1862 Mankato mass execution

Hanging of 38 Dakota men by the United States government May 2026 1862 Mankato mass execution Execution of 38 Sioux Indians at Mankato Minnesota 1862 (cleaned).jpg Drawing of the 1862 mass hanging in Mankato, Minnesota 1862 12 26 Mankato, Minnesota, U.S. 44 10 02 N 94 00 11 W region:US-MN_type:event inline,title aftermath of the 1862 Dakota War Execution of 38 Dakota men by the U.S. federal government Largest single-day mass execution in American history United States 1861 United States Union Army State of Minnesota Dakota (Santee Sioux) Abraham Lincoln (ordered execution) Henry Hastings Sibley Stephen Miller None (prisoners of war) 1,500–2,000 soldiers (guarding execution) 38 prisoners None 38 hanged (2 executed by mistake) An estimated 4,000 civilian spectators attended. Following the Dakota War of 1862, the U.S. government executed 38 Dakota men in Mankato, Minnesota, on December 26, 1862, in the largest mass execution in American history.Anderson, Gary Clayton (2019). Massacre in Minnesota: The Dakota War of 1862, the Most Violent Ethnic Conflict in American History. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. 978-0-8061-6434-2107 In the course of the conflict, 358 American settlers, 77 soldiers, and 36 militia had been killed.Clodfelter Micheal D. The Dakota War: The United States Army Versus the Sioux, 1862–1865 2006 McFarland Publishing 978-0-7864-2726-0 67 A military commission assembled in the aftermath carried out rushed trials of the Dakota men, some lasting only minutes, and ultimately sentencing 307 to death. All but four death sentences were confirmed by Colonel Henry Hastings Sibley.Chomsky Carol 1990 The United States–Dakota War Trials: A Study in Military Injustice https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1230&context=faculty_articles 26 December 2018 Stanford Law Review University of Minnesota Law School 21 July 2017 https://web.archive.org/web/20170721021444/http://scholarship.law.umn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1230&context=faculty_articles live President Abraham Lincoln then reviewed the cases, commuting 264 sentences but approving 39 executions, one later reprieved, amid pressure from Minnesota officials for harsher punishment.https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/message-the-senate-responding-the-resolution-regarding-indian-barbarities-the-state Message to the Senate Responding to the Resolution Regarding Indian Barbarities in the State of Minnesota Lincoln Abraham 11 December 1862 The American Presidency Project University of California, Santa Barbara 26 December 2018 The executions, conducted on a specially built gallows before 4,000 spectators, were guarded by 2,000 troops due to local hostility.Lincoln and the Hanging of 38 Sioux, 1862, American History: Western Exploration & Native Americans, Bad Ideas, JF Ptak Science Books LLC, John F. Ptak https://web.archive.org/web/20250318082120/https://longstreet.typepad.com/thesciencebookstore/2009/07/jf-ptak----the-great-mystery-was-how-those--indians-were-smuggled-out-of-the-grave-in-spite-of-the-watchfulness-of-those--gu.html 2025-03-18 A 1912 monument to the hangings was removed in 1971 amid protests, and today, the Mankato Pow-wow and memorial rides honor the executed.251 Background During the 1862 Dakota War, Dakota men attacked over 500 white settlers and took hundreds of "mixed-blood" and white hostages, almost all women and children, causing thousands more to flee southern Minnesota.Anderson, Gary Clayton (2019). Massacre in Minnesota: The Dakota War of 1862, the Most Violent Ethnic Conflict in American History. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. 