Drawing of the mass execution of 38 Dakota Indians, in Mankato, Minn. It was the largest mass execution in the history of the United States.

Dustin White
Editor

On Dec. 26, 1862, the largest mass execution in the United States history occurred. 38 Dakota prisoners were led to a specially constructed scaffold, and ultimately to their deaths, in Mankota, Minn.

The men were part of a group of 392 prisoners, who were tried after their surrender, which had happened just a couple of months earlier, on Sept. 26. Two days later, a commission of military officers was established.



The commission was tasked with trying Dakota men, who had been accused of participation in the Dakota way of 1862. Moving through the cases at an astonishing speed, the work was completed on Nov. 5, with all of the prisoners having been tired.

303 of the Dakota men were sentenced to death, while 16 were given prison terms. Not wanting to take on the responsibility of the execution, Henry Sibley, who established the commission, passed it on, ultimately to the President, Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln, and the government lawyers reviewed the transcripts of all 303 men.

“Anxious to not act with so much clemency as to encourage another outbreak on one hand, nor with so much severity as to be real cruelty on the other, I ordered a careful examination of the records of the trials to be made, in view of first ordering the execution of such as had been proved guilty of violating females,” Lincoln would later explain to the U.S. Senate.

Only two men would be found guilty of rape, and thus, Lincoln expanded his criteria to include those who participated in massacres. His final decision was a list of 39 names. At the last minute, one would be given a reprieve, after the evidence against him was discredited.

Little Crows wife and two children at the Fort Snelling Prison compound. Little Crow was a Dakota Chief, and while he initially sought peaceful solutions to the encroachments on his people’s land, a war would eventually break out.

Hanging
At 10 a.m., on the day after Christmas, the 38 Dakota men took their places on the scaffold. Signing a Dakota song, muslin covering were pulled over their heads.

Ax in hand, Captain William Duley would be responsible for cutting the rope, which held the platform. For half an hour, their bodies would hang, as an estimated 4,000 spectators filled the streets of Mankato.



Eventually, the bodies would be cut down, and hauled to a shallow mass grave between Mankato’s Main Street and the Minnesota River. For most, it would not be a final resting place, as their bodies would be dug up and used as medical cadavers.

It would later be discovered that two of the men hung that day were done so mistakenly. One, Wasicun, a young white man who was adopted by the Dakota, had been acquitted. The other, who went by Caske, a common name, stepped forward when he heard his name called, but had not been sentenced to execution.

Aftermath
The mass execution of the 38 Dakota men would have a long impact on the Dakota Territory. In the following year, more than one-quarter of the Dakota who surrendered in 1862 would pass away.

Some would die due to disease, while others were victims of a government who had put a price on their scalps.

Forced into exile, Dakota communities would be concentrated in several different areas. In North Dakota, it was at Devil’s Lake, on a reservation that would nearly result in their starvation and death.

The memory of the Dakota Conflict, or Sioux Uprising, as it was also called, would remain in the memory of early settlers in North Dakota. Prone to fears of possible Indian revolts, many on the new frontier would live with such a anxieties just boiling beneath the surface.

Later, combined with the defeat of George Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the situation in Dakota Territory was lending itself to a severe panic.

When the Ghost Dance was introduced, in 1890, that panic finally had what it needed to firmly take hold, and eventually lead to the death of Sitting Bull, and the massacre at Wounded Knee.

Over the next few days and weeks, we will be examining the history of the Indian Panic of 1890, and how it ties into the current protest against the Dakota Access Pipe Line.