Sioux Uprising
The Sioux Uprising was an armed conflict that began on August 17, 1862 along the Mississippi River in Minnesota. Some revisionist sources now refer to the events that took place as the "Dakota Conflict" or the "Dakota War," sometimes using the alternate spelling, "Dakotah."
Payments guaranteed by treaty to be made by the federal government to Dakota Indians had not been made due federal preoccupation with the American Civil War. That combined with a crop failure led to famine. The uprising began when Dakota attacked white settlements along the Minnesota River.
Dakota warriors decided on August 19 not to attack the heavily-defended Fort Ridgely, and instead turned to the settlement of New Ulm, killing many white settlers along the way. They also scalped the federal agent on that day, looted his warehouse, and rampaged through the area, killing perhaps a dozen whites.
Although this was in the middle of the American Civil War, enough troops were gathered to put down the "rebellion", and more than 300 Dakota were sentenced by local courts to die for the crimes of murder or rape six weeks later.
President Abraham Lincoln commuted the death sentences of all but 38, largely due to the pleas from Bishop Henry Whipple for clemency. The 38, for whom the evidence seemed strongest, were executed in a single day on December 26, 1862.
A photograph of the mass hanging was long a familiar icon to the white inhabitants of Minnesota. The 38 are remembered each year at two separate pow wows in Minnesota. The Mankato pow wow, held each year in September, commemorates the lives of the 38 but also seeks to reconcile the white and indian communities. The Birch Coulee pow wow, held on Labor Day weekend, honors the lives of the 38 who were hanged in the largest mass execution in United States history.
