Saga of the Sioux

by Dee Brown

  The next morning General Sibley came with a very large force and drove us away from the field. We took our time getting away. Some of our men said they remained till Sibley got up and that they fired at some of his men as they were shaking hands with some of the men of the camp. Those of us who were on the prairie went back to the westward and on down the valley…. ​There was no pursuit.

  The warriors set up camp a few miles away at the mouth of the Chippewa River and were soon joined by Little Crow and his band. Not long afterward, some warriors discovered a message stuck on an upright pole at the Birch Coulee battlefield. It was from Long Trader Sibley to Little Crow.

  Sibley’s message was brief and noncommittal: If Little Crow has any proposition to make, let him send a half-breed to me, and he shall be protected in and out of camp.

  Little Crow did not trust Sibley, who as a trader for the American Fur Company had cheated the Santees. But he decided to send a reply. He thought that perhaps Sibley did not know why the Santees had gone to war. Little Crow also wanted Minnesota governor Alexander Ramsey to know the reasons for the war. Many of the neutrals among the Santees were frightened at what Ramsey had recently told the white Minnesotans: “The Sioux Indians must be exterminated or driven forever beyond the borders of the state.”

  An undated photograph of Governor Alexander Ramsey of Minnesota. He was determined to drive the Sioux out of Minnesota. His policy was backed by almost all the white settlers in the state. [LOC, DIG-cwpbh-04441]

  On September 7, Little Crow wrote,

  For what reason we have commenced this war I will tell you. It is on account of Major Galbraith. We made a treaty with the government, and beg for what we do get, and can’t get that till our children are dying with hunger. It is the traders who commenced it. Mr. A. J. Myrick told the Indians that they would eat grass or dirt. Then Mr. Forbes told the Lower Sioux that they were not men. Then Roberts [another agent] was working with his friends to defraud us out of our moneys. If the young braves have pushed the white men, I have done this myself. So I want you to let Governor Ramsey know this. I have a great many prisoners, women and children…. ​I want you to give me an answer to the bearer.

  Long Trader Sibley’s reply was hardly reassuring.

  LITTLE CROW—You have murdered many of our people without any sufficient cause. Return me the prisoners under a flag of truce, and I will talk with you then like a man.

  Little Crow had no intention of returning the prisoners until he knew whether or not Sibley planned to carry out Governor Ramsey’s call to exterminate or exile the Santees. Little Crow wanted to use the prisoners for bargaining. In the councils of the Santees, however, there was much disagreement over what course they should take. Paul Mazakootemane of the Upper Agency Sissetons condemned Little Crow for starting the war. “Give me all these white captives,” he demanded. “I will deliver them up to their friends…. ​Stop fighting. No one who fights with the white people ever becomes rich, or remains two days in one place, but is always fleeing and starving.”

  Wabasha, who had been in the battles at Fort Ridgely and New Ulm, was also in favor of opening a road to peace by freeing the prisoners. But his son-in-law Rda-in-yan-ka spoke for Little Crow and the majority of the warriors in opposing the idea. He said, “I have no confidence that the whites will stand by any agreement they make if we give [the prisoners] up. Ever since we [made a treaty] with them, their agents and traders have robbed and cheated us. Some of our people have been shot, some hung; others placed upon floating ice and drowned; and many have been starved in their prisons.” He then talked about the killing incident by the four young warriors that had started the war. “The older ones would have prevented it if they could,” he said, “but since the treaties, they have lost all their influence. We may regret what has happened, but the matter has gone too far to be remedied. We have got to die. Let us, then, kill as many of the whites as possible, and let the prisoners die with us.”

  On September 12, Little Crow sent Sibley another message offering to end the war without further bloodshed. In it he assured Sibley that the prisoners were being treated kindly.

  Unknown to Little Crow, on that same day Wabasha sent Sibley a secret message. He blamed Little Crow for starting the war. Wabasha claimed to be a friend of the “good white people.” He did not mention that he had fought them at Fort Ridgely and New Ulm. “I have been kept back by threats that I should be killed if I did anything to help the whites,” he wrote, “but if you will now appoint some place for me to meet you, myself and the few friends that I have will get all the prisoners we can, and with our family go to whatever place you will appoint for us to meet.”

  Sibley answered both messages immediately. He scolded Little Crow for not giving up the prisoners, telling him that was not the way to make peace, but he did not answer the war leader’s plea for a way to end the fighting. Instead Sibley wrote a long letter to Little Crow’s betrayer, Wabasha, giving him instructions for using a truce flag for delivery of the prisoners.

  After Little Crow received Sibley’s cold reply, he knew there was no hope for peace except total surrender. If the soldiers could not be beaten, then it was either death or exile for the Santee Sioux.

  On September 22, scouts reported that Sibley’s soldiers had gone into camp at Wood Lake. Little Crow decided to fight them there. The next morning, just as they had done at Birch Coulee, the Santees silently prepared an ambush for the soldiers. But an accident spoiled their plans.

  For some reason, Sibley’s men remained in camp. Then sometime around midmorning, a foraging expedition left to dig potatoes at an agency field five miles away. They were on a path headed straight through the warriors’ positions. When the troops reached the warriors’ line, the Santees stood up and fired.

