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December 26 1862

Vallegrad2

Well-Known Member
Nov 18, 2010
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Interesting Blog:
One hundred and sixty years ago, on December 26, 1862, in the largest mass execution in American history, the U.S. government hanged 38 Santee men for their actions in Minnesota’s so-called Dakota War.

The struggle did not involve all of the Santees, but rather those driven to war in August 1862 after the U.S. government, financially strapped by the Civil War, did not appropriate the money necessary to pay for the food promised to the Santees by treaty. Nine years before, in 1851, settlers had poured into the territory demanding land to farm, and the government had forced the Santees onto a reservation too small to feed their people. The government promised the Santees provisions to make up for the loss of their economic base not as a one-time payment but as a fifty-year contract. Then, when Minnesota became a state in 1858, its leaders took even more Santee land.

But by summer 1862, the Civil War had drained the Treasury, and so-called Indian appropriations fell behind.

Starving and unable to provide for themselves on the small reservation onto which they had been corralled, some Santees demanded the provisions for which they had exchanged their lands. At least one of the agents who had contracted to provide that food had some on hand but refused to hand it over until he had been paid. Furious, young Santee men considered their agreement broken and attacked the settlers who had built homes on the land the Santees had ceded.

On August 17, four young Santee men killed five settlers, and violence escalated. By September, both Minnesota militia and U.S. Army regiments were battling the Santees, and the struggles would leave more than 600 settlers, at least 100 to 300 Santees, and more than a hundred soldiers dead before the last of the Santee warriors surrendered to the military at the end of the month. Another 300 Santees—at least—would die from conditions of their imprisonment after the war or from exposure as they fled the state.

The timing of the military action meant that northerners, and especially Minnesota settlers, interpreted the Santees’ actions as an existential threat to the nation. The war was going poorly for the United States in summer 1862, and many northerners saw the Santees’ attempt to reclaim their land as part of a plan to destroy the United States from within in order to help the Confederacy. Rather than understanding that their neighbors were starving and desperate for the enforcement of a contract into which they had been forced, settlers turned on the Santees with fury. Even as northerners were redefining Black Americans as potential equals, they redefined Santees as unredeemable enemies and fantasized about exterminating them.

By September 23, most of those Santees involved in the fighting had either surrendered or fled, and on September 27, Colonel Henry Hastings Sibley, who had commanded the state militia troops engaged in the war, ordered a military commission to try those fighters now in custody.

Over the course of five weeks in the fall of 1862, a military commission tried 393 Santees for their part in the conflict. The prisoners did not have lawyers, and many of them did not speak English. Those who did understand the questions put to them did not understand the legal process that permitted them to avoid self-incrimination; they told the truth about their part in the fighting and thus cemented their convictions. Many of the trials took fewer than ten minutes before the judges reached a guilty verdict: in one two-day span, 82 men were tried.

In early November the commission convicted 303 Indians of murder or rape and sentenced them to death. Minnesota governor Alexander Ramsey wrote to President Abraham Lincoln, expressing his hope that “the execution of every Sioux Indian condemned by the military court will be at once ordered.” But by law, the president had to sign off on executions, and Lincoln refused.

While the harsh sentences pleased the furious Minnesota settlers, they presented a problem for Lincoln. Personally, he was reluctant to use the government to execute men and frequently commuted death sentences for soldiers convicted of anything other than rape or murder. He recoiled from the idea of executing several hundred men at once, especially since he had little faith in military tribunals, and the Santee trials were obviously predetermined.

But there was a national, as well as a personal, issue at stake. Lincoln’s primary focus was not on the troubles in Minnesota, but on the successful prosecution of the Civil War. If the United States executed captured Indigenous fighters for killing soldiers in battle, why shouldn’t it do the same to captured Confederate soldiers, who were also attacking the government?

While there were plenty of people who were willing to follow that logic, it presented a problem: if the Union government could do whatever it wanted to enemy combatants who surrendered, what was to stop the Confederacy from doing whatever it wanted to surrendering Union soldiers? Ultimately, Lincoln’s decision about what to do with the Santee prisoners could determine the fate of the Union men who fell into enemy hands.

