Soldiers to the Rescue

Toward the end of August 1862, the officials in Minnesota had calmed down enough to organize a militia under Henry Hastings Sibley (not the Confederate general).  On September 23 Sibley and 1000 men caught up with Little Crow and his warriors near Wood Lake.  Many of the warriors escaped, including Little Crow who was killed by a farmer soon after.  Sibley rounded up 2000 Sioux as prisoners and released those whites being held captive. 

In Mankato, 392 captured Sioux were given a quick trial, found guilty and sentenced to death.  Most of Minnesota was eager to see the Indians hung, but Episcopal Bishop Henry Whipple appealed to President Lincoln for mercy, "I ask that the  people shall lay the blame where it belongs and demand the reform of an atrocious system which has garnered for us anguish and blood." 

Lincoln did commute the sentences of those who only fought in battle, but on December 26, 1862, 38 braves were hung simultaneously from a common scaffold in Mankato for rape and murder.  After the uprising 1700 Sioux who had not even participated were held at Fort Snelling before being moved to a reservation in Nebraska.  A few raids continued into the summer of 1863, but for the most part the uprising was over.  The struggle between white settlers and the Native Indians had only begun however.

As one Sioux Chief said 30 years later in Pioneer Press "If the Indians had tried to make the whites live like them, the whites would have resisted and it was the same with the many Indians.  They brought goods of traders on credit, and when the government payments did not come, the traders were on hand with their books showing the Indians owed so much.  The Indians kept no books so they could not deny their accounts and the traders sometimes took all their money.  I know that many white men often thought the accounts too larger and they go to law, the Indians could not go to law." 
Chief - Mdewakanton Sioux, July 1, 1894.

Next time...Colorado's Turn
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Today in Pioneer History: "On December 7, 1787, the first state, Delaware is unanimously ratified by all 30 delegates to the Delaware Constitutional Convention.