headlines and what the authorities described
as an ongoing riot and water protectors described as a
(01:13):
peaceful effort to dismantle a barricade that's been blocking access
to a highway for several weeks. Law enforcement used tear
gas and other less than lethal weapons to try to
disperse the crowd, as well as water from a fire
hose or a water cannon, even though the temperature at
that point was below freezing. Law enforcement originally claimed that
(01:34):
the water was only being used to put out fires,
which the protesters had said had been lit only to
stay warm and not to cause damage, but later law
enforcement acknowledged that it had used water to quote repel
some of the protest activities. So, given this episodes relevance
to what is happening right now, we decided to move
(01:54):
it up from its originally scheduled time later in November
to the next episode we had on our calendar. This
history that we're talking about today happened at the same
time as the United States Civil War, and it was
a series of brutal, brutal and violent clashes between North
America's indigenous population and the United States Army. And while
the first of these started after murders were committed by
(02:18):
a group of young Native American men, what followed became
a multi year campaign against the region's indigenous population at
the hands of US military forces. So parts of the
history that we're telling today are truly horrific. Although the
history that we are talking about in this episode uh
ends in the Dakotas, it actually starts in Minnesota. Minnesota
(02:40):
Territory was established in eighteen forty nine, largely from land
that had been part of the Louisiana Purchase, and when
the territory was established, it was almost twice as big
as the state of Minnesota is today, and at its founding,
about five thousand predominantly white settlers and thirty one thousand
indigenous people lived are Many of the indigenous people were Dakota.
(03:04):
The Dakota are part of the Chetti Shikohan, which I
have also heard speakers of various Dakota dialects and languages
pronounced more like a Chetti chakoheen that translates into the
seven council fires. The Chetti Shakohen are made up of
several divisions, which each have their own unique linguistics, social, political,
(03:25):
and cultural distinctions, as well as their own histories and
original territories. These indigenous peoples are often collectively called the
Sue or the Great Sioux Nation, and the term Sue
actually comes from a French translation of an Ojibwe word
for snake rather than a Dakota word, and for that
reason some people prefer not to use the word sue,
(03:46):
but others do, and a number of tribal governments do
use it to refer to themselves, as is so often
the case. In the history of the United States, the
relationship between the US government and the Dakota people, as
well as the other indigenous peoples of the region, was
primarily governed by a series of treaties, and many of
(04:07):
these treaties were questionable at best. The indigenous population signed
many of them under durests or without being given a
clear understanding of what the documents actually said. On top
of that, many of the treaties actual terms, which usually
heavily favored the United States over the native population, were
later undermined and even completely ignored, so that what few
(04:29):
protections the native nations had were then eroded or stripped
away entirely. The series of treaties between the Dakota and
the United States started in eighteen o five, and in
most of them, the Dakota ceded land to the United
States in exchange for money, often a lot less money
than that land was actually worse in negotiation that included
(04:52):
everything from coercion to threats of military force on the
part of the United States. In eighteen fifty one, two
different treaties turned over thirty five million acres of land,
primarily in central and southern Minnesota, to the United States.
This was basically all of the Dakota's remaining territory in Minnesota.
