women and children were raped before they were slaughtered. About 800 settlers total.

was a soak!

I guess you would have to ask the relation of the power mongers killed. Does It Really Matter???

Sibley and Ramsey were as white as the settlers, although they wouldn't associate with them, except to use them to try to remove the Sioux so that their "investments" would do well. There were lots more Irish, Germans, and Scandinavians to draw in and exploit.

In a little less than a century, the red man had gone from an ally in our wars with Britain and France, to a liability to be removed. The fur trade has died; land speculation, timber and agriculture were now king and Indians were unexploitable in those pursuits...leaving them in place might serve as a negative draw to rapid white settlement.

It was a small problem that they looked somewhat like human beings, but not all that big a problem...Indian agents (and state senator) Galbraith and Myrick could be counted on to divert Indian aid for their own uses (serving a greater goal in the process), and the narrow strip of land the Sioux were confined to wouldn't have been able to support more than a couple of immigrant families, let alone several hundred surviving Sioux.

Starving them virtually guaranteed violence, a fact counted on by those at the top.

There was a story that before the actual violence erupted, Two Sioux stole a milk cow from a settler, and when the settler complained, threw a piece of paper representing a contract to provide supplies to the Sioux. When the settler presented the piece of paper to the army, he was referred to Myrick, who was charged with distributing goods. Myrick was supposed to have said "let the Indians eat grass or their own excrement"

Myrick was found outside the burned remains of the Redwood agency, dead, with his mouth full of grass. But it didn't matter...he had served his masters.

*****

Now that you know a little more of the story, is it still funny?

To listen, share, and learn...
One of my favorite subjects in school...
...
BTW...As children, we often wanted to go back to the "Old Days"...
...
My grand-mother would always say...
...
Wasn't that great, I LOVE THE FUTURE!!!
...
Antiques are great lookers was her phrase...

eyolf to have all 26 tell us the truth.

Lincoln had serious misgivings about those that were hung; none were allowed to attend their own "trial", none were allowed "council" and the whole affair lasted less than an hour. There was no proof, save that they were Indians, to connect them with the "crimes".

There is no proof that any were raped, save exaggerated, sensational reports in eastern newspapers, and while the death toll may have been as high as 450, it also might have been as low as 34. In any case, nobody, including the Army officers that rounded up the Sioux, knew if they had the right ones.

And, it didn't really matter...the Sioux were out of the way, making the area more attractive to land speculators' prospective customers, as well as folks like Sibley and Ramsey hoping to have a population of settlers to make them rich.

Obviously you have access to better sources than I; perhaps you could share with us which Sioux actually committed which crimes, which BTW would exonerate Ramsey, Sibley, Galbraith and Myrick, and, of course, show that the Sioux did this not because they were trapped in an desperate situation, but because they failed to recognize their own inferiority to the usurpers and take appropriate action (take their own lives?).

No memorials to the murdered settlers, and that's pretty sad. But how, exactly, could the settlers be memorialized without telling the whole story...and showing who the real villains were!

Eyolf, you must have read the historical books written by a Crosby man. He wrote a trilogy of them. Fantastic reading.
He got his information from the different library's and sites.
Message me if you want the names of them and who wrote them.

Berger Aulie was a teacher in Crosby, I had him during the 1970's. Interesting guy; smarter than most, but not arrogant about it, unlike moi.

F-n-B: I wasn't there, and neither were you. But your attitude suggesting that the Sioux cooked this up out of nothing, and that everyone else is lily white really rankles me.

It wasn't happening in a vacuum, and you know it.

Oh, and BTW:
from a Mn historical society document:

"A number of local monuments honor white civilians killed during the war. These include the: Acton, Minnesota monument to those killed in the attack on the Howard Baker farm; Guri Endreson monument in the Vikor Lutheran Cemetery near Willmar, Minnesota; and Brownton, Minnesota monument to the White family, and the Lake Shetek State Park monument to 15 white settlers killed there and at nearby Slaughter Slough on August 20, 1862."

What about all the white people they ambushed and killed?

And who did those people represent?

History buffs will recall that Little Crow, the chief of the Sioux travelled to Washington earlier that year to ask Lincoln to honor the treaties the Sioux had signed. Lincoln was forced to admit to them that the Senate had refused to ratify the treaties they had signed; indeed, Little Crow was forced to return to his people and tell them that the original 20-by-150 mile stretch along both sides of the Mn river that was promised in the treaty, had been reduced by the Senate to 10 miles along one side.

An interesting aside is that Alex Ramsey had resigned his territorial governor's appointment to take a seat in the Senate. Nice how that worked out, eh?

Still Little Crow counseled waiting to see if the great white father would honor his promises to at least feed them and provide agricultural tools and help learning to use them.

I probably will wait forever, but if any of my naysayers here could go back in time to counsel Little Crow and advise him what to do about his predicament, I would appreciate it if they would share their wise counsel here as well.

whether or not either of our ancestors had any part in this.

One of the things that I despise about what conservatism has become is that it is impossible for a "conservative" voice to express sadness for all sides of an issue like this. If one does, he or she will be roundly attacked for suggesting we all sing Kum Bah Yah and hold hands.

You guys have to choose sides.

And while you're choosing sides, you're leaving your flanks exposed to attack.

Go to one of the cities in this belt, look at the progress made over the last 150 years, and say a prayer for the folks...all of them...that gave their lives for this.

Not just some.