  “The Indians that were in the fight did well, but hundreds of our men did not get into it and did not fire a shot. They were out too far,” Big Eagle later said. “The men in the ravine and the line connecting them with those on the road did most of the fighting. Those of us on the hill did our best, but we were soon driven off. Mankato was killed here, and we lost a very good and very brave war chief. He was killed by a cannonball that was so nearly spent that he was not afraid of it, and it struck him in the back as he lay on the ground, and killed him.”

  That evening in the Santees’ camp 12 miles above the Yellow Medicine River, the chiefs held a last council. Most of them were now convinced that Eagle Chief Sibley was too strong for them. The woodland Sioux must surrender or flee to join their cousins, the prairie Sioux of the Dakota country. Those who had taken no part in the fighting decided to stay and surrender, certain that the delivery of the white prisoners would win them the friendship of Sibley forever. They were joined by Wabasha, who persuaded his son-in-law Rda-in-yan-ka to stay. At the last minute, Big Eagle also decided to stay. Rda-in-yan-ka, Big Eagle, and others would soon regret that decision.

  Next morning, Little Crow made a last speech to his followers. “I am ashamed to call myself a Sioux,” he said. “Seven hundred of our best warriors were whipped yesterday by the whites. Now we had better all run away and scatter out over the plains like buffalo and wolves. To be sure, the whites had wagon-guns and better arms than we, and there were many more of them. But that is no reason why we should not have whipped them, for we are brave Sioux and whites are cowardly women. I cannot account for the disgraceful defeat. It must be the work of traitors in our midst.” He, Shakopee, and Medicine Bottle then ordered their people to pack their possessions and head west to the Dakota Territory.

  On September 26, with the assistance of Wabasha and Paul Mazakootemane, who displayed truce flags, Sibley marched into the Santee camp, where he demanded and received immediate delivery of the captives. In a council that followed, Sibley announced that the approximately 2,000 Santees there should all consider themselves prisoners of war until he could discover and hang the guilty ones among them. The peace leaders protested, claiming their long-standing friendship.


  Sibley replied by surrounding the camp with artillery. He then sent out half-breed messengers to summon all Santees in the Minnesota River Valley to Camp Release (as he had named the place). Those who refused would be hunted down and captured or killed.

  Sibley chose five of his officers to form a military court to try all Santees suspected of engaging in the uprising. As the Indians had no legal rights, he saw no reason to appoint a defense lawyer for them.

  The first suspect brought before the court was a mulatto named Godfrey, who was married to a woman of Wabasha’s band and had been living at the Lower Sioux Agency for four years. Witnesses were three white women who had been among the captives. None accused him of rape, none had seen him commit a murder, but they said they had heard Godfrey boast of killing seven white people at New Ulm. On this evidence the military court found Godfrey guilty of murder and sentenced him to be hanged.

  Brigadier General John Pope, egotistical and unpopular, was exiled to Minnesota and made the commander of the Department of the Northwest after a humiliating defeat by Confederate general Robert E. Lee in the Second Battle of Bull Run. He saw Little Crow’s War as a way to restore his reputation. [LOC, DIG-cwpb-06342]

  When Godfrey learned that the court would be willing to reduce his death sentence to a prison term if he would identify any Santee guilty of participating in the attacks, he became a willing informant. The trials then proceeded quickly. As many as 40 Indians a day were tried. On the fifth day of the Deer Rutting Moon (November), the trials ended with 303 Santee sentenced to death and 16 to long prison terms.

  The responsibility for extinguishing so many human lives was more than Colonel Sibley wanted to bear alone. He asked Brigadier General John Pope, the commander of the Military Department of the Northwest, to authorize the executions. General Pope in turn passed the final decision to the president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. “The Sioux prisoners will be executed unless the president forbids it,” General Pope informed Governor Ramsey, “which I am sure he will not do.”

  Being a man of conscience, however, Abraham Lincoln asked for “the full and complete record of the convictions; if the record does not fully indicate the more guilty and influential of the culprits, please have a careful statement made on these points and forward to me.” On receipt of the trial records, the president assigned two lawyers to examine them to determine who were murderers and who had engaged only in battle.

  Lincoln’s refusal to authorize the immediate hanging of the condemned Santees angered General Pope and Governor Ramsey. Pope protested that “the criminals condemned ought in every view to be at once executed without exception…. ​Humanity requires an immediate disposition of the case.” Ramsey demanded authority from the president to order speedy executions of the 303 condemned men, and warned him that the people of Minnesota would take “private revenge” on the prisoners if Lincoln did not act quickly.

  While President Lincoln was reviewing the trial records, Sibley, who had been promoted to general for his victory over the Santees, moved the condemned Indians to a prison camp at South Bend on the Minnesota River. While they were being escorted past New Ulm, a mob of citizens that included many women attempted “private revenge” on the prisoners with pitchforks, scalding water, and hurled stones. Fifteen prisoners were injured, one with a broken jaw, before the soldiers could march them beyond the town. The Indians were later transferred to a stronger stockade near the town of Mankato.

