By Lisa F. Cook

© Lisa F. Cook 2010 (exerpted)

The Santee division of the Sioux Nation is called the Dakota, which consists of four bands. In the English language, Dakota translates to mean "allies", or "friends". In Dakota language "Isayanti" (Santee) means "those who dwell at Knife Lake". The four bands are the Mdewakantunwan (Dwellers by Mystic Lake), Wahpetuwan (Dwellers Among the Leaves), Sissetunwan (Dwellers by the Fish Camp), and the Wahpekute (Shooters Among the Leaves). The Santee Nation is a woodlands tribe that traditionally lived in semi-permanent villages and engaged in hunting, fishing, gathering and subsistence farming. They were peaceful people who were economically self-sufficient and independent. The Santee have been known as the "frontier guardians of the Sioux Nation" whose traditional homelands ranged from Wisconsin west through Iowa, Minnesota and the Dakotas to the Northern Rocky Mountains in Montana, north into Canada, and south through the northwestern part of Nebraska. The people of the Santee Sioux Nation have close relatives now residing in North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Montana, and Canada.

Although in traditional times the Santee ranged throughout the Northern Plains and Great Lakes region, their traditional homelands are located primarily in what is now known as Minnesota. Around 1660, French explorers were the first Europeans to encounter the Santee Sioux, and the two groups developed trader relations in which traders purchased pelts and hides brought in by the Santee in exchange for goods and payments. While still residing in their traditional homelands, the Dakota had early contacts with non-Indian settler populations and their governments who were impatient to have Dakota land. Eventually, these circumstances led to numerous treaties in which the Dakota are said to have ceded traditional lands and significant resources for promises of annuity payments and rations. The United States also engaged in unilateral governmental actions against the Dakota. The Santee made several treaties with the United States which demonstrate the appalling state of government-to-government relations between the parties. White men as well as Indians acknowledged the deceptive tactics used against the Santee in these dealings. Unfortunately, the promises of the U.S. government contained in treaties, and individual promises made by non-Indian merchants and community members, were rarely fulfilled. The State of Minnesota eventually passed legislation calling for the extermination or exile of the Santee from Minnesota.

For example, in 1805 the federal government commissioned Zebulon Pike (of Pike’s Peak fame) to negotiate a treaty with the Santee with the goal of establishing U.S. power in the Minnesota region. Both of the colonial powers of Great Britain and the United States were interested in exploiting Dakota lands and resources for their own purposes. The United States sought supremacy through land acquisition and fort-building. Pike was unable to obtain Dakota signatures to the treaty and secured only two. The 1805 treaty (sometimes referred to as Pike’s Treaty) called for the Santee to cede 100,000 acres of prime land in what is now the Minneapolis/St. Paul area for $2,000, a paltry 2 cents an acre for, among other things, establishing a military presence there (including Fort Snelling). Pike tried to grease the wheels of the negotiations by providing 60 gallons of liquor to the Dakotas in attendance at the Council, but even this did not help him produce the required signatures. Even without the required Santee signatures, the U.S. Senate ratified the treaty in 1808 and sent it on over to the White House to second term President Thomas Jefferson. There is no record that President Jefferson proclaimed the ratification of the Treaty of 1805, but subsequently the U.S. government behaved as though it was a legitimate governmental action with regard to the supposedly ceded lands. (This "treaty" is not published in the United States Statutes at Large as typically occurs.) The United States didn’t pay for these land cessions until 1819 and, even then, only partial payment was made.

Meanwhile, the Santee were being pushed further west. The United States brokered a treaty between several tribes to set their boundaries vis-à-vis one another and to get the tribes to acknowledge the supremacy of the United States. The 1825 Treaty of Prairie du Chien drew boundaries between several tribes including the Sac and Fox, the Ottoes, the Sioux, the Winnebago, the Chippewa, the Ottawa, Menominee and Potawatomies. Under this Treaty, the Santee ceded rights primarily to their land in present day Wisconsin. In 1830, another Treaty required the Santee to cede further lands in exchange for annuities for a maximum dollar amount of $3,500, payable in money, merchandise or domestic animals, a blacksmith with necessary tools, agricultural instruments and several hundred dollars worth of iron and steel. Seven years later the 1837 Treaty with the Yankton Sioux apparently acted to affirm the provisions of the Treaty of July 15, 1830, and the Santee effectively ceded all of their homelands east of the Mississippi in Wisconsin.