(05:12):
One treaty, the Treaty of Traverse to Sue, was an
exchange for more than one point six million dollars. The other,
the Treaty of Mendota, was in change for. It was
an exchange for a little more than one point four
million dollars. However, and neither treaty where the Dakota actually
getting that money itself. They were to be paid the
interest on it periodically for fifty years. The Traverse to
(05:36):
Sue signing also included what came to be known as
a quote trader's paper, which diverted payments from the Dakota
to traders, most of whom were white or part Indigenous,
to pay off debts. Because the trader's paper had not
been read, allowed, or translated, many who signed it believed
it was just another copy of the treaty not a
(05:57):
separate document, and had no idea that it involved diverting
money out of their payments, because the traders themselves were
the ones who kept the records of how much money
they were owed. This also created ongoing questions about whether
the traders were patting the bill. In addition to all
of that, the treaties called for land along both the
(06:19):
north and south sides of the Minnesota River to be
set aside as a reservation for the Dakota to live on. However,
once the treaties were actually approved by the U. S. Senate,
the provisions for the reservation were removed. This left the
Dakota with nowhere to go. Eventually, President Millard Fillmore agreed
that the Dakota could live on that reservation land, but
(06:41):
only until white settlers needed it. The United States decided
it needed that land north of the river in eighteen
fifty eight, leading to another treaty. However, white settlers rushed
into the area before that treaty was ratified, including a
portion of it that was supposed to be set as
side for the Dakota, and many refused to leave. Once again,
(07:04):
the payment for this piece of land was a fraction
of what it was actually worse. Following this series of
treatise in eighteen sixty two, about six thousand, five hundred
Dakota were living in a narrow strip of land south
of the Minnesota River, which was divided into an Upper
and Lower Agency, and many of them, especially in the
(07:24):
Lower Agency, were starving. The previous winter had been hard,
and even though it was now late summer, the season's
harvests had not been enough to really support the population,
and they definitely were not enough to prepare for the
upcoming winter. There was no game to hunt on the
reservation itself, and the white population of Minnesota had increased
(07:45):
dramatically to more than one hundred and seventy thousand people.
This was thanks in part to government incentives like the
Homestead Act, so competition for hunting around the reservation, which
the Dakota weren't really supposed to be doing, was fear.
I should note that it wasn't literally a hundred percent
white population, but in terms of newcomers, it was uh
(08:08):
much much bigger population than it had been even a
decade before. On top of this huge shortage of food,
in August of eighteen sixty two, the annuity payment from
the government that was due to the Dakota from those
eighteen fifty one treaties had been delayed, so that meant
that people living on the reservation didn't have money to
buy food either. Dakota leader Little Crow went to Thomas Galberri's,
(08:33):
the Indian agent responsible for the Lower Agency, to ask
for help. In his words, quote, we have waited a
long time. The money is ours, but we cannot get it.
We have no food, but here these stores are filled
with food. We ask that you, the agent, makes some
arrangements so we can get food from the stores, or
else we may take our own way to keep ourselves
(08:56):
from starving. When men are hungry, they helped themselves. Galbraith
declined to order distributions on credit, and in the words
of trader Andrew Myrick, quote, so far as I am concerned,
if they are hungry, let them eat grass. Things came
to a head on August sevent eighteen sixty two, when
(09:16):
four young Dakotamen killed five white settlers. It's not exactly
clear what led to these murders. The story told most
often is that they were stealing eggs from outside the
house where the settlers were, and an argument started that
escalated into violence. After returning to their their village, the
four young men convinced Little Crow to declare war, and
(09:39):
this was something that Little Crow was really reluctant to do,
but he also recognized that they were sure to face retribution,
especially since some of the white people who had been
killed were women. He assembled a fighting force and raids,
many of them against civilian communities and not military targets,
started the next day. Soon the death toll from these
(10:00):
attacks rose to about two hundred white settlers killed and
more than two hundred more taken hostage. The fighting spread
from there. It's estimated that about one thousand of the
Dakota people participated, and some of them under duress. Others, however,
organized an active resistance, leading evacuations of settlers from the
(10:21):
area and forming the Dakota Peace Party to oppose the
war and try to negotiate for the release of the hostages.
When Minnesota's governor Alexander Ramsay heard of what was going on,
he commissioned Henry H. Sibley to lead a military force
to western Minnesota to try to take care of it.
Sibilly had no military experience. He was a fur trader,
(10:43):
so he did have connections to some of the Dakota
through that trade, but his lack of strategic experience meant
that he wasn't really able to efficiently pursue the Dakota
fighting force or to protect the white population. By this point,
the area's white settlers were just in a complete panic.
Dakota raids on civilian settlements and attacks on forts and
(11:03):
other military outposts continued until September twenty three, when Sibley's
force defeated Little Crows. Little Crow and his force fled
westward the following day, although Little Crow would eventually return
to the Dakotas, where he would be shot and killed
in eighteen sixty three. On September, the Dakota Peace Party
(11:24):
surrendered the hostages and the war came to an end.
