38 Nooses: Lincoln, Little Crow, and the Beginning of the Frontier's End
The first large-scale military conflict with the so-called Sioux Nation did not occur after the Civil War nor take place on the buffalo-laden Great Plains. In 1862, the various bands of the Dakota, or eastern Sioux, fed up with broken treaties and the delay of promised annuities, rose up in an orgy of violence that terrorized white settlements in Minnesota. When it was suppressed, hundreds of settlers and Dakota were dead, the Dakota were forcibly relocated, and 38 leaders of the rebellion were executed in a mass hanging. As Berg indicates, the grievances and the clumsy, confused, and vindictive responses of the military and federal government set a pattern for the further tragedies that characterizes the wars against the Plains Indians. Although Berg’s sympathies are clearly with the Dakota, he avoids preaching and strives successfully to present a balanced narrative of the conflict while providing excellent portrayals of some of the key participants. This is a valuable but understandably depressing account of an obscure but important episode in our history. --Jay Freeman