The Santee continued to lose lands and resources as pressure increased from larger and larger incoming white settler populations. Between 1850 and 1857, the white settler population skyrocketed from 6,077 to over 150,000. Minnesota achieved statehood in 1858. There was considerable conflict between the Dakota and white settlers. Annuities and food provisions became necessary because with continuing pressure from non-Indian settlers, the Dakota were unable to continue hunting and fishing to adequately sustain themselves. Non-Indian traders and merchants provided some goods to the Dakota but imposed a cash-based credit system for access to subsistence goods. White traders and merchants benefitted from Dakota starvation and indebtedness by gaining substantial wealth from the Dakota during the treaty-making process.

For example, in 1851 the Dakota signed two treaties: the 1851 Treaty of Traverse des Sioux (negotiated with the Sissetunwan and Wahpetuwan) and the 1851 Treaty of Mendota (negotiated with the Mdewakantunwan and Wahpekute). These treaties worked to divest the Santee Dakota of all remaining lands in Minnesota and Iowa with the exception of a one-hundred-fifty-mile-long, twenty-mile-wide strip of land (10 miles on the North side of the river, 10 miles on the South) bordering the Minnesota River, from Lake Traverse to Yellow Medicine for the "Upper Sioux", and from Yellow Medicine to the Little Rock Stream for the "Lower Sioux". The Dakota were supposedly paid 10 cents an acre for lands ceded. After signing the Treaty, Dakota leaders were pressured to sign "trader’s papers" which allowed annuity payments for the Dakota go directly to the traders for alleged Indian debts. In this instance, treaty annuity payments were directed to traders and merchants in the amount of at least $370,000. Dakota did not receive enough annuities or supplies to sustain themselves. White settlers benefited financially in these dealings and became the possessors of the land ceded in the treaties. When government payments were paid to white merchants, were late, or were not forthcoming at all, the Dakota starved.

The extensive cessions made by the Dakota in the treaties of 1851 were not enough for overrunning settlers and merchants. In subsequent treaty after treaty, the Dakota became more and more restricted and impoverished. In 1858, the United States negotiated a treaty with the Santee which ceded the entire north strip of the reservation, and individually allotted acreage to heads of families in the southern strip of the reservation. The Indians paid all necessary survey and allotment expenses out of their own funds. This Treaty also required the Dakotas to declare themselves dependent upon the federal government, and promise "to commit no injuries or depredations on [white] persons or property[,]". It was not until 1860 that the Senate finally acted to pay the Dakota for lands ceded at the rate of 30 cents per acre (with the Tribes paying for costs of survey and sale, and any other contingent expenses.) This same Resolution provided that "good faith" settlers on reservation lands for up to 160 acres could remain on the condition they pay the government $1.25 per acre. [$200]. "Checker boarding" of the reservations had already begun.

The Dakota were now restricted to a strip of land approximately 150 miles by 10 miles, much of it individually allotted. On a regular basis, they could not find adequate sustenance on these remaining lands. Relations between the Dakota and local non-Indian settlers and merchants deteriorated further. Animosity felt between settlers and the Santee led to isolated outbreaks of violence. Peaceful living was impossible when the colonial invasion destroyed traditional subsistence patterns and the Dakota were assaulted with economic changes, religious, social and educational changes that wreaked havoc on the Dakota way of life. The Dakota could not sustain themselves and were shut out of the zealous economic development taking place around them driven by non-Indian demand for land and resources.

