American West: 1861-76

Lesson 1: Treaties, Gold Rushes, and Native Americans

The 1862 Minnesota Uprising of the Eastern Sioux

Chief Little Crow, Eastern Minnesota Sioux

In Minnesota in the summer of 1862, the Eastern Sioux were starving. The agency warehouse was stocked with food and other goods but the agent had refused to give them their annual distribution of annuities. He reasoned that he would not make the distribution until the cash portion of the annuity arrived. It did not matter to him that the people were starving.

The leading chief of the Eastern Sioux, Little Crow, argued the situation with white officials but got nowhere. Like Black Kettle, he too tried to keep peace with the whites. Little Crow even tried to open the warehouse doors himself but could not open them.

Warehouse, Minnesota Sioux Reservation

The general attitude of the whites towards these Indians was expressed by one trader, Andrew Myrick.

“So far as I am concerned, if they are hungry let them eat grass or their own dung,” the trader declared. Myrick would soon be obliged to “eat his words.”

Discontent had long seethed through these Sioux on their dwindling reservation. And now they were being refused the food owed to them per the treaty they had signed in 1851.

Among the negotiators of this treaty had been Agent Alexander Ramsey and trader Henry H. Sibley. Sibley had claimed $145,000 of the $475,000 the Indians were to receive, saying it was funds due him for overpayment he’d made to the Indians for furs. Agent Ramsey allowed this claim as well as others.

Alexander Ramsey

Total claims came to two-thirds of the amount due the Sioux. Other claims were allowed against what remained. In time, Sibley became Minnesota’s first governor. Ramsey was the second governor. By 1863, Sibley had added the title of Brigadier General to his name.

On August 17, 1862, four Sioux youths dared another to prove his courage. The dare was taken and five white settlers were murdered. It was the fuel the militant chiefs needed to start the fires of war. A reluctant Little Crow led them in the uprising. By the end of the day, four hundred whites had been killed.

Henry H. Sibley

Sibley, a colonel in the state militia, led nearly fifteen hundred men to subdue the Sioux. Amongst the white carnage, Agent Andrew Myrick’s mutilated body was found. His mouth had been stuffed with blood-soaked grass--as though he’d tried to eat it.

In the end some two thousand Indians were captured or had surrendered. Though 303 Sioux, were found guilty, President Lincoln examined the trial records and narrowed the list of those condemned to be hanged to thirty-eight.

The Minnesota Sioux lost their reservation and many scattered to the Dakotas or mingled with the Teton Sioux.

More can be learned concerning the 1862 Minnesota Uprising of the Eastern Sioux in:

Robert M. Utley’s The Indian Frontier of the American West, 1846-1890, pages 76-81.

Here's an article that both Little Crow and Black Kettle would have enjoyed:

The Peace (or