157 years ago today, 38 Dakota men/boys were killed in the largest mass execution in U.S. history.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

Link to tweet

On this day in 1862, 38 Dakota men were hung in Mankato, MN, in the largest execution in the history of the U.S, following the conclusion of the Dakota Uprising of 1862. After the men were buried, doctors descended upon the place where they were buried, digging up their bodies.

One such man was William W. Mayo, who would found what would become the Mayo Clinic. He used the bones of one Dakota man to teach his sons and frontier doctors about anatomy. It took 138 years for those bones to be returned to the deceased’s family.

One of the Dakota leaders in the uprising, Little Crow, was assassinated several months later—part of his remains were displayed by the Minnesota Historical Society for many years, not being repatriated until the early 1970s.

The settler colonial state is literally built upon the bones of Indigenous peoples. We cannot forget this.

The execution, ordered by President Abraham Lincoln, also marked the beginning of exile of Dakota people from their land. Hundreds died as they moved to lands in the Dakotas and Nebraska.

[harumph]

1. The largest mass hanging of Native Americans or the largest mass hanging period?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Hanging_at_Gainesville

[mopinko]

2. perhaps the distinction-

not sure about the one in the op, but wiki says these men were hanged 1-2 at a time.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

3. The hanging at Gainesville is considered mob violence, not an execution.

The Dakota 38 were victims of the largest mass execution.

[marble falls]

4. One could argue that the Confederacy wasn't part of the US during the war.

[stillcool]

5. I had no idea...

I knew so little.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

6. Now you know; tell others.

[defacto7]

11. Lincoln commuted 264 of 303 who were sentenced

by the military. He faced mob violence threats because of the commutation.

[JonLP24]

7. I read a book on this

38 Nooses: Lincoln, Little Crow, and the Beginning of the Frontier's End
https://www.amazon.com/38-Nooses-Lincoln-Beginning-Frontiers/dp/0307389138

I highly recommend the book.

[PNW-Dem]

8. "The party of Lincoln"

Brings a whole new meaning...

[dflprincess]

9. There were actually over 300 condemned to death

Lincoln commuted the sentences of most of them

The Star Tribune ran a good series on the Dakots war in 2012 during the 150th anniversary:

http://m.startribune.com/historical-narrative-of-a-dakota-chief-in-the-footsteps-of-little-crow/425712324/

[defacto7]

10. Lincolin commuted 264 of the 303 who were

sentenced to death by the military commission dispite threats of mob violence by people demanding he reverse his decision.

Let's get all the information on the table rather that being disingenuous.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

12. What's disingenuous about marking the murder of 38 people?

[defacto7]

13. Blaming Lincoln directly without the whole story.

It's still bad but just stating that Lincoln ordered it is not the whole truth.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

14. So something like, "Lincoln fails to extend full amnesty, results in

nation’s largest mass execution”?

[defacto7]

16. If that satifies your standards for expressing

your opinion of historic events then it's your call. It wouldn't meet reasonable standards for objective journalism though. It just depends on what you're trying to promote.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

18. Oh, you were the one who objected to how I said it; I'm looking for compromise.

I've stated nothing but facts, so I'm not sure what you mean by opinion?

An objective journalistic headline might be, "Lincoln commutes 264 sentences; leaves 38 to face the noose." The article could include a photo of the list of names of those Lincoln chose to die, a list he wrote by hand.

[defacto7]

19. The opinion has to do with your choice of points to drop in

or drive home and for what purpose. The info may be true but the context makes it leading by omission. It's a pretty common thing to do if a writer wants to make a point that is misleading or they have a bone to pick. Here's a grotesque example, "Scientists warn of a catastrophic asteroid collision." Missing information... "sometime in the next 20 million years". That makes a big difference. If a writer wants to appeal to unthinking conspiracy nuts to make a buck, then omit the last line. If a writer is appealing to science enthusiasts in truth, they better not.

What's your purpose:
Are you reminding us of this tragic event?
Are you trying to convince people that Lincoln was a terrible human being?
Are you trying to relay a factual event so the reader can learn about it objectively?
Are you trying to put your personal bent on it so the reader thinks your way?