By then, it had gone on for six weeks, and
it was horrible. During that time, more than six hundred
white people had been killed, overwhelmingly civilians, with a huge
number of those being children under the age of ten.
Between seventy five and a hundred Dakota soldiers had died,
(11:44):
and more than seventy white soldiers. However, what happened after
this heaped one atrocity after another onto multiple Native American people's,
including some who had absolutely nothing to do with any
of this. We will talk ab out it uh and
what happened after the Dakota people moved to South Dakota.
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a podcast. After the fighting between the Dakota and the
US Army had ended, government forces captured a number of
dakotamens suspected of being involved and put them on trial.
These trials were speedy and they were heavily biased, with
nearly four hundred of them happening in only six weeks
(13:57):
and the accused having no legal representation. Three hundred three
men were sentenced to death and sixteen were sentenced to prison.
President Abraham Lincoln intervened to prevent all three hundred and
three from being summarily executed after Henry Whipple, the episcopal
Bishop of Minnesota, went to him to explain what had
(14:17):
led up to the violence. Lincoln recommended a punishment that
would deter further violence, but without quote so much severity
as to be real cruelty. He narrowed the execution order
to cover only two men who had been found guilty
of rape, plus thirty seven who had participated not just
in battles against military forces, but in the massacre of civilians.
(14:40):
One man was given a last minute reprieve and the
other thirty eight were executed in a public mass hanging
on December eighteen sixty two. This was the largest mass
execution in the United States history. All the bodies were
buried in a mass grave, but they were shortly dug
up to be used as medical cadavers. Two the men,
it was later discovered, were hanged in error, and one
(15:03):
of those was just a case of mistaken identity. The
following April, the condemned prisoners who had not been executed
were sent to a military prison in Davenport, Iowa, where
one and twenty of them died due to disease and
poor living conditions. President Andrew Johnson would order the release
of the survivors on March twenty two, eighteen sixty six,
(15:25):
after which point they were moved to a reservation in Nebraska.
But the consequences of the war were not just confined
to the men who had been found guilty of participating
in it. On November seven, eighteen sixty two, about one thousand,
seven hundred Dakota, most of them women, children, and elderly people,
were removed via forced march to Fort Snelling on the
(15:48):
Mississippi River. Along the way, they were attacked by a
mob of white settlers, where many of them were beaten
and one of the babies was killed. The surviving Dakota
were then held in internment camps. In February and March
of eighteen sixty three, Congress revoked all of the treaties
between the United States and the Dakota and passed the
(16:08):
Dakota Expulsion Act, which made it illegal for Dakota to
live in Minnesota. It wasn't the only expulsion act that
was passed at around this time. A Winnebago Removal Act
was also passed in February of eighteen sixty three. So
in May of eighteen sixty three, Minnesota's surviving Dakota, along
with about two thousand ho Chunk who had not been
(16:29):
part of this war at all, were forcibly expelled from
the state and moved west into Dakota Territory in what's
now South Dakota. The Dakota Expulsion Act has never been repealed.
The US government and local authorities were concerned that the
Dakota would retaliate, especially after some smaller raids and skirmishes
(16:50):
crossed back over the border into Minnesota, and in spite
of the executions, the expulsion from Minnesota, the internment camps,
and all of that, their worst people who had lost
family members in the Dakota War who wanted further revenge
and retribution. As a result, two different expeditions moved into
Dakota Territory in eighteen sixty three. One was led by
(17:13):
General Sibley, who crossed into Dakota Territory from Minnesota, and
the other was led by General Alfred Sully, who followed
the Missouri River up from the south. The plan was
for the two forces to catch the remaining Dakota in
a pincer from two different directions, but this plan did
not work out. Though the river was drier than normal,
(17:34):
which caused a delay in General Sully's riverboat journey northward.