Ongoing long-term treaty violations by the U.S. government caused oppression and disenfranchisement among the Dakota, and restricted them to an excessively small land base with choice lands being diverted to white settlers on the cheap. Eventually, the Dakota were pushed to war. This is known as the U.S. Dakota War of 1862, but is also referred to as the "Sioux Uprising", "Dakota Conflict", or "Little Crow War". Because the United States was fighting the Civil War, many promised annuities and payments were reduced and/or delayed. Dakota were targets of predatory lenders in a cash-economy system: licensed traders sold goods to the Dakota at a 100% to 400% mark-up and frequently took "claims" for money from individual Dakota paid out of tribal funds. Treaty annuities went unpaid, underpaid, or were redirected to payment of bills traders alleged were due them.

The Santee had waited two months at the agency in June of 1862 for the annual distribution of their goods and payments, but received nothing. They were starving. Traders were unsympathetic. One trader, Andrew Myrick, attended a meeting between the government, the Indians, and the traders to discuss the annuity payment and distribution of goods owed to the Santee. The Indian agent, Thomas Galbraith, a nit-picker for policy, attended as well. Because the goods and money were supposed to be distributed together (not separately), Galbraith refused to distribute the food first and wait for the money. Andrew Myrick stated something to the Dakota to the effect of, "[W]ell then, if you want it then you eat your grass. And we won’t trade with you." The Dakota attacked several communities and fought against the Third Regiment Minnesota Volunteers and the U.S. Army under Henry H. Sibley and Capt. A.D. Nelson. Andrew Myrick was discovered dead, his mouth stuffed full of grass.

The fighting continued for several weeks. At the end of the war, at least 1,250 Dakota warriors were taken as prisoners. They were initially held at the Lower Sioux Agency and then were sent on a forced march to be imprisoned at Mankato. On the way to Mankato, these Dakota men were assaulted by mobs and some died from injuries sustained from beatings with whips and pitchforks. Four hundred and twenty five of those surviving were subjected to summary military trials and 321 were convicted, with all but 18 of those sentenced to execution. President Lincoln reviewed the cases and in his handwritten order of execution dated December 6, 1862, he condemned 39 of them to death by hanging. One man was pardoned, but on December 26, the remaining 38 were executed. Applause and shouts of approval went up from the crowd. This remains the largest mass hanging in the history of the United States.

U.S. Army forces detained 1,700 Santee children, women and elders and sent them on a forced march of about 150 miles from the Lower Sioux community to Fort Snelling for imprisonment. They walked about 20 miles a day and all along the way they were verbally and physically assaulted by local white settlers. Some women were raped and killed by soldiers. The citizens of New Ulm threw cans, potatoes, and sticks at the Dakota women, children, and elders. From the windows, white settlers threw down hot, scalding water, seriously burning many of them. The children and women were kept separate from the surviving men at Ft. Snelling, but all were treated with brutality by the soldiers over the winter.

White Minnesotans called for revenge and extermination. Alexander Ramsey, Minnesota’s governor (former Commissioner of Indian Affairs and signatory to the 1851 Treaty of Traverse des Sioux), announced before the Minnesota state legislature, "The Sioux Indians of Minnesota must be exterminated or driven forever beyond the borders of the State. Bounties were placed by the state on Dakota scalps. Many Dakota not yet captured fled westward or northward, hoping to escape further inhumane treatment by encroaching colonial civilization.

Otherwise, Dakota faced extermination or exile from Minnesota. In 1863, federal legislation to forcibly remove the Dakota was entitled "An Act for the Removal of the Sisseton, Wahpaton, Medwakanton, and Wahpakoota Bands of Sioux or Dakota Indians, and for the disposition of their Lands in Minnesota and Dakota." This authorized the President to assign a reservation to the Dakota in any Territory outside of any state line. It also authorized the proceeds from the sale of Indian lands to fund Indian farming. It was accompanied by another piece of legislation entitled "An Act for the Relief of Persons for Damages sustained by Reason of Depradations and Injuries by certain Bands of Sioux Indians." These acts declared the United States’ intent to unilaterally abrogate Dakota treaties, for the release of Dakota treaty annuities to White settlers in Minnesota, and for the U.S. military to implement a policy of displacement and removal. The Santee were exiled to the stockade in Dakota Territory assigned by the President called Crow Creek, which was established by executive order specifically to receive those banished from Minnesota. Over 300 Santee died during the first months there, mostly from disease and malnutrition.