On December 26, 1862, 158 years ago today, thirty-eight Dakota men were hanged in Mankato, Minnesota, in what remains the largest mass execution in United States history. The hangings were ordered by President Abraham Lincoln in response to the series of battles between U.S. and Dakota forces commonly known as the U.S. – Dakota War of 1862.
Like most federal policies regarding Native populations throughout American history, the Nelson Act was marked by fraud, corruption, and greed. It unilaterally broke all previous treaties with the Ojibwe and further impoverished already desperate communities.
I am looking for Beta Readers for my current Work-in-Progress, an alternative history novel titled, The Land of Sky-Tinted Waters. This novel represents a departure from my previous publications. Rather than fictionalize history while leaning strongly toward known facts, I have created a complete reimagining of history that leans strongly toward character and setting….
As a Minnesotan who has dedicated much time to researching and understanding Minnesota’s early history, I found Slavery’s Reach to be thoroughly enlightening and achingly tragic.
What if the past had turned out differently? What if the outcomes of history were flipped—changed completely? What would the world look like today? The U.S.–Dakota War of 1862 was a watershed event in Minnesota and American history with tragic and long-lasting results. But what if the defeated were the victorious? What if Little…
Philander Prescott, who came to Minnesota in 1820, was one of many victims when war broke out on August 18, 1862.
As for my reaction as a white Minnesotan, I am unnerved, saddened, and, in a way, capitulating. It is undeniable that what happened to the Indigenous populations of Minnesota, America, and the Western Hemisphere was a crime against humanity. It was a genocide…
The treaty that was signed October 2, was not the first attempt to obtain the Red Lake and Pembina Ojibwe lands, nor was it the final agreement…
In 1868, the United States Government signed a treaty with various tribes of Lakota and Arapaho people in which they “set apart for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation” the region known as the Black Hills. But in 1877, the United States government illegally seized that land.
On November 29, 1864, approximately 700 U.S. army soldiers commanded by Colonel John Chivington, attacked some 1,000 Cheyenne and Arapaho people camped near Big Sandy Creek in eastern Colorado. It is estimated that between 150 and 500 Cheyenne and Arapaho were killed and mutilated, two-thirds of whom were women and children. The tragic event,…