The first white people to reach Minnesota during the 1700s were fur traders, mostly French Canadians. These were not people seeking permanent residency but only intending to remain long enough to collect their furs. Yet this process took many months during which time they often took Native American wives and sired mixed-race children. Their relationships with the Indian tribes were generally positive because they provided goods such as firearms that the Indians could acquire in no other way.
The influx of real settlers, people who intended to stay, did not begin until the 1800s. These were Americans attracted by the rich farmlands produced by the tall grass prairie of southern Minnesota. Some Americans caught the tail end of the of the fur trading era and became rich like Henry Sibley. However, most migrants were farmers like Tom Barnes and his brother John. Soon many towns like Henderson and Mankato began springing up, and because of its location at the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers, the city of St. Paul prospered and attracted all sorts of entrepreneurs like Joseph Brown. The result was less and less open land for the wild game that supported the Indians’ lifestyle. The Sioux and Chippewa felt that they were being squeezed out. Conflict was inevitable.
At first there was no open hostility between the Americans and the Dakota, and contrary to the opinions of some people today, there was no policy of genocide toward the Indians, at least in Minnesota. However, most white settlers believed that the Indians were standing in way of progress, that the Dakota and other tribes were not using the land properly, and if they would only adopt the American way of life everyone would be much better off. The Dakota, on the other hand, had no concept of “progress” of this nature. Most could not conceive of a better life than they already had and resented the fact that their world was being changed. Treaties like the ones negotiated by Little Crow and others in 1858 ameliorated the conflict for a time, but every year there were more and more white migrants wanting more and more land. The Acton murders simply touched off an explosion that had been building for years.
While there were traders and government accomplices who knew full well what was happening to the Dakota, many of the white settlers in Minnesota in 1862 were unaware of the Indians’ resentment toward them. And although many settlers possessed firearms, they were not like the gun toting pioneers of the previous century, always on the alert for an Indian attack. In fact, the most recent immigrants to southern Minnesota were Germans who spoke little English and had no tradition of owning firearms. They settled along the Cottonwood River just south of the Lower Agency and became helpless victims for Dakota raiding parties like the ones that attacked Mary Schwandt and her companions on the first day of the war.
Of course, after the Americans’ victory at Wood Lake, some of these “helpless victims” were also capable of the savage attacks on Dakota prisoners as they marched through New Ulm, and even on the innocent women and children of the Dakota Peace Party at Henderson. Although I fictionalized the incident in which a baby was murdered, it happened very much like that in real life. One hideous assault does not justify another; however, traumatic events like the Sacred Heart Massacre, in which Justina Krieger and her family were attacked, were common during the summer of 1862, and experiences like these can cause great psychological damage, leading survivors to commit violent acts they would never think of committing in the normal course of their lives.
The number of deaths caused by the Dakota War in 1862 is estimated at over a thousand. Even if this number is 50% too high, it would still be a very large number of deaths considering the small population of Minnesota at the time. Southern Minnesota was severely depopulated after the war, both because of the settlers and Dakota who fled from the area, and the Dakota who were forced to relocate to reservations in other states. The depopulation also lasted longer than might have been expected, partly because of the on-going Civil War, but also because the remaining citizens of Minnesota publicly memorialized those who died for several years after it was over. Eventually, public officials began to realize that advertising the horrors of 1862 was discouraging re-settlement, and the memorials were toned down. Today few remember it even occurred.
Events such as the Dakota War in Minnesota have many lessons to teach us, one of which is that those who suffer the most in war are often the ones who had the least to do with starting it. As Leon Trotsky wrote, “You may not be interested in war, but war may be interested in you.”