Lincoln negotiated the crisis by distinguishing between soldiers in battle and war criminals. First he demanded to see the Santee trial records and ordered the military judges to separate men who had fought in battles from those who had committed murder or rape against civilians. Then he reviewed the records and concluded that 265 of the Santee had been convicted only of going to war against the United States. Although these men had not been party to a formal declaration of war, the Lincoln administration decided they were nonetheless covered by the traditional rules of war that prohibited the execution of prisoners. Lincoln refused to sign off on their executions, effectively pardoning them.

The 38 Indigenous Americans who had been convicted of murder or of rape against civilians, though, fell outside the traditional protections accorded to enemy combatants. Their sentences stood.

And so, on December 26, 1862, the U.S. government hanged these 38 men in a group from a scaffold in Mankato, Minnesota, in what is still the largest mass execution in American history.

In the aftermath of the hangings, the Lincoln administration continued to develop the concept of war crimes. On April 24, 1863, the administration issued what became known as the Lieber Code after its author, legal philosopher Francis Lieber. It tried to establish rules for wartime, prohibiting the execution of prisoners of war, for example, and outlawing rape and torture. The Lieber Code helped to make up the international Hague Conventions of the turn of the century, which set out to establish rules of war.

But northerners’ interpretation of the Dakota War had made them push Indigenous Americans outside those rules, and once that principle was in motion, it did not stop. In 1862, northerners supported a mass execution of Santees despite the obviously biased convictions; in 1864, after skirmishes between settlers and Navajos, army officers forced the Navajo people to walk hundreds of miles from their homelands in Arizona to internment at a military fort in eastern New Mexico where a lack of food and shelter led to horrific death rates.

And later that year, at the Sand Creek Massacre in Colorado Territory, soldiers would butcher surrendering Cheyennes and Arapahos and take their body parts as trophies.
 
I think that Blog left out some huge issues of the situation... that the payments from Indian Agents and most of the issues of being cash strapped was because of the invasion of the South By the North a Lincoln decision. That a Drought had happened in 1861 leading to a poor harvest and add on the Indians over hunted the land and also didn't take to agriculture by any means so of course this lead to near starvation. The idea that the land was to small to feed the Natives is inaccurate.

I don't blame the Natives for being upset and wanting to drive the Settlers out .... but they attacked First and had to suffer the consequences of their actions against a superior conquering foe. The Settlers did not attack the Natives..... The Natives Attacked the Settlers over govt issues. First killing 5 white men and then hundreds of settlers to drive them out.

They also took hostages 250 plus women and children and clearly did things to them at least 39 of them did.. the Natives Killed over 300 settlers to boot at the end of the conflict. Let's not act like the Natives where choir boys in this affair. Justifiably upset for broken Promises from the Lincoln administration and past treatise? Yes of course. Going to War on the Locales and taking out that anger for Govt Agents and traders not doing their job.... not a great plan.

That blog was clearly slanted and ignored some important facts and Context.


I do find it interesting how so many on the left are emotionally invested in historic incidents that happened in the past, which have absolutely no bearing or context in the Modern Society and Civilization we live in. I think that Everyone in America realizes the Native Population got over ran and conquered and treated thusly. And I think Most everyone agrees it was in todays Norms and Mores Wrong.

None of those Natives are alive today and nothing will appease the wrongs done in the past. Their ancestors have greatly benefited from the Rise of America as a world Power.
 
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“historic incidents” usually are ones that “happened in the past”. And it’s amazing to me the excuses and rationalizations you use to defend every post about the mistreatment of minorities in the USA instead of just admitting what we did was horrible.
 
I think that Blog left out some huge issues of the situation... that the payments from Indian Agents and most of the issues of being cash strapped was because of the invasion of the South By the North a Lincoln decision. That a Drought had happened in 1861 leading to a poor harvest and add on the Indians over hunted the land and also didn't take to agriculture by any means so of course this lead to near starvation. The idea that the land was to small to feed the Natives is inaccurate.

