Massacre in Minnesota: The Dakota War of 1862, the Most Violent Ethnic Conflict in American History

by Gary Clayton Anderson

In August 1862 the worst massacre in U.S. history unfolded on the Minnesota prairie, launching what has come to be known as the Dakota War, the most violent ethnic conflict ever to roil the nation. When it was over, between six and seven hundred white settlers had been murdered in their homes, and thirty to forty thousand had fled the frontier of Minnesota. But the devastation was not all on one side. More than five hundred Indians, many of them women and children, perished in the aftermath of the conflict; and thirty-eight Dakota warriors were executed on one gallows, the largest mass execution ever in North America. The horror of such wholesale violence has long obscured what really happened in Minnesota in 1862—from its complicated origins to the consequences that reverberate to this day. A sweeping work of narrative history, the result of forty years’ research, Massacre in Minnesota provides the most complete account of this dark moment in U.S. history.

Focusing on key figures caught up in the conflict—Indian, American, and Franco- and Anglo-Dakota—Gary Clayton Anderson gives these long-ago events a striking immediacy, capturing the fears of the fleeing settlers, the animosity of newspaper editors and soldiers, the violent dedication of Dakota warriors, and the terrible struggles of seized women and children. Through rarely seen journal entries, newspaper accounts, and military records, integrated with biographical detail, Anderson documents the vast corruption within the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the crisis that arose as pioneers overran Indian lands, the failures of tribal leadership and institutions, and the systemic strains caused by the Civil War. Anderson also gives due attention to Indian cultural viewpoints, offering insight into the relationship between Native warfare, religion, and life after death—a nexus critical to understanding the conflict.

Ultimately, what emerges most clearly from Anderson’s account is the outsize suffering of innocents on both sides of the Dakota War—and, identified unequivocally for the first time, the role of white duplicity in bringing about this unprecedented and needless calamity.
 

Genres: History, American History, Nonfiction, Native American

384 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2019

About the author

A specialist in American Indians of the Great Plains and the Southwest, Gary Clayton Anderson is a professor of history at the University of Oklahoma.

Reviews

[John Benson · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I had read Gary Clayton Anderson's earlier book on the Dakota War THROUGH DAKOTA EYES, I was impressed by this scholarship and use of primary sources, but felt I could not fully understand the War from the material in the book. This book, published more than 30 years later, brings out the full story of this key part of Minnesota's history. There are few heroes in this book from Minnesota's founding White fathers who cheated so many of the Dakota out of everything they were entitled to after the Treaty of Traverse De Sioux to the Dakota warriors who rose up in anger and massacred many white settlers after they rose up in frustration. It brings out the full story of this war in an a very unbiased fashion.

[Logan Ledman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anderson is preoccupied with making bold claims, right from the title and through the last pages of this comprehensive, complicated retelling. More often than not, though, he is provocative in the service of a meaningful point and bold in the service of challenging the reader.

There are stylistic choices in his language that struck me as incredibly insightful and corrective, and stylistic choices that struck me as deeply wrong.

It all adds up to put this history of the war in a space unoccupied by any other telling I’ve read. Unlike so many other discussions of the war, I never got the sense that Anderson’s analysis was coming from anywhere other than years of research and deep thinking about the subject matter. He is learning from the mistakes of earlier analyses and building on their strengths. He recognizes how important the story is and it shows on every page. He is committed to accuracy and nuance and it shows in every detail.

No one comes out of this story looking good. Nearly everyone suffers. Nearly everyone is morally compromised. Anderson tells it all with an unpredictable mix of objectivity and compassion. A challenging and compelling and overwhelmingly important book.

[Catherine Rodriguez · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am glad to have learned something more about a piece of Minnesota's history, but I'm not feeling confident about fair representation here. The majority of this text focused on the immediate conflict and its violence as well as the direct aftermath and mass execution that took place. But the set up was rather lacking in that it kind of implied that somehow both sides of this "war" were on equal footing from the start, which we know is not true in the slightest. Anderson neglected to really give a clear picture of what it meant not only for government officials, who oversaw allocation of resources for Native Americans, to be corrupt but also the reality of what it meant for white people to come in at all and claim land that wasn't theirs to begin with. The tone here was that settling the frontier was just a given.

At one point, Anderson calls this "war" the "most horrific and destructive ethnic massacre in American history," and, if I interpreted that section right, it seems he's not referring to the already happening and ensuing genocide of Native Americans; rather, he's talking about the white settlers who were killed. That seems like an incredibly short-sighted and irresponsible claim to make about a country that has so much more to answer for than only this moment in history.

[Amy Winsand · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an incredible read, a heartbreaking story of the worst conflict between the Dakota Nation and white settlers and soldiers, but a very important piece of American history, not just for Minnesota. I bought this book at the Brown County Historical Museum which is in the heart of the Minnesota River Valley where the massacre and ensuing battles were fought. After a few days of traveling to towns along the river and battle sites and museums which housed an immense amount of photographs and memorabilia focused on the 1862 conflict, this book brought amazing details to life.

