Talk:Dakota War of 1862

message: I was asked by an editor in the Minnesota Project to review this article.  It had multiple issues.  The leade had a number of them.    It claims the Mdewakanton were affected more than the other tribes by the treaties with the US Government which is a NPOV issue.  It failed to identify that the US Government's response to the the hostilities was actually the response that the State of Minnesota mounted as a surrogate for the Federal Government.  That failure was an issue of stating historic fact.  The article stated that the hangings at Mankato were the single largest executions in US history without stating Lincoln granted the largest "mass commutation" prior.  That is another NPOV issue.  The leade closes by calling the massacre at the Lower Sioux Agency a battle.  That is a falsehood that is stated as fact.  That is problematic for an Encyclopedia.  The article itself failed to address the war crimes committed by both sides.  The war has a notoriety for violence upon civilians that is presented in a sanitized narrative.  Overall there is a pov problem with promoting sanitized historic facts.  The inclusion of the annual Mankato Pow-wow is inappropriate.  The Pow-wow is done to honor the Mdewakanton executed as heroes and martyrs that some Americans see as baby killers, rapists, and murders.  Wikipedia is an inappropriate place for the acrimony.
* The article had multiple duplicate in-line links.  
* The article cited multiple sources for the same fact.
* The article did not have a NPOV.  It used the color "white" to describe one race with out using color for opposing side.  Stating color is racist.  The article also used the term "mixed-race" which some readers find racist. 
* The word "Dakota" is used in both the title and the text which is inaccurate and inappropriate and possibly insulting for the non-involved tribes. First, "Dakota" is the American spelling of the word Dacotah.  Second, "Dakota" refers to all Dacotah people when only two of the six tribes identified as Dacotah were involved.  Third, using "Dakota" paints all Dacotah people with the War Crimes committed by the Mdewaketon and their allies.  The historic narrative states the Wahapton, Sissiton, Upper Yanktonai, and Yankton, were not involved.  The warring parties were the State of Minnesota and the Mdewaketon not the U.S. and all Dakota people.
* The article states the Sisseton and Whapeton were against the hostilities but fails to mention the some initially joined the Mdewakanton or that the the men that stole the eggs were Whapeton.
*There was a failure to inform the "notoriety" of the War in both the historic narrative or in the current presentism written.
* There was a failure to use the words "Massacre" or "Murder" to describe the killing of unarmed noncombatants.   The article made no mention that 30% of those murdered were children under 10 years of age.   The article failed to identify the other War Crimes committed by the Mdewaketon: rape, mutilation, and child endangerment.  
* Two men were charged with rape.   The article says those allegations are challenged, but fails to inform the source is clearly not neutral.   Rape was a taboo subject for polite conversation in 1862, but both Margaret Cardinal and Hattie Williams testified before the tribunal and identified their assailants.  May Schwandt was 14 and is identified the victim of a gang rape in the MHS records in the 1890s.  Mrs. Julia Wright was raped and did not identify her assailant.  A child was produced, for which her husband abandoned her.   The article did not mention there is no record of how many females chose silence or were rejected by their husbands/family's upon being released nor does it mention that some females suffered personality changes attributed to their captivity. 
* The article failed to identify the consequences of Lincoln's not doing anything  politically or ethically. 
* The article failed to inform that the Minnesota Historical Society promoted continued animosities by displaying Little Crow's skull and scalp as barbarous War trophies.  
* The article presented the War Crimes as conventional warfare in the "Initial hostilities" section.
* The article refers to Little Crow's men as soldiers instead of warriors when they had no military background.
* The article was written with "censored" language conveying a "cleansed" history.   