The tweet in your op said what needed to be said. You are the one who made it about Lincoln. If you are going to state that he ordered the execution you change the dynamics from a tragic affair to a blame game. If your point is to undermine his 19th century character just leave it the way you wrote it. If not, then you need to say a lot more about the circumstances including his difficulties making the decision trying to save 264 lives against the will of his military and the public. If you don't have that convenience then omit the reference all together and let readers fill in the details as they do their own research.

BTW, writing by hand was how they did it back then. He was certainly of the character to take the resposibility upon himself if such a decision was to be made.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

20. Yeah, I've got a bone to pick about the largest U.S. mass execution, which happened 157 years ago

today.

What's your purpose:
Are you reminding us of this tragic event?

Yes.

Are you trying to convince people that Lincoln was a terrible human being?

Do people need convincing that genocide is terrible?

Are you trying to relay a factual event so the reader can learn about it objectively?

With the OP, sure.

Are you trying to put your personal bent on it so the reader thinks your way?

Sharing information is generally pretty straightforward, no?

The tweet in your op said what needed to be said. You are the one who made it about Lincoln.

Lincoln was the actor in the execution. So yes, I added that information, because history in the passive voice is an incomplete history.

If you are going to state that he ordered the execution you change the dynamics from a tragic affair to a blame game.

Executions don't happen in a vacuum. We like to hide the fact behind the state and the passive voice, but it's important to know who is acting in your name.

If your point is to undermine his 19th century character just leave it the way you wrote it. If not, then you need to say a lot more about the circumstances including his difficulties making the decision trying to save 264 lives against the will of his military and the public. If you don't have that convenience then omit the reference all together and let readers fill in the details as they do their own research.

Do you know why he chose those particular 38 to die?

BTW, writing by hand was how they did it back then. He was certainly of the character to take the resposibility upon himself if such a decision was to be made.

If he can take the responsibility, why are you so concerned about me "undermining his character"?

[defacto7]

21. I'm not concerned about you undermining his character.

But I think you finally put forward your motive. Now you have made your intent quite clear and that was all I was interested in.
You asked a question. Did you really want to say something?

If I overstepped some boundery, I apologize. I'll step down from here.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

25. What motive/intent do you see?

And no need to apologize. This is important work.

[defacto7]

48. Your motive is a righteous one.

I learned quite a bit from this op. I like to think I'm fairly well read but I seem to have missed important parts of this history. I have no need to defend Lincoln's charachter, I was defending what seemed to me to be a word bomb without substance and that may still be technically arguable. But in the end I found the substance was indeed available and I learned from it and will continue to do so. I overreacted to a common practice which in this case was totally unnecessary.

D7

[WhiskeyGrinder]

49. Thank you for sticking with me.

[Major Nikon]

32. Actually the whole truth is far worse

Trying the men by military tribunal for non-federal crimes was illegal and the manner in which is was all conducted was completely immoral. The prisoners were lynched before trial and were held in abhorrent conditions similar to Nazi death camps where scores of them died from disease and starvation and hundreds more died in those conditions after the hangings. Those who convicted them fought in the war against them. Most didn't speak English and were denied defense, yet were expected to prove their innocence rather than have guilt proved against them. Many of the witnesses were completely unreliable. As a lawyer, Lincoln would have known all of this was incredibly wrong.

Not to mention the reason the war began was because thousands of Native Americans were cut off from natural resources and forced onto a tract of land 20 miles by 30, then denied rations by the US government to the point of starvation. The whole point of which was to provoke the Native Americans into a conflict so that even more land could be stolen by the surrounding communities of white supremacists bent on their eradication.

All of this was simply mob rule by a government who had stolen everything from the indigenous population, and continued the systematic slaughter of them when they inevitably dared to fight back. And yes, Lincoln deserves pretty much all the blame just like Trump deserves all the blame for the things he directly ordered under his watch. Even more so really as Lincoln can't be dismissed as a child-like cretin who is driven by pure impulse.

[defacto7]

35. Thank you for filling in the missing details.

[JonLP24]

15. The book I mentioned also mentions this fact

38 Nooses: Lincoln, Little Crow, and the Beginning of the Frontier's End

One of those hanged was hanged by mistake.