978-0-8061-6434-2107During the War https://www.usdakotawar.org/history/war/during-war live 2021-07-30 The US–Dakota War of 1862 August 22, 2012 https://web.archive.org/web/20121103054646/http://www.usdakotawar.org:80/history/war/during-war November 3, 2012 Brown Samuel J. Through Dakota Eyes: Narrative Accounts of the Minnesota Indian War of 1862 Minnesota Historical Society Press 1897 978-0-87351-216-9 St. Paul 1988 222–223, 225 Chapter IX, Narrative 1 (Samuel J. Brown's Recollections) By the end of the war, 358 settlers had been killed, in addition to 77 soldiers and 36 volunteer militia and armed civilians killed in battle.Clodfelter Micheal The Dakota War: The United States Army Versus the Sioux, 1862–1865 McFarland & Company 1998 0-7864-2726-4 Jefferson, North Carolina and LondonWingerd, North Country (2010) p. 400 n 4. The total number of Dakota casualties is unknown, but 150 Dakota men died in battle. Approximately 2,000 Dakota surrendered or were taken into custody at Fort Snelling, including at least 1,658 non-combatants, as well as those who had opposed the war and helped to free the hostages.233 Trials On September 27, 1862, Colonel Henry Hastings Sibley ordered the creation of a military commission to conduct trials of the Dakota after the Dakota War of 1862. One year later, the judge advocate general determined that Sibley did not have the authority to convene trials of the Dakota due to his level of prejudice and that his actions had violated Article 65 of the United States Articles of War. However, by then the executions had already occurred, and the American Civil War continued to distract the U.S. government.Anderson, Gary Clayton (2019). Massacre in Minnesota: The Dakota War of 1862, the Most Violent Ethnic Conflict in American History. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. 978-0-8061-6434-2214–215 The trials themselves were deficient in many ways, even by military standards, and the officers who oversaw them did not conduct them according to military law.April 2025 The 400-odd trials commenced on September 28, 1862, and were completed on November 3; some lasted less than 5 minutes. No one explained the proceedings to the defendants, nor were the Dakota represented by defense attorneys.July 2022 The trials were also conducted in an atmosphere of extreme racist hostility towards the defendants expressed by the citizenry, the elected officials of the state of Minnesota, and the men conducting the trials themselves. By November 3, the military commission had held trials of 392 Dakota men, with as many as 42 tried in a single day. By November 7 the verdicts were in; the military commission announced that 307 Dakota prisoners had been convicted of the crimes of murder and rape and were sentenced to death. Sibley confirmed all but four of the death sentences.Carley Kenneth The Dakota War of 1862: Minnesota's Other Civil War Minnesota Historical Society Press 1976 978-0-87351-392-0 St. Paul71 President Lincoln was informed by Maj. Gen. John Pope of the sentences on November 10, 1862, in a telegraphic dispatch from Minnesota. His response to Pope was: "Please forward, as soon as possible, the full and complete record of these convictions. And if the record does not indicate the more guilty and influential, of the culprits, please have a careful statement made on these points and forwarded to me. Please send all by mail."Lincoln Abraham 10 November 1862 To John Pope https://books.google.com/books?id=Q4ysBXMyg8UC&pg=PA493 Wildside Press, LLC 493 978-1-4344-7707-1 When the death sentences were made public, Henry Benjamin Whipple, the Episcopal bishop of Minnesota and a reformer of U.S. Indian policy, responded by publishing an open letter. He also went to Washington, D.C. in the fall of 1862 to urge Lincoln to proceed with leniency.History Matters Minnesota Historical Society March–April 2008 1 On the other hand, General Pope and Minnesota Senator Morton S. Wilkinson warned Lincoln that the white population opposed leniency. Governor Alexander Ramsey warned Lincoln that, unless all 303 Dakota were executed, "[P]rivate revenge would on all this border take the place of official judgment on these Indians."Abraham Lincoln The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln https://books.google.com/books?id=Q4ysBXMyg8UC 2008 Wildside Press LLC 978-1-4344-7707-1 493 Lincoln completed his review of the transcripts of the 303 trials with the help of two White House lawyers in under a month.251 On December 11, 1862, he addressed the Senate regarding his final decision (as he had been requested to do by a resolution passed by that body on December 5, 1862): Anxious to not act with so much clemency as to encourage another outbreak on the one hand, nor with