By the time he got to the Upper Missouri area
in what's now North Dakota, General Sibley had already moved
through the area and then gone on. However, on September three,
eighteen sixty three, three men led by Colonel Albert E. House,
who were part of Silly's force, spotted un encampment of
(17:55):
Native Americans at white Stone Hill. This was a really large,
multi tribal gathering of people who were hunting, trading, celebrating,
and preparing for winter. They had about four hundred thousand
pounds of bison meat drawing on racks, and about half
of the men when he spotted them were away from
the encampment hunting. Although some of the people there were
(18:18):
refugees from the Dakota War, none of them had actually
participated in the fighting there. Instead, they were predominantly yank Tonay,
as well as hunk Papa Lakota and Seahasapa Lakoda, which
are also known as Blackfeet. Like the Dakota, all of
these are part of the Seven Council Fires. House centimetis
(18:38):
trader named Frank La from Wise and another man back
to Sally to get reinforcements. While they were gone, Household
the assembled camp that he wanted to talk, and he
asked them to surrender all of their chiefs. Although they
did offer to send some of the chiefs, they didn't
offer to send all of them, and House, not sure
whether these particularly these particular chief were actually important or not,
(19:02):
refused that offer. This led to about three hours of negotiations,
ending in a standoff. During all this time, many in
the encampment were packing up and preparing to leave. It
was towards the end of the gathering anyway, and it
just seemed safer to go. Preparations became even more hurried
when they spotted Sully and his force approaching from about
(19:24):
a mile away. When he got there, which was as
the sun was setting, Sully found House attempting to surround
the encampment, although he didn't really have enough men to
do it. Even though a man named Patanka or big Head,
was waving a white flag, Sully and his force charged
through the middle of the encampment. Most of the people
who were killed in this first charge were women, children,
(19:45):
and elderly men, and his companies split up and then
tried to surround the fleeing people, including many who were
trying to escape down a near a nearby ravine. Efforts
to cut off and encircle the fleeing people included cavalry
and artillery, and while some managed to scather in other directions,
many fled into a ravine that then became the scene
(20:08):
of a massacre. Estimates range from one hundred to four
hundred Native Americans killed and about one hundred and fifties surrendered.
Because it was dark by the time the shooting was over,
many who were wounded wound up being left untended. Overnight,
the U. S Army saw about twenty fatalities, many of
whom had been caught in crossfire. Then, under Sully's command,
(20:33):
the soldiers gathered up everything that was useful from the encampment, wagons,
food tools, tepees, and all of that drying bison meat,
and they set it on fire. In the words of
soldier Effie Caldwell quote, Sully ordered all the property destroyed, tepees,
buffalo skins, and all their things, including tons and tons
(20:54):
of dried buffalo meat and tallow. It was gathered in wagons,
piled in a hollow and burned and the melted tallow
ran down the valley into a stream. Hatchets, camp kettles,
and all things that would sink were thrown into a
small lake. This obviously left everyone who had been gathered
there completely destitute, and on the next day Silly sent
(21:17):
scouts to round up people who had escaped. He took
all the prisoners he found to Crow Creek, which is
essentially a pow camp turned into a reservation. Conditions at
Crow Creek were deplorable, with the primary source of food
being a max a mix of entrails, flour, beans, and
meat of questionable quality cooked together in a cottonwood vat,
(21:39):
which became known as cottonwood soup. A lot of people
died there from starvation and digestive diseases. On September five,
the fighting continued at Apple Creek, with the surviving Native
force pushing the U. S. Cavalry back until they could
cross the water, getting women and children to safety. Ongoing
(22:00):
skirmish has continued until July of eighteen sixty four, which
saw an incredibly similar encounter between the U. S. Army
under Sully and the Native American forces in the Killed
Deer Mountains. On July three, with the aid of artillery.
The army killed about a hundred Indigenous people and then
once again burned all of their food, equipment, and supplies.