In the years prior to the Civil War, relations between the Dakota people and white settlers had deteriorated considerably. Once the War began, already scarce resources were further strained, and the supplies promised to the Dakota in "a series of broken peace treaties" were no longer available.[1] Starving tribesmen attacked settlements in Minnesota, and in response, more than 400 Dakota and "mixed blood" men were detained by Brigadier General Henry Hastings Sibley.[1] 303 of these men were sentenced to death, but Lincoln reversed all but 38 of the death sentences for lack of evidence.[1] Chaska's sentence was one of those commuted, but (because of an apparent case of mistaken identity) he was nevertheless executed.

There has been some dispute over whether mistaken identity was to blame for Chaska's execution. There were three men held in Mankato on the day of the hanging called Chaska, which in the Dakota language means "junior" and is often used for a firstborn son.[2] University of Oklahoma history professor and Little Crow biographer Gary Anderson believes soldiers "just grabbed the wrong guy." [1] According to the New York Times, "We-Chank-Wash-ta-don-pee's case was No. 3 and not listed in the execution order handwritten by Lincoln.... The man he died for was No. 121, identified by Lincoln as Chaskey-don or Chaskey-etay, who had been condemned for murdering a pregnant woman."[1]

Others believe the execution was deliberate. During the war, Chaska had abducted a white woman, Sarah Wakefield, and her children. According to Wakefield, Chaska "kept them from certain death and abuse at the hands of his fellow tribesmen. 'If it had not been for Chaska,' Wakefield said, 'my bones would now be bleaching on the prairie, and my children with Little Crow.'"[1] For her part, Wakefield "firmly believed that Chaska was executed on purpose, in retaliation for her testimony and in reaction to rumors that she and Chaska were lovers. General Sibley, who appointed the tribunal that convicted Chaska, privately referred to him as Wakefield's 'dusky paramour.'"[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We-Chank-Wash-ta-don-pee

The book also mentions Sarah Wakefield who was a very interesting person.

[defacto7]

17. How tragic. Thanks for a balanced synopsis of the event.

I'll look up the book.

[Major Nikon]

33. It's fair to say there was no mistake about any of it

The sham trial was anything but legitimate. The only reason they held one at all was to present some sense of legitimacy for the newspapers so those in the east could believe in the righteousness of their cause which was anything but. What was really going on was the systematic destruction of the Native population and their way of life. The communities that surrounded them had a well documented white supremacist belief system and wanted nothing less than genocide.

It was actually more than 2,000 who were imprisoned. Far more than the 303 mentioned. The 38 who were hanged actually had it better than hundreds more who were systematically starved to death under concentration camp conditions. The rest of the population not imprisoned found themselves under conditions even worse than what they had faced before. Their only choice being to convert to Christianity and farm, or starve.

[Renew Deal]

22. It's weird that there is no source provided

The tweet is put out there with no reference. Even the section posted on DU is unattributed.

[Judi Lynn]

23. I learned about it long ago. You should spend more time reading U.S. history. n/t

[Renew Deal]

39. How did you learn about it?

Source?

[thewhollytoast]

55. Like my Grandmother used to say, "Darling, you are a charm." eom

[sarisataka]

28. Are you saying you don't trust twitter

As an objective source?

[Renew Deal]

38. lol

Yes

[WhiskeyGrinder]

29. My mistake. As a friend of friends, as a member of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, and as

a Ph.D. scholar in indigenous geography, his name was good enough for me. I definitely should have made it clear he knows what he's talking about. His tweets are protected now, as that series of tweets was heavily trolled by whatabouters.

[Major Nikon]

34. How much do you want to know about it?

This is a good place to start:

https://open.mitchellhamline.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1490&context=wmlr

[Renew Deal]

40. The OP should be providing a source

Unless they personally experienced it.

[Major Nikon]

41. People state facts all the time on DU without a source

So I’m not sure what seems weird about it to you. Seems more weird to spend all this time questioning the validity of something that can be easily confirmed with far less time on an internet search.

[Renew Deal]

43. I agree

The problem is that they posted an entire section of someone elses work without attribution. I can assume the tweet is 100% accurate, but it's really not right to copy someone's work in this way.

On this day in 1862, 38 Dakota men were hung in Mankato, MN, in the largest execution in the history of the U.S, following the conclusion of the Dakota Uprising of 1862. After the men were buried, doctors descended upon the place where they were buried, digging up their bodies.

One such man was William W. Mayo, who would found what would become the Mayo Clinic. He used the bones of one Dakota man to teach his sons and frontier doctors about anatomy. It took 138 years for those bones to be returned to the deceased’s family.