so much severity as to be real cruelty on the other, I caused a careful examination of the records of trials to be made, in view of first ordering the execution of such as had been proved guilty of violating females. Contrary to my expectations, only two of this class were found. I then directed a further examination, and a classification of all who were proven to have participated in massacres, as distinguished from participation in battles. This class numbered forty, and included the two convicted of female violation. One of the number is strongly recommended by the Commission which tried them for commutation to ten years' imprisonment. I have ordered the other thirty-nine to be executed on Friday, the 19th instant."https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/message-the-senate-responding-the-resolution-regarding-indian-barbarities-the-state Message to the Senate Responding to the Resolution Regarding Indian Barbarities in the State of Minnesota Lincoln Abraham 11 December 1862 The American Presidency Project University of California, Santa Barbara 26 December 2018 27 December 2018 https://web.archive.org/web/20181227084738/https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/message-the-senate-responding-the-resolution-regarding-indian-barbarities-the-state live In the end, Lincoln commuted the death sentences of 264 prisoners and allowed the execution of 39 men. On December 23, however, Lincoln suspended the execution of one of the 39 condemned men, Tatemima (Round Wind), after Sibley telegraphed him that new information led him to doubt the prisoner's guilt. Thus, the number of condemned men was reduced to the final 38.July 2022 Even partial clemency resulted in protests from Minnesota, which persisted until the Secretary of the Interior offered white Minnesotans "reasonable compensation for the depredations committed."Donald David Herbert https://books.google.com/books?id=fuTY3mxs9awC&dq=%22reasonable+compensation+for+the+depredations+committed%22+sioux+uprising+minnesota&pg=PA396 Lincoln 1995 Simon and Schuster 978-0-684-82535-9 en Republicans did not fare as well in Minnesota in the 1864 election as they had before. Ramsey (by then a senator) informed Lincoln that more hangings would have resulted in a larger electoral majority. The President reportedly replied, "I could not afford to hang men for votes." Execution Companies D, E, and H of the 9th Minnesota, Companies A, B, F, G, H, and K 10th Minnesota and the 1st Minnesota Cavalry were part of the 2,000 man military guard for the 38 prisoners hanged December 26, 1862, in Mankato, Minnesota.9th Regiment, Minnesota Infantry, The Civil War – Battle Unit Details, Union Minnesota Volunteers, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior website 10th Regiment, Minnesota Infantry, The Civil War – Battle Unit Details, Union Minnesota Volunteers, National Park Service, Department of Interior website https://web.archive.org/web/20250318040904/https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/search-battle-units-detail.htm%3FbattleUnitCode%3DUMN0010RI 2025-03-18 It remains the largest single-day mass execution in American history. The size of the guard force was dictated by the numbers of angry Minnesotans encamped at Mankato and the concern of what they wanted to do to the prisoners not being hanged. thumb|Wa-kan-o-zhan-zhan (Medicine Bottle) right|thumb|150px|Hanging of Little Six and Medicine Bottle 1865 The execution was public, on a square platform designed to drop from under the condemned. According to a witness, "As the last moment rapidly approached, they each called out their name and shouted in their native language: 'I’m here! I’m here!'"Elder Robert K. Robert K. Elder 2010-12-14 Execution 150 Years Ago Spurs Calls for Pardon https://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/14/us/14dakota.html 2026-06-14 The New York Times en-US 0362-4331 2025-07-16 https://web.archive.org/web/20250716210026/https://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/14/us/14dakota.html live The gallows was built around the outside of the square with ten nooses per side. After the regimental surgeons pronounced the men dead, they were buried en masse in an unfrozen