  This 1862 woodcut engraving from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper shows Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and troops marching on the plain in front of it. Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper was one of the two most popular national publications in America during the 19th century. The other was Harper’s Weekly. These large (12-by-16-inch) newspapers, with prices ranging from six to ten cents a copy, were famous for their many detailed illustrations. [LOC, USZ61-2046]

  In the meantime Sibley decided to keep the remaining 1,700 Santee—mostly women and children—as prisoners, although they were accused of no crime other than having been born Indians. He ordered them transferred to Fort Snelling. Along the way they too were assaulted by angry white citizens. At Fort Snelling the four-mile-long procession was shunted into a fenced enclosure on damp lowland by the river. There, under soldier guard, housed in dilapidated shelters, and fed on scanty rations, the remnants of the once proud woodland Sioux awaited their fate.

  On the sixth day of the Moon When the Deer Shed Their Horns and the Moon of Popping Trees (December), President Lincoln notified Sibley that he should “cause to be executed” 39 of the 303 convicted Santee. “The other condemned prisoners you will hold subject to further orders, taking care that they neither escape nor are subjected to any unlawful violence.”

  The execution date was December 26. That morning the town of Mankato was filled with vindictive and morbidly curious citizens. A regiment of soldiers marched in to keep order. At the last minute, one Indian was given a reprieve. About ten o’clock, the 38 condemned men were marched from the prison to the scaffold. They sang the Sioux death song until soldiers pulled white caps over their heads and placed nooses around their necks. At a signal from an army officer, the control rope was cut and 38 Santee Sioux dangled lifeless in the air. A spectator boasted that it was “America’s greatest mass execution.”

  A few hours later, officials discovered that two of the men hanged were not on Lincoln’s list of approved executions. But nothing was said of the wrongful deaths of the two Santee until nine years afterward. “It was a matter of regret that any mistakes were made,” declared one of those responsible. “I feel sure they were not made intentionally.” One of the innocent men hanged had saved a white woman’s life during the raiding.

  Several others who were executed that day had maintained their innocence until the end. One of them was Rda-in-yan-ka. Shortly before his execution, Rda-in-yan-ka dictated a farewell letter to his chief.

  A lithograph of the execution in Mankato, Minnesota, on December 26, 1862, of 38 Sioux warriors convicted for crimes committed during Little Crow’s War. Unusually, this execution was public. It was also the largest execution in United States history. [LOC, DIG-pga-03790]

  Wabasha—You have deceived me. You told me that if we followed the advice of General Sibley, and gave ourselves up to the whites, all would be well; no innocent men would be injured. I have not killed, wounded, or injured a white man, or any white persons. I have not participated in the plunder of their property, and yet today I am set apart for execution, and must die in a few days, while men who are guilty will remain in prison. My wife is your daughter, my children are your grandchildren. I leave them all in your care and under your protection. Do not let them suffer; and when my children are grown up, let them know that their father died because he followed the advice of his chief, and without having the blood of a white man to answer for to the Great Spirit.

  My wife and children are dear to me. Let them not grieve for me. Let them remember that the brave should be prepared to meet death, and I will do as becomes a Dakota.

  Your son-in-law

  Rda-in-yan-ka

  Those who escaped execution were sentenced to prison. One of them was Big Eagle. “If I had known that I would be sent to the penitentiary,” he later said, “I would not have surrendered.” Many of the others also regretted that they had not fled from Minnesota with the warriors.

  By the time of the executions, Little Crow and his followers were camped by Devils Lake, a wintering place for several Sioux tribes in the northeast corner of the Dakota Territory. During the winter, he tried to unite the Plains chiefs in a military alliance. He warned them that, unless they were prepared to fight, they would all fall before the invading whites. He won their sympathy, but few of the Plains Indians believed they were in any danger.

  In the spring Little Crow, Shakopee, and Medicine Bottle took their bands north into Canada. At Fort Garry (renamed Winnipeg in 1873), Little Crow attempted to persuade the British authorities to aid t
he Santee. He reminded the British that his grandfather had been their ally in previous wars with the Americans. But the British refused to give the Santee ammunition or weapons. The only help the British would provide was some food and clothing.

  In the Strawberry Moon (June) of 1863, Little Crow decided that if he and his family must become Plains Indians, they should have horses. The white men who had driven him from his land had horses; he would take theirs in exchange for the land. He decided to return to Minnesota with a small party to capture horses.

  In the Moon of the Red Blooming Lilies (July), Little Crow, his 16-year-old son Wowinapa, 15 warriors, and a squaw reached the Big Woods near Acton Township, where his war had begun. On the afternoon of July 3, Little Crow and Wowinapa left their hidden camping place and went to pick raspberries near the settlement of Hutchinson. About sundown they were sighted by two settlers returning home from a deer hunt. As the state of Minnesota had recently begun paying $25 in bounty for Sioux scalps, the settlers immediately opened fire.

  Little Crow was hit twice. The first musket ball wounded him just above the hip. Wowinapa said the next musket shot was a ricochet that “struck the stock of [Little Crow’s] gun, and then hit him in the side, near the shoulder. This was the shot that killed him.”