01. Describe, briefly, the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862.

 
In early 1862, a government official reported to President Abraham Lincoln about impending violence and rampant government corruption regarding Indian affairs in Minnesota. A few months later, the official’s warning came true. In August 1862, after years of broken treaties and promises and facing starvation, factions of Dakota attacked white settlements, the Lower Sioux Agency and Fort Ridgely in south central and southwestern Minnesota. Not all Dakota participated in the war and some helped settlers and soldiers. Between four and six hundred white civilians and soldiers were killed during the six weeks of war. It is not known how many Dakota people were killed in battle. Troops under the command of Col. Henry Sibley were sent to support Fort Ridgely and settlers in southwestern Minnesota, ultimately defeating the Dakota forces and ending the war. On Dec. 26, 1862, 38 Dakota men were hanged in Mankato in the largest mass execution in U.S. history. Approximately 1,600 non-combatant Dakota and mixed-race people who surrendered after the war, mostly women, children and the elderly, were force-marched to Fort Snelling where they were held in a wooden stockade below the fort. During the winter of 1862-63 as many as 300 Dakota people died of disease in the crowded camp; Dakota women were assaulted by soldiers. The survivors were forcibly removed from the state’s boundaries to reservations in the Dakota Territory and what is now Nebraska. About 280 Dakota men who had been convicted during trials held in Mankato were imprisoned at Davenport, Iowa, where 120 died. The survivors were allowed to rejoin their families in 1866.