Minnesota's Trail of Tears

Over 150 years ago, Governor Alexander Ramsey called for the extermination (303 men) and complete removal of the Dakota from Minnesota. Ironically, his September 9, 1862 declaration was brought on by his own government's failure to honor previous treaties which stole millions of acres from the Dakota and purposefully kept food and money from their starving families...now forced to go hunting "off the reservation" it led to violent conflicts with European homesteaders and thousands of Dakota to be placed "under arrest".

 

Trail of Tears: In November of 1862, over 1,700 Dakota (mostly women, children, and elders) were forcibly marched 150 miles from Morton, Minnesota to a recently built internment camp just outside of Ft. Snelling. They suffered (and several hundred died of starvation, disease, hypothermia, etc.) in this "camp" during the winter of 1862-63.

Extermination: On December 6, 1862, Abraham "The Great Executioner" Lincoln approved the largest mass execution (38 men) in United States history at Mankato, Minnesota on December 26, 1862.

In exchange for the list being reduced from 303 down to 38, President Lincoln promised to help kill or remove every Dakota from the state.

Trail of Tears II: In April/ May of 1863, those at Ft. Snelling (about 1,300) were sent down the Mississippi River to St. Louis and up the Missouri River to the Crow Creek Reservation in South Dakota. The "pardoned" men at Mankato were placed on riverboats and transported to Davenport, Iowa where they spent 3 years in jail...before being sent off to Crow Creek.

Ft. Snelling Concentration Camp

Today, historians still struggle with how to get at the truth, how to remember and tell, falsely appeasing "proud Minnesota" traditions...

Was it a conflict...massacre...uprising...war...murder...genocide?

Should we pardon...seek forgiveness...reparations...reconciliation?

Maybe the best thing we can do is acknowledge the truth of our past...accept the open wounds that still exist...and begin healing.

Alexander Ramsey's modern-day counterpart Gov. Mark Dayton may have said it the best for all of us:

"I am appalled by Governor Ramsey's words and by his encouragement of vigilante violence against innocent people; and I repudiate them. The viciousness and violence, which were commonplace 150 years ago in Minnesota, are not accepted or allowed now...we need to remember that dark past; to recognize its continuing harm in the present; and to resolve that we will not let it poison the future."