sand bar of the Minnesota River. Before they were buried, an unknown person nicknamed "Dr. Sheardown" possibly removed some of the prisoners' skin.https://www.nps.gov/subjects/nagpra/index.htm Notice of Inventory Completion for Native American Human Remains from Mankato, MN in the Possession of the Public Museum of Grand Rapids, Grand Rapids, MI April 28, 2007 National Park Service April 8, 2000 live https://web.archive.org/web/20061013073642/http://www.cr.nps.gov/nagpra/fed_notices/nagpradir/nic0342.html 13 October 2006 Despite having a large guard force posted at the grave-site, all of the bodies were exhumed and taken away the first night. At least three Dakota leaders escaped north to the Red River Colony. In January 1864, Little Six and Medicine Bottle were kidnapped, drugged and taken back across the border to Fort Pembina, where they were arrested by Major Edwin A. C. Hatch.Folwell William https://archive.org/details/historyofminneso02folw/page/442/mode/2up A History of Minnesota Minnesota Historical Society 1921 2 St. Paul 443–450 Hatch's Independent Battalion of Cavalry took the two chiefs to Fort Snelling, where they were tried and later hanged in November 1865.Civil War Military Units from Minnesota: Hatch's Independent Battalion https://libguides.mnhs.org/cwmu/cavalryhatch 2022-04-08 Gale Family Library – Minnesota Historical SocietyWinks, Robin W. (1960). The Civil War Years: Canada and the United States, Baltimore : Johns Hopkins Press, 1960, p. 174. Little Leaf managed to evade capture.July 2022 thumb|Monument indicating where the thirty-eight Dakota were hanged following the U.S.–Dakota War of 1862, Mankato, Minnesota. Placed in 1912, it was removed in 1971. Medical aftermath Because of the high demand for cadavers for anatomical study, several doctors wanted to obtain the bodies after the execution. The grave was reopened in the night and the bodies were distributed among the doctors. William Worrall Mayo received the body of Maȟpiya Akan Nažiŋ (Stands on Clouds), also known as "Cut Nose".Learn Minnesota Historical Society November 4, 2008 https://www.mnhs.org/mayohouse/learn December 27, 2022 February 7, 2025 https://web.archive.org/web/20250207124405/https://www.mnhs.org/mayohouse/learn live Mayo brought the body of Maȟpiya Akan Nažiŋ to Le Sueur, Minnesota, where he dissected it in the presence of medical colleagues.Clapesattle Helen The Doctors Mayo Mayo Clinic 2nd 1969 Rochester, MN 978-5-555-50282-7 Helen Clapesattle77–78 November 2012 Afterward, he had the skeleton cleaned, dried and varnished. Mayo kept it in an iron kettle in his home office. His sons received their first lessons in osteology based on this skeleton.167 November 2012 In 1998, the identifiable remains of Maȟpiya Akan Nažiŋ and other Dakota were returned by the Mayo Clinic to a Dakota tribe for reburial per the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. The Mayo Clinic created a scholarship for a Native American student as apology for having misused the chief's body. Star Tribune In hopes of healing, Mayo created a scholarship as apology for misuse of Dakota leader's body Matt McKinney https://www.startribune.com/in-hopes-of-healing-mayo-creates-scholarship-as-apology-for-misuse-of-dakota-leader-s-body/493786941/ 19 September 2018 live 5 January 2021 https://web.archive.org/web/20200809123915/https://www.startribune.com/in-hopes-of-healing-mayo-creates-scholarship-as-apology-for-misuse-of-dakota-leader-s-body/493786941/ 9 August 2020 Dakota Wars, Then and Now 5 September 2017 Nightfall https://nightfall.blackblogs.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/236/2017/07/NIGHTFALL-SEVEN.pdf live https://web.archive.org/web/20201027222034/https://nightfall.blackblogs.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/236/2017/07/NIGHTFALL-SEVEN.pdf 27 October 2020 5 January 2021 7 2 References Category:Dakota War of 1862 Category:19th-century executions by the United States military Category:Executed Native American people Category:Mankato, Minnesota Category:People executed by the United States military by hanging Category:Presidency of Abraham Lincoln Category:Violence against men in the United States Category:Anti-Indigenous racism in Minnesota