(22:22):
Treaties signed in October of eighteen sixty five officially ended
the fighting. All of these events also eventually led into
the Treaty of Fort Laramie in eighteen sixty eight, which
we talked about in more detail in our podcasts on
Calamity Jane. That treaty established the Great Sioux Reservation, which
included territory known as the Black Hills, but after gold
(22:44):
was found in the Black Hills, the United States went
back on that agreement. This eventually went to the Supreme
Court in the United States versus Student Nation of Indians,
in which the court ordered that the United States financially
compensate the Student Nation, but the nation refused that payment,
saying what it wanted was the originally promised land. And
we're going to talk about how perspectives on this incident
(23:07):
changed over the next one years. But first we're gonna
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(24:34):
In the immediate aftermath of the white Stone Hill massacre,
the U. S. Army's position was that it was an
important and decisive victory over the Dakota, which, as a reminder,
was not even the people who were really there. Sully
and his men were praised for their efforts, and in
Sally's word, quote it is to be regretted that I
(24:57):
could not have had an hour or two more of daylight,
for I feel sure if I had, I could have
annihilated the enemy as it was. I believe I can
safely say I gave them one of the most severe
punishments that the Indian have ever received. But in November
of eighteen sixty three, Sam Brown, who was working as
(25:17):
an interpreter at Crow Creek, wrote a letter to his
father in which he said, quote, I hope you will
not believe all that is said of Sully's successful expedition
against the Sioux. I don't think he ought to brag
of it at all, because it was what no decent
man would have done. He pitched into their camp and
just slaughtered them worse a great deal than what the
(25:40):
Indians did in eighteen sixty two. He killed very few
men and no hostile ones prisoners. And now he returned
saying that we need fear no more, for he has
wiped out all hostile Indians from Dakota. If he had
killed men instead of women and children, then it would
have been a success. And the worse of it, they
had no hostile intention whatever. The Nebraska second pitched into
(26:04):
them without orders, while the Iowa six were shaking hands
with them. On the other side, they even shot their
own men. Then, in nineteen fourteen or nineteen fifteen, a
man named Takes his Shield, who had survived the massacre,
directed Richard Cottonwood and creating a pictograph. This was the
first real documentation of the Native Americans perspective on what
(26:28):
had happened, although most interpretations of it today are based
on the writing of Reverend Aaron mcgaffee Bead, who was
an Episcopal missionary, which was done in nineteen thirty two.
Bead acknowledge that his ability to interpret it was not
nearly as robust as an actual member of the tribes
would be. The pictograph, which we will link to in
(26:49):
the show notes, depicts a large camp of two groups
of Sue, one who typically fought with spears and the
other who fought with arrows, all camped together in one
circle beside a small lake. Then a large army of
mounted soldiers sweeps through the camp. Most try to flee,
with a woman hitching a trevois to a horse and
(27:11):
using it to pull children away. The pictograph continues to
show the soldiers sweeping through and surrounding targets, who in
turn are not trying to fight back. They're trying to
flee and get women and children to safety. The pictograph
definitely shows the event as a massacre, not a battle,
with none of the indigenous people depicted as fighting. According
(27:31):
to Bede's interpretation, the pictograph only shows the portions of
the incident that happened in daylight, since after dark the
events could be heard and not seen. In more recent times,
La Donna Brave Bull Allered standing Rock Sue, tribal historian
whose land is home to the Sacred Stone Camp, protesting
the Dakota access Pipeline has researched, written, and spoken extensively
(27:56):
about the history of this battle and how it fits
into the greater history of the Standing Rock, Sue and
other divisions of the Sioux Nation. In a series of videos,
she notes that at least three quarters of Sully's expedition
were people who had family members who had been killed
in the Dakota Uprising, and we're seeking revenge. Another thing
that she notes is how much effort was put into
(28:17):
trying to get women and children to safety, tying them
to horses and dogs, and trying to get the animals
to simply flee the camp with them. Alert has descended
from Mary Big Moccasin, who was nine during the white
Stone Hill massacre and was shot in the leg or
hip but survived. Uh So, that's not the most fun
(28:38):
episode we've ever done. Well, I feel almost guilty, going, hey,
let's talk about listener mail. Well, and our listener mail
is also a little more on the serious side today.
