Largest mass hanging in America

Controversial photo, allegedly of 38 Dakota hanged by Lincoln’s executive order in 1862. There appears to be 38 men in the photo, and they do appear to be in everyday clothes, not traditional dress attire as alleged by many questioning the authenticity of the photo.

NEW ULM, MN— Getting a clear picture of what actually happened in Minnesota starting on August 17, 1862 is becoming increasingly difficult given the misperceptions sure to form between historical revision and historical negation.
Historical revision can be a positive thing, as when what happened at Wounded Knee in 1890 is relabeled a massacre and not a battle. By calling it a battle, the soldiers are turned into hero warriors, but by relabeling it a massacre, which a fair minded scrutiny of the historical record reveals, the blame falls upon the government as perpetrator, and renders the act, heinous.
Sometimes the historical record is deliberately distorted for whatever unprincipled agenda drives the historian to distort. This practice is also often called historical revision, when it is more accurately described as historical negation. A prime example would be asserting the American Civil War was not about slavery, but economics. Certainly it was about economics, mainly the economics of slavery, which is why nearly every secession document submitted to Congress by the states of the Confederacy cites slavery as the number one reason for secession.
The conflict between the Dakota and the white settlers in Minnesota has many names: Sioux Uprising, Little Crow’s War, the Dakota War of 1862, and all of these labels serve to distort the historical perception of that conflict. Uprising is a rebellion against legitimate authority, something treacherous savages are said to do. Was this conflict a war? It was not perceived as such by the United States, or they would not have ordered the trial and execution of over 300 Dakota. To avoid confusion, from this point on, we will refer to it as the Conflict.
Both historical revision and historical negation apply to the 1862 Conflict. Revisionist historians are correct in asserting it was not an “uprising,” but a war, even if not recognized as war by the United States at the time. But historical negation has attempted to absolve the Dakota of any culpability for the deaths of hundreds and hundreds of people, while at the same time painting Lincoln out to be a cruel, cold-blooded enemy of Dakota people, who wantonly ordered the largest one-day mass execution in US history.
While much of the history of conflict between tribes and the European invaders requires massive, critical revision, unprincipled attempts at historical negation poorly serve that cause.
The prime example of the historical negation takes the form of an internet rumor, or eRumor. On the surface, many still scoff at the internet through the prism of 20th Century sensibility and discernment, not factoring in how profoundly daily internet activity now shapes our opinion and perception of reality. The eRumor consists of a photograph, allegedly of 39 men ordered to be executed by President Lincoln, for “treaty violations (hunting off their assigned reservation)”.
In reality, Lincoln ordered 38 men executed, the 39th received a last second reprieve because late arriving testimony convinced the court of his innocence. That they were executed for violating treaty hunting restrictions is a blatant lie. Some have asserted even the picture of the men about to be hanged is not of the 38 actually hanged, but this is probably false. There appear to be 38 men present on the scaffold and the assertion that “the men in the photo are dressed like Europeans, not Dakota. It’s highly unlikely that Minnesotans would have given Dakota men new pants, vests and coats before their execution,” doesn’t hold water. Looking at the photo yields no concrete evidence the men are dressed in anything but the rough clothes of the day.
The attempt by historical negationists to paint Lincoln as a villain is not borne out by the record or by the tenor of the time.
But before looking at the factors that led to Lincoln’s execution order, what actually happened during late August, 1862 to cause the Conflict?
The Dakota were living in dire hardship. Treaty obligated supplies had not arrived and would in any event be withheld by the Indian Agent until he could be properly paid for distribution. The supplies did arrive but too late before violence commenced. Andrew Jackson Myrick, a local merchant, is repudiated to have said, “So far as I am concerned, if they are hungry let them eat grass or their own dung.” There is no reason to think he did not say these words, although the context and circumstance is not clear, but one thing that is clear, is Little Crow thought he said them, and cited them as a reason for the Dakota anger. When violence broke out, it did not go well for the settlers. At least three towns were encircled and pretty much wiped out to a man, this included graphic descriptions of the death of women and children, in one case a pregnant woman cut open, and her baby nailed alive to a tree. New Ulm was twice laid to siege, many parts of the town burned.
Three battles were fought in those opening days between the Dakota and the Minnesota militia, and they did not go well for the militia. Only when overwhelming force arrived were the Lakota, hunkered down in a ravine, attacked and overwhelmed. The death estimates are spotty, but it seems just over a hundred Dakota died, and 177 soldiers, and between 600-800 settlers, and what isn’t understood by those who were not there, separated by over a century of history, is the terror that permeated that land, both for the Dakota and the settlers, but that terror is graphically present in the writings of those who participated on both sides.
It was in the context of that reality that Lincoln had to make his ruling. At this time, the Union forces under McClellan had been defeated by Lee and were in forced retreat down the Virginia Peninsula. Lincoln was losing the war. While Lincoln had said that if he could save the Union by not freeing a slave, he would, the fact is, he did free the slaves, he was the flag bearer of the abolitionist party.
Lincoln poured over the more than 300 death sentences, and managed to personally winnow them down to 39 people. He was assured by the governor of Minnesota that unless all 303 Dakota were executed, “[P]rivate revenge would on all this border take the place of official judgment on these Indians.”
When the governor informed Lincoln that had he executed all these men the Republicans would have fared far better in the state during the 1864 election, Lincoln replied, “I could not afford to hang men for votes.”
A mistake common to tribal people, and those that are engaging in historical negation, is to see Lincoln and the federal government as their principal enemy, instead of Governor Ramsey and the citizens of Minnesota. Twenty-four years after the 1862 Conflict the United States Supreme Court wrote that the greatest enemy for any tribe is the state in which they reside. This was true in 1862, and all of the Dakota in Minnesota were expelled save for a couple hundred who aided the settlers, or later returned and were allowed to stay. Until the turn of the 20th Century, popular sentiment throughout the states that contained Indian reservations was to abolish or expel at best, and exterminate at worst. It was in this reality that Lincoln had to make his decision, and in this reality that the Dakota, driven by desperation, risked a war that cost them their ancestral home, and split their people asunder, condemning most of them to years of abject poverty and suffering on the Crow Creek Reservation, where they were relocated.

(Contact James Giago Davies at skindiesel@msn.com)

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