A View of the Largest Mass Execution in U.S. History

[MattSh]

As you probably could guess, it involved Native Americans.

Last weekend’s “This American Life” told the story of the execution of 38 Dakota Indians in the frontier town of Mankato, MN. This event took place 150 years ago this month (December 26, 1862), and was the largest mass execution in American history.

Dakota Sioux and settlers skirmished during the fall of 1862, after newly limited hunting grounds, confinement to poor agricultural lands, and delays in promised government assistance left tribesmen and their families hungry. The tribe tried to drive white settlers out of the frontier by force, and their attacks against frontier families, settlements, stagecoach stops, and forts whipped settlers into a panic. After the federal government, which had been distracted by the events of the Civil War, finally intervened, the Sioux surrendered.

Minnesotans originally intended to execute more than 300 Sioux; President Lincoln reviewed records of the trials, and spared all but 38. (Later, after Lincoln barely carried Minnesota in the 1864 election, the senator from that state joked that if the president had hanged a few more, he could have had his 1860 majority. Lincoln apparently replied “I could not afford to hang men for votes.”)

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2012/11/29/execution_at_mankato_lithograph_provides_a_view_of_the_hanging_of_38_sioux.html

[ParkieDem]

1. Wow.

This is as bad as the lynchings that occurred in the South.

Not trying to knock my Northern brethren at all, but if anyone tells me that racism is/was limited to the South or the former Confederacy, I can simply point to this.

[denverbill]

6. Why not call the Indians racist then? They killed 800 white men, women and children.

It's not like Lincoln just randomly grabbed 30 Indians and hung them for fun. In a lot of states today, all 300 of them would have been found guilty of murder even if they hadn't actually killed someone since they participated in the event.

[CBGLuthier]

7. yes because when invaders of your lands pass laws you best obey them

and none of this we are fighting for our freedom please don't wipe us all out bullshit either. You get on the train or the trail to your little death camps and shut the fuck up buddy.

[denverbill]

8. Yes, I know they should have just shook hands and let bygones be bygones.

"Mr. Massipost had two daughters, young ladies, intelligent and accomplished. These the savages murdered most brutally. The head of one of them was afterward found, severed from the body, attached to a fish-hook, and hung upon a nail. His son, a young man of twenty-four years, was also killed. Mr. Massipost and a son of eight years escaped to New Ulm."[27]:141

"The daughter of Mr. Schwandt, enceinte [pregnant], was cut open, as was learned afterward, the child taken alive from the mother, and nailed to a tree. The son of Mr. Schwandt, aged thirteen years, who had been beaten by the Indians, until dead, as was supposed, was present, and saw the entire tragedy. He saw the child taken alive from the body of his sister, Mrs. Waltz, and nailed to a tree in the yard. It struggled some time after the nails were driven through it! This occurred in the forenoon of Monday, 18th of August, 1862."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakota_War_of_1862

There is no doubt the US treated the Indians badly and reneged on virtually every treaty we signed with them. But no matter how badly you are being screwed over, if you decide to go on a murderous rampage, don't be surprised if you get punished for it. This was not a racist lynching of 30 peaceful Indians. This wasn't Wounded Knee or Sand Creek.

[Fawke Em]

12. I think you missed the point.

The intruders were the Europeans and the Natives were simply trying to defend the land that was theirs for hundreds of years.

[denverbill]

15. No the point of the post I was replying to was that this hanging proved northerners were racists.

Hanging 30 out of 300 people who had killed 800 people during a months long murderous rampage hardly makes Minnesotans in the 1860's racist. They may well have been racist, but the fact that 30 people involved in the murders were executed hardly proves that fact.

I'm not arguing about whether America was justified in its treatment of the Indians or what means are justified in attempting to defend your homeland.

[Marrah_G]

14. ummm wow.....

[denverbill]

19. Well argued!! Bravo!!

I've changed my mind after all. This mass hanging proves those racist Minnesotans were just as bad as the southerners who lynched blacks, just as ParkieDem stated.

[Flaxbee]

2. Yes, but, Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Or, a holiday celebrating mass delusion.

[CountAllVotes]

3. Hitler learned his lessons from America

Last edited Thu Nov 29, 2012, 11:19 PM - Edit history (1)

Those concentration camps were not of Hitler's own mind, he studied America the Beautiful and decided they had A WORKING METHOD/PLAN to be rid of a race of people that were deemed to be unnecessary needing to be rid of. We know all about this don't we?
GENOCIDE OF A RACE is what has and continues to occur to Indian people in America.

Some may say, "continues to occur .. wtf?". Yes, ever been to an Indian reservation? Not nice places to see and no, you really don't want to go there.

[B2G]

4. No, that would be Waco

Sad, both.

[ieoeja]

17. Suicide by cop is not an execution. n/t

[Nevernose]

18. Except the fact that the Branch Davidians

Were recorded ordering that the building be soaked in gasoline and kerosine. Except for that, you'd be right.

[CountAllVotes]

5. not the worst

Trail of Tears = at least 4,000 or probably more than likely 10,000 IMO.

Sand Creek Massacre = 150 Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians were killed *admitted #'s* -- most were women and children and the elderly
The Battle of Wounded Knee = some estimates placed the number of dead at 300 (I'd say triple this figure too).

This list goes on and on.

I saw a program the other day and an Indian man that is a tribal leader said that the U.S. government managed to eliminate 5,000,000 people from the United States with their semi-failed "Indian policies". The government admits to a mere 100,000. I cry B.S.!!

From all of this killing and murder have we learned any lessons is my question? It seems not as the hatred goes on and Indian people, many who still live identified as "white" continues on, many living lives shrouded in secrecy, and yes, I know some like this and not all of them are necessarily old in age. How sad, how damn sad can it get?

If this be the policy [genocide] of this government toward
this people, it will form a dark page of history, if it does not
bring the vengeance of heaven upon us as a nation.
- Anonymous letter to the editor
Los Angeles Star (1853)

[dbackjon]

16. Mountain Meadows Massacre

121 Men, Women and Children massacred by Mormon Militia in 1857

[underoath]

9. It's so sad that this was common practice of nations back in the day.

I'm glad I live in a different time.

[onethatcares]

10. yeah, now we'd

just use drones and wait for the re release of "Red Dawn"


I'm not sure I want to use the sarcasm tag or not on this one.

[underoath]

11. what?

[onethatcares]

13. now when we invade countries

we do it for their own good and anyone that might not like that idea becomes an insurgent. At that point all males over a certain age become targets, along with gatherings of people for funerals and weddings. It's our quiet way of waging war.

my reference to Red Dawn is that it's coming out again shortly and a lot of rightwing patriots(?)
like to use that film to depict how they would act if our country was invaded.

Maybe my sense of humor is starting to go. I apologize.