It is from Samari. Tomari says, Dear Holly and Tracy,
my name's Tomari, and a as a keen stuff you
missed in history class, listener often thought about writing in
(28:58):
with episode suggestions in spite of the fact that you
have a long enough list as it is. But today
my letter takes a different note. I know this is
a dark time for anyone who believes in truth and
justice in the face of oppression, fear, and hatred. I
wanted to thank both of you for providing myself and
the other podcast listeners with knowledge and perspective on historical injustices.
(29:21):
If I hadn't heard your episodes about the Tulsa in
New Orleans race riots and the ongoing mistreatment of activists
who should have been seen as heroes in their time,
like Buyard Rustin and Sylvia Rivera, I doubt very much
I would have realized the strength and support people need
to overcome ignorance. The most acceptable story format of linear
progress good overcoming evil is not a simple reality. What
(29:44):
history has shown us is that every time humanity makes
a social achievement, it can also counter this change with
hateful backlash driven by what people are most afraid of.
Yet in the face of this, it is a dedication
to carrying on spreading truth and generating thought and empathy
for other humans, which will always triumph. Thank you for
making us stronger and wiser by the dedication you show
(30:06):
to the subjects of your podcast, and for always being
a beak, a bright beacon of education to show us
the way out of darkness. She she thanks us then,
and so she's always looking forward to our next episode,
and then suggests a couple of episode suggestions. So, first
of all, thank you, tomari I'm trying to pull myself
(30:28):
together to say that's one of the nicest things someone's
ever said to me. Me too, So Tomorrow sent us
this mail on a day I will candidly say, you
and I were both having a real hard time. So
thank you tomari Uh for sending us the kind of
message that that makes us feel like the work we
(30:49):
are doing is important. But the other reason that I
wanted to read this message today is to say candidly
something that we have been doing since Holly and I
came onto the show in two thousd in thirteen, which
we haven't really talked specifically about, which is selecting episodes
that are either tied to things that are specifically happening
(31:12):
right now, which today's episode obviously does, but also episodes
that shine more light onto the bigger arc of what's
happening in the world and especially in the United States,
which is where we live. The first time I think
we ever did that. We we came on the show
(31:32):
in March, and the first episode that that fit into
this was in April, so the following month when we
did our two part series on Loving versus Virginia, which
was a story about injustice and of overcoming injustice that
we talked about because it kept being cited as a
precedent in Supreme Court cases about same sex marriage. Um,
(31:58):
I just want to say, we are going to continue
to do episodes like this. We're going to continue to
talk about the things that shed light onto why the
world is the way it is and the things that
we as a nation are struggling with. We are still
gonna do weird, silly episodes like Margarine. Also, you know,
(32:19):
we will still have all of our unearthed episodes at
the end of the year. We will still have stuff
that we think is just goofy and cool. But we
are also definitely going to continue to talk about things
that are related to universal human rights that everyone deserves, uh,
and to the the idea that justice is important and
(32:39):
is something that the United States as a nation should
be standing for. So thank you again. So much tomorrow again,
this was uh some note we got on on a
real hard day and it made that real hard day
a little bit better. If you would like to write
to us about this or any other podcast, where a
history podcast at how stuff work dot com. We're also
(33:01):
on Facebook at Facebook dot com slash mss in history,
and we're on Twitter at miss in history. Are tumbler
because miss in history dot tumbler dot com. We're on
Pinterest at pinterest dot com slash miss in history and
Instagram at ms in history. You can come to our
parent companies website, which is how stuff works dot com
and learn about just about anything your heart desires. You
can come to our website missed in history dot com.
(33:21):
We will put a link to that pictograph in the
show notes all of our other research on this episode
in the show notes, Uh, there will, of course, and
the list of sources be the links to the videos
we were talking about toward the end all of that.
So you can do all that and a whole lot
more at how stuff works dot com or miss than
history dot com for more on this and thousands of
(33:44):
other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com.
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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