One of the Dakota leaders in the uprising, Little Crow, was assassinated several months later—part of his remains were displayed by the Minnesota Historical Society for many years, not being repatriated until the early 1970s.

The settler colonial state is literally built upon the bones of Indigenous peoples. We cannot forget this.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

44. The part in the OP that appears in a gray square are tweets written by Deondre Smiles, who

has since protected his Twitter account, so the link is no longer useful unless you had already followed his account. It is not my work. I included the link in the OP so people could choose to follow his account if they wanted it. When I made the OP, his account was public, and so the text in the gray square was also easily accessible as his tweets.

[Renew Deal]

46. OK

[Major Nikon]

45. The author is an academic posting widely available facts

What led you to believe it was someone else’s work?

[Renew Deal]

47. The excerpt that wasn't part of the tweet

But I get it now and it’s not a big deal.

[Judi Lynn]

24. Thanks for posting this conscientious man's Tweet.

So glad he is taking the time to bring people who don't know out of the fog.

These things should not be allowed to be kept buried by determined propagandists, to protect racist monsters who are hell bent on continuing their despicable acts of hatred, barbarity, and abuse well into the future.

[malaise]

26. What was don to indigenous people on this planet

is beyond evil.

[Blues Heron]

27. The death penalty is wrong.

It was wrong then, it's wrong now, it will be wrong until it is banished from the face of this planet.

[Major Nikon]

36. That's very true, but that's not what happened here

The death penalty implies the killings were legally conducted. The crimes that were alleged happened in Minnesota after it was a state and were state crimes. As such they were legally required to be conducted in state courts under civilian rules of evidence. What actually happened was those imprisoned and killed were tried by military tribunal in a sham procedure. All of it was illegitimate, illegal, and literally state sponsored murder.

The sad part is history rarely gets past the so-called executions. It was far worse for the hundreds more who starved to death under the concentration camps built to contain them, or those who were lynched by angry mobs.

[MineralMan]

30. As a nation, our record of treatment of the indigenous peoples in

North America is abysmal. We followed the same horrible track that history has recorded about most powerful peoples who wiped out indigenous peoples wherever they went.

We should have done better. We did not. It is a shame on our ancestors, quite frankly.

Entire tribal groups were wiped out and no longer exist. Our European, Christian ancestors did that. The blame is clear. The shame of it can never be erased.

[Major Nikon]

37. Arguably worse

By the 19th century the world knew genocide of indigenous people was morally unjustifiable. So they couldn't just dispatch armed people to wipe them out prior to taking over. What had to be done was the demonization of an entire civilization, so the so-called civilized people could sleep well at night knowing those who were systematically slaughtered had it coming to them. What was done is the characterization of Native people as savages and sub-human, through a concentrated media campaign that bombarded people with false stories and images of the natives while simultaneously portraying white soldiers and civilians as heroic champions fighting indescribable evil. Many of these false narratives persist to this day, and even right here on DU we are faced with people who tell us Chief Wahoo and "Redskins" are really just harmless fun and we should all just get over it. You know, just like black people should get over 150 years of minstrel shows specifically designed to portray them as something less than human. Oh wait, no they shouldn't. What should be done is educating everyone on the evil that happens when white supremacists are allowed to control public perceptions.

[Paladin]

31. The execution is vividly depicted in the movie "The New Land."

Jan Troell's impressive 1972 film concerning Swedish emigrants in Minnesota.

[braddy]

52. A truly fine movie.

[Paladin]

56. Brilliant work by all concerned.

After all these years, that "letter to Sweden" ending still makes my eyes water.

[Bayard]

42. From, "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee", by Dee Brown

"Days later, soldiers dragged away the bodies of the three hundred murdered Native Americans of Wounded Knee. The soldiers threw the bodies in open wagons and carted them across the state into a church.
By the time they arrived, it was four days after Christmas, in the year 1890. On the pulpit of the church was written a message: “PEACE ON EARTH, GOOD WILL TO MEN.”

Christian hypocrisy at its finest.

[braddy]

51. The Army is government.

[Demovictory9]

50. ..

[braddy]

53. I have an old 1864 book on the Minnesota massacre.

[sprinkleeninow]

54. I do not feel well after reading of this.

🕯