I won't go into details here. I only know that the entire massacre and deaths of innocent women and children on both sides lay solely to blame on the white man. His greed and barbarism make me ashamed to be of this race.

This is an important part of our history that needs to be taught in our schools, but sadly, it is not. We wouldn't, after all, want to make the "white man" look bad. Shameful.

[Jess · Rating 1 out of 5]

The author thinks he's being brave for taking a "both sides" approach to what he admits was the ethnic cleansing of the Dakota people. And he is the leading historian in this area. Color me unimpressed.

I skimmed through parts but find nothing in here to compel me to finish. DNF with great annoyance.

[Michael Stonecipher · Rating 5 out of 5]

great book. starts with too many details, characters, dates, etc. don't sweat that. an engaging history that I was under informed of.

[William Hogan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a superbly researched and finely written tome about the situation in Minnesota. Had this occurred outside of the time of the Civil War, there would have been a more thorough retribution and the Dakota would have been wiped from the country.

This is a thorough exposure of the great incongruity of our American heritage. What we used to fight against in other countries--genocide and ethnic cleansing--is what this country is essentially founded on.

Anderson explores the uprising from both sides of the conflict, and explores the forces cultural forces that drove some of what caused the most outrage among the Minnesotans after the conflict.

The Dakota uprising of 1862 was a prime example of the forces at work that caused these episodes from our first foothold on the East Coast throughout the period of Manifest Destiny and right through to today. Greed and corruption were at the heart of the anger that ignited the animosity that was naturally in the atmosphere as settlers poured into lands that had yet to be broken for farms and towns.

Having read heavily on these topics throughout my life, starting with Dee Brown's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee back in my 20s, I was still shocked at the amount of money these future governors and statesmen of Minnesota had amassed in the time of the Civil War. This was money that was supposed to go to feed the women, children, and men who had been pushed onto reservations. Hundreds of thousands of dollars had been banked away--these men who have counties, streets and buildings named after them built their generational wealth on the bones of the women and especially children of the Native Americans that succumbed to famine and disease due to malnutrition and violence.

Anderson delves into the role Abraham Lincoln played in capping the executions, or the 38 simultaneous hangings would have been closer to 400 hangings. I was vaguely aware of this episode being a stain on Lincoln, but Anderson shows that Lincoln's cabinet members had been in Minnesota to delve into the corruption before the uprising started. So after the conflict, Lincoln was instrumental in tamping down the thirst for revenge that had swept throughout Minnesota. Of course, most of the Dakota, guilty and innocent; men, women and children; young and elderly; would be removed to a location where many starved and died. The Christian men who wrote, then broke the treaties and pocketed the funds intended to feed, clothe, and pay for the ceded land were never punished. Sadly, not much has changed in this world.

[BRYAN BALDWIN · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Dakota War of 1862, prosecuted by the Lincoln Administration during the early days of the American Civil War, was one of the bloodiest ethnic conflicts in American history. Overshadowed by the cataclysm of the Civil War, the Dakota of 1862 was left largely unexamined within broader context of the history of the American west. In Massacre in Minnesota: The Dakota War of 1862, the Most Violent Ethnic Conflict in American History, University of Oklahoma professor Gary Clayton Anderson chronicles this conflict based on over forty years of historical research. Although the sources of the conflict had been simmering for decades, it reached a flashpoint in August of 1862 that resulted in thousands of casualties on both sides, a refugee crisis, and the largest public execution in American history. The Dakota War of 1862, and its aftermath, would dramatically shape the post-Civil War landscape in the west.

In his preface, Anderson admits that he initially avoided taking on the Dakota War of 1862 as a younger historian because the war “is a conflict of corruption, and magnified by extreme violence in which thousands suffered on both sides (xii).” With the benefit of wisdom and perspective, Anderson produces a well-researched and readable history that avoids narratives and myth and captures historical truth.

[Jane Considine · Rating 4 out of 5]

from the preface: "The effort before you is a comprehensive history of what has often been called an "outbreak" but was a bloody conflict that turned into all-out war in which almost everyone on both sides suffered terribly and few, if any, emerged as heroes. ...It resulted in the deaths of more than 600 settlers and dozens of soldiers and militiamen. .... the aftermath of the massacre involved the ethnic cleansing of 6,000 Dakota Indians from Minnesota." Many men whose names are on buildings, streets, and statues in Minnesota participated to some degree in the ethnic cleansing, including the hanging of 38 Dakota Indians in Mankato on Dec 26, 1862. (President Lincoln, already overwhelmed with the Civil War and the continuing losses suffered by the Union Army, intervened, and the number of those found guilty and headed for the gallows was whittled from 303 to 38.
It's a complex story that was certainly not part of my formal education, and difficult though it is to read about ethnic cleaning and massacre of women and children, I am satisfied that now I have better understanding of this era of American history.

[John Kern · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well done and very readable. Helpful in understanding the plight of the Indigenous Peoples of the Midwest. Minnesota was at one time the "Wild West." My great grandparents were among the newly arrived Germans at the time of the events. They settled the lands ceded by the Dakota.