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Date Posted: 09:04:59 01/03/02 Thu
Author: Richard B. Williams
Subject: Executions leave historic stain

Richard B. Williams: Executions leave historic stain

Richard B. Williams
Denver

Wednesday, January 02, 2002 - As a young man growing up in the Northern Plains, one of my heroes was Abraham Lincoln. That is, until as an adult, when I discovered how he ordered the hanging of 38 Indians simply for defending their land.

The story begins with the Sioux of Minnesota, who had been moved onto a reservation and then mistreated by the Indian agent Thomas Galbraith, who cheated the tribe out of its annuities and denied its members their food rations. Demanding the food that languished in warehouses, the Indians appealed to trader Andrew Myrick, who bluntly said, "Let them eat grass or let them eat their own dung." This incident typifies the treatment that Indian people received in the United States during that period of time, and was pivotal in the conflict between Indians and whites in the 1800s.

Starving and desperate, four young men stole some chicken eggs from a local farmer. In an ensuing skirmish, three whites wound up dead, inciting the Minnesota Indian War of 1862. The whites of Minnesota appealed to the President Lincoln to rid their state of the Indians, either by death or removal - even though the settlers had illegally moved onto land that belonged to the tribes. Gen. John Pope of Minnesota had captured some 1,500 Sioux during this conflict, 1,200 of whom were women and children, promising that if they gave up peacefully they would be treated as "friends." They instead became prisoners of war, and Pope said his intent was to "kill them all." On Nov. 5, 1862, a tribunal of the prisoners began with as many as 40 cases a day, some trials lasting only a few minutes. In one of the most illegal court proceedings in U.S. history, the defendants in the trials had no lawyers to represent them, nor were they allowed to bring any witnesses in their own defense. Few o!
f the
men on trial even knew the English language, and the interpreters were not even sworn in by the court.

Of the 1,500 on trial, 307 were sentenced to death.

Lincoln, with a thorough understanding of the injustice that was taking place, was torn between the loss of support in a key Northern state and offending foreign nations who might consider the executions unjust and ally themselves with the Confederacy. Neither of these options, of course, gave much care for the welfare of the Sioux. After conferring with his advisers, Lincoln chose 38 convictions from the list and ordered the executions.

At 10 a.m. on Dec. 26, the 38 Indian prisoners were marched onto a scaffold as civilians in the streets began to cheer. The Sioux warriors clasped hands and sang sacred songs to begin their journey to the spirit world as the scaffold fell. Their deaths are America's largest official mass execution, and are particularly scornful because of the utter lack of due process in obtaining the convictions.

Shortly after the hangings, all Indians were forced from Minnesota. In the following years, however, some of the tribes moved back to the area and settled, including the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux, who held on to a meager existence for the next 150 years. Now operating one of the most successful gaming institutions in the country, it is ironic that this small tribe, which was once defeated and exiled, is now a successful economic force in Minnesota. Rather than remain bitter, the members of the tribe have demonstrated their kindness and forgiveness by helping the people of Minnesota with employment and charitable gifts to the surrounding communities. They have overcome the role of history to get back on their feet, and are helping others. They are the true heroes in a story that gives new meaning to the "great American experience."

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