Directory of Dakota Conflict Resources

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Information on the Dakota Conflict, also known as the U.S.-Dakota War, the Minnesota Uprising, the Sioux Uprising, etc. The Dakota had ceded a large part of southern Minnesota in exchange for a reservation and payments of gold and food. Payments in 1862 were late, and the Dakota were starving. In August of 1862, white settlers were attacked near Acton, and then the Dakota broke into a warehouse at Birch Coulee (now the Lower Sioux Indian Reservation). The Dakota were defeated at Wood Lake by Henry Sibley. The actual fighting lasted less than 6 weeks, in August and September. 38 Dakota men were hanged at Mankato in December of 1862, the largest mass execution in U.S. history. Little Crow, one of the Dakota leaders, was shot to death in July 1863 while picking raspberries near Hutchinson. The Dakota Conflict is the only war fought on Minnesota soil in recorded history.

Resources in This Category

• Captured by the Indians: Reminiscences of Pioneer Life in Minnesota

  http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/lhbumbib:@field(AUTHOR+@band(Carrigan,+Wilhelmina+Buce++))
  Book by Minnie Buce Carrigan, originally appeared as a serial in the Buffalo Lake News. Carrigan lived in Renville County, and was a child of 7 when taken captive by the Sioux in 1862. Full text in HTML or page images.

• Little War on the Prairie

  http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/479/little-war-on-the-prairie
  John Biewen grew up in Mankato, but never heard about the US-Dakota War. He toured southern Minnesota with Mankato State professor Gwen Westerman, a Dakota. Audio and transcript. [This American Life]

• Minnesota Civil War Map of Battles

  http://www.americancivilwar.com/statepic/mn.html
  Shows approximate locations of Fort Ridgely and Wood Lake.

• Red Rock Central High School: Dakota Conflict

  http://www.rrcnet.org/~historic/
  Redwood Falls student project offers a timeline of the Sioux Uprising, original essays on important places and events, full text of a book on related monuments in Redwood and Renville Counties, links, photographs, bibliographies.

• The Sioux Uprising of 1862

  http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/tbacig/studproj/a1041/siouxup/index.htm
  Student project at the University of Minnesota Duluth. Includes 1862 map of Minnesota, a day-by-day account of the war, short biographies of Little Crow and John Other Day, comments on the results of the conflict.

• The U.S.-Dakota War of 1862

  http://www.usdakotawar.org/
  Information on Dakota history, the arrival of waves of immigrants, the war, and its lingering effects. Videos, oral histories, links to further information. From the Minnesota Historical Society.

• The US-Dakota War, 150 Years Later

  http://minnesota.publicradio.org/standard/display/project_display.php?proj_identifier=2012/08/14/dakota-war
  A special project of Minnesota Public Radio News includes interviews, news stories, and features. Most are available both as audio and written transcript.

Related Categories

• Home > Society > History > By Time Period > Nineteenth Century > Wars and Conflicts > Indian Wars

 

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