* The article stated that the Dakota lost their rights to the Pipestone quarry in 1853 when the quarry was not on their land.  It was on Yankton land and they were not included in any treaties in 1853.
* The article failed to address Lincoln's consternation regarding the: trials, military commission, charges, and verdicts.  
* The article failed to specify which warriors were executed in error.
* The article described trial length issues of military commission as though they applied to all the trials.
* It failed to provide the War crime context of today that did not exist: accessory, aiding and abetting, and child endangerment.  It failed to inform that 80 years before the Geneva Conventions were drafted Lincoln created his own to review the 303 cases and commute the 264 that he did.  
* It failed to inform that Lincoln separated the cases for rape, civilian massacres(war crimes) vs. military battles(killings). 
* The article also fails to inform that three of the executed were bi-racial and one was Caucasian.
* A historian was cited for saying that "it is a myth that all the Dakota were involved" without providing any documentation of the existence of the "myth".
* The article stated that Gen. Pope struggled to get Federal troops, but failed to inform that both Iowa and Wisconsin sent USV units.  It also fails to inform that the troops the U.S provided were U.S. USV not U.S. Army.
* The article failed to inform that the woman were transferred from the Lower Sioux Agency by wagon to the Fort Snelling encampment.
* The article failed to inform of the militarization of the Minnesota frontier or the creation of the daily mounted patrols or that they continued until 1866.  The war did not end with the surrender at Camp Release, it ended when the State ceased the daily patrols.
* The section listing "Primary Sources" was dropped for being a MOS issue.Mcb133aco (talk)mcb133Mcb133aco (talk)
:: You didn't sign your post. Many of the issues you presented could have been "fixed" with a simple adjustment of text or addition of text, it didn't need to be rewritten in such a manner that creates a number of POV issues with your own perception of history. One example of your lack of NPOV is your claim that Little Crow and his men were warriors and not soldiers -- they are akicita in Dakota, which translates to soldier in the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate online dictionary and they were trained from young ages to be akicita. I would then question how many US soldiers were actually trained to be military? I've read journals of American soldiers in the military during the Sioux wars and it doesn't paint a picture of a trained military, especially compared to the Dakota men. Another thing is you seem to have an issue with the spelling "Dakota" when the tribes themselves use it? And that it's used almost everywhere else on Wikipedia. Or are you proposing to change the title of the page too even though the Minnesota History Society uses Dakota War of 1862? This is another way you are pushing your own personal POV rather than rely on the sources. And even if Mdewakanton Dakota were the ones who started the war with the Euro-settlers, all Dakota faced the consequences and were blamed by the MN/US government so it's a mute point to try and erase the other Dakota bands who suffered too. Simply add NPOV sentences with the sources for the information you feel is missing rather than rewrite the article.  oncamera  (talk page) 22:08, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: @Oncamera @Mcb133aco Maybe we could go through each point which Mcb133aco has raised, one point at a time (or grouped by topic)? Some of the points are straightforward to address; for others we may be able to incorporate some of the work that Mcb133aco has done in User space. Still other points are highly controversial, as Oncamera has pointed out, and may be issues that Wikipedia cannot solve, as the encyclopedia needs to maintain a neutral point of view. But maybe if we take each point in sequence (or group them by sub-topic), we can have a more meaningful discussion and keep improving the article, rather than jumping around or completely overwriting the page unilaterally? Cielquiparle (talk) 20:19, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, that's the intention of my reply. Some of them simply won't work on Wikipedia and others can be resolved by just adjusting or adding text to the current article.  oncamera  (talk page) 20:41, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Issues of the Dakota War of 1862 article