I don't blame the Natives for being upset and wanting to drive the Settlers out .... but they attacked First and had to suffer the consequences of their actions against a superior conquering foe. The Settlers did not attack the Natives..... The Natives Attacked the Settlers over govt issues. First killing 5 white men and then hundreds of settlers to drive them out.

They also took hostages 250 plus women and children and clearly did things to them at least 39 of them did.. the Natives Killed over 300 settlers to boot at the end of the conflict. Let's not act like the Natives where choir boys in this affair. Justifiably upset for broken Promises from the Lincoln administration and past treatise? Yes of course. Going to War on the Locales and taking out that anger for Govt Agents and traders not doing their job.... not a great plan.

That blog was clearly slanted and ignored some important facts and Context.


I do find it interesting how so many on the left are emotionally invested in historic incidents that happened in the past, which have absolutely no bearing or context in the Modern Society and Civilization we live in. I think that Everyone in America realizes the Native Population got over ran and conquered and treated thusly. And I think Most everyone agrees it was in todays Norms and Mores Wrong.

None of those Natives are alive today and nothing will appease the wrongs done in the past. Their ancestors have greatly benefited from the Rise of America as a world Power.

You ever notice that when the white settlers killed Native Americans, history refers to the action as a “victory;” however, when Native Americans win a fight, the battle is referred to as a “massacre.” and they talk about all the women and children being killed, but native women and children being held hostage raped or murdered is never mentioned?
 
You ever notice that when the white settlers killed Native Americans, history refers to the action as a “victory;” however, when Native Americans win a fight, the battle is referred to as a “massacre.” and they talk about all the women and children being killed, but native women and children being held hostage raped or murdered is never mentioned?
Yes! Some like to refer to them as a "conquered" people and bitch about the current immigration problems.
Wonder what would happen if they conquered us?
 
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“historic incidents” usually are ones that “happened in the past”. And it’s amazing to me the excuses and rationalizations you use to defend every post about the mistreatment of minorities in the USA instead of just admitting what we did was horrible.
I'm not making excuses.... I was pointing out the actual established facts of the historic Incidents that was not addressed in the Emotional BS blog.

Fact Natives Resisted Agriculture, Fact a Drought Led to low food supplies, Fact the Govt dropped the Ball because of the Invasion of the North and Indian Agents etc. where not going to risk not getting paid for supplies by the govt and give credit.

Fact the Natives where the Aggressors and Kidnapped women and Children and Killed Settlers first.

Fact I said what happened was Morally outside the Norms and Mores of todays society. But in Historic Context it is what Humans have done since the Dawn of Time. I'm not emotionally invested in the Past. That is a waste of time and counter productive.

Believe me I don't give a Darn about the Mistreatment of People who are long dead and buried that no one today had anything to do with. It makes Absolutely no sense to Wallow in past occurrences that can't be changed. It's destructive type of personality that creates personal and emotional connections to the unknown people of the past.

I'm much more concerned about the ongoing govt bs that still keeps Native Americans in poverty and behind in education etc. I want to help the people who are alive today and having a hard go of it. There long dead ancestors are beyond help and My question to you is why can't you acknowledge that the situation was complex and that there was good and bad on both sides and that plenty of people where Mistreated settlers and Natives?
 
You ever notice that when the white settlers killed Native Americans, history refers to the action as a “victory;” however, when Native Americans win a fight, the battle is referred to as a “massacre.” and they talk about all the women and children being killed, but native women and children being held hostage raped or murdered is never mentioned?
Yes that is true through out most of American History...... That has changed a lot in the last 50 yrs though.

Of course those who achieve Victory are going to write history that paints them in a favorable light.
 
Yes! Some like to refer to them as a "conquered" people and bitch about the current immigration problems.
Wonder what would happen if they conquered us?
We would be under their power and dominion.... that is why you never want to be conquered. Every Citizen Being Armed and having a Massive Military budget and the resolve to do what is necessary to never be defeated by outsiders should be the Number One Goal of Every American.
 
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