message: Regarding @Mcb133aco's following concern (Point 23 in "Issues" list above):
* The article failed to inform that the woman were transferred from the Lower Sioux Agency by wagon to the Fort Snelling encampment.
This is an excellent point. Explanation of how the women were transferred to Fort Snelling is indeed missing from the article entirely. I am now checking various sources to see how we can best add it (i.e., it's about more than just the means of transport.) Cielquiparle (talk) 11:34, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: *Added paragraph. See section on "Pike Island internment".  Cielquiparle (talk) 10:36, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Relocation to Fort Snelling encampment (Point 23) 

message: Speaking of Iowa, I haven't been able to find any sources for these two units, so I've removed them from the Article page:
* 1st Lieutenant Christopher Hansen's company "Cedar Valley Rangers" of the 5th Iowa State Militia, Mitchell County, Iowa
* Other elements of the 5th and 6th Iowa State Militia
You will find other wikis and web sites that list those units, but it looks like those web pages probably got the information from Wikipedia, so it's a self-reinforcing loop with no actual reliable source behind it. (I tagged it as "citation needed" back in June 2021. I have also looked through Iowa history books on the civil war period.) If someone ever manages to find sources, we can put them back. Cielquiparle (talk) 15:24, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Iowa state militia – no sources found 

message: Good catch by @Mcb133aco:
* The article stated that the Dakota lost their rights to the Pipestone quarry in 1853 when the quarry was not on their land. It was on Yankton land and they were not included in any treaties in 1853.
The Pipestone Quarry reference has now been removed from the article.  Cielquiparle (talk) 22:19, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Note: But the problem remains that that section of the article needs work, especially in light of the lack of sourcing. Will take a look at it again after working through the other points from the list.  Cielquiparle (talk) 06:06, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: The MHS does not have this history in order.  I have pointed out to them that when the treaties were written, the 1842 Nicollet map of the upper Mississippi basin was used.  That map is an amazing piece of work.  However, the boundary between the Yankton and Sissiton tribes is not clearly marked.  Gov. Ramsey assumed the geographical feature of the Big Sioux River was the boundary when it was not.  From sources in Germany, it appears that the Yankton land went as far east as the Jeffers Petroglyphs.  The Government felt there was enough legitimacy to the Yankton claim that Minnesota was not able to be made a state until the Yankton signed their treaty one month before Minnesota statehood.  The first paragraph is worded so as to cover all Yankton land claims giving the U.S. free and clear title to create the state.  The Yankton would not sign without Section 8 which gave them a one mile square reservation at the Pipestone quarry.  Any claim that the land was eastern Dacotah is fiction.  The Yanktonai claimed the land from Granite Falls to the Missouri River, but there is no record that any effort was made to address what amounted to the theft of it.Mcb133aco (talk) 20:51, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rights to Pipestone Quarry (Point 14) 

message: Regarding the comment from @Mcb133aco that:
* The article failed to inform that the Minnesota Historical Society promoted continued animosities by displaying Little Crow's skull and scalp as barbarous War trophies.
I have now added prose to the sub-section on "Escape and death of Little Crow" conveying this, quoting Dr. Asa Daniels who said it "reflects sadly on the humanity of Christian people", as well as his grandson indirectly (as "barbarous War trophies" is not exactly something we can assert in Wikipedia voice).  Cielquiparle (talk) 21:48, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: *This edit fails to inform or address the point concerning a Minnesota War crime.Mcb133aco (talk) 15:25, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

text: *:@Mcb133aco I have all your Lincoln, military commission, war crimes, and execution bulletpoints all grouped together (hugely important but also interrelated), so that will follow shortly (and will take a while to work through but it definitely needs some work within the article).  Cielquiparle (talk) 20:48, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Little Crow's remains (Point 10) 

message: Per @Mcb133aco:
* The article states the Sisseton and Whapeton were against the hostilities but fails to mention the some initially joined the Mdewakanton or that the the men that stole the eggs were Whapeton.
The actual story is slightly complicated, but has now been addressed at the top of the Section titled "War", with citations. This was a good flag, as that sub-section definitely needed to be fixed.  Cielquiparle (talk) 17:49, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sisseton and Wahpeton involvement (Point 5) 

message: I've split @Mcb133aco's Point 7 above into three separate sub-points. Here are Points 7 & 7a.
* There was a failure to use the words "Massacre" or "Murder" to describe the killing of unarmed noncombatants. The article made no mention that 30% of those murdered were children under 10 years of age. 
The third part, Point 7b, will be covered in the following section. More to follow.  Cielquiparle (talk) 18:03, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Massacre (Points 7 & 7a) 

message: Regarding the following point from @Mcb133aco's list:
* The article refers to Little Crow's men as soldiers instead of warriors when they had no military background.
This already been addressed in the initial response from @Oncamera under "Issues of the Dakota War of 1862" article. Both sides had soldiers with little "military background" and there are many sources cited referring to Dakota soldiers.  Cielquiparle (talk) 06:27, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Terminology issue re: Dakota soldiers (Point 12) 

message: https://abc7chicago.com/president-abraham-lincoln-statue-edgewater-senn-park/12492964/
Victor Grigas (talk) 02:23, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chicago graffiti 

message: As presently written it's hard to keep track of the movements of the various Dakota bands in early September 1862 in particular. Were the same Dakota warriors at the Battle of Acton and Birch Coulee, or was it a different band? How about the unrest in Iowa and North Dakota? Presumably there are multiple groups acting semi-autonomously here, but that needs to be stated explicitly one way or the other.
I realize the addition of references to the Battles of Acton, Forest City, and Hutchinson probably worsened this confusion, but it was strange to have them in the infobox and mentioned nowhere in the body of the article. Jbt89 (talk) 06:15, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: During the time period, it was nearly impossible to determine who was involved that's why Lincoln pardoned so many. It's also why Sully was non-discriminating in his attacks, including in what the Dakota call a massacre during the Battle of Whitestone Hill.  oncamera  (talk page) 12:56, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

text: The Dakota who fought at Acton were under the Bands of Little Crow. The four bands at Birch Coulee were under Big Eagle, Mankato, and a few others.  Ironmarshal1805 (talk) 17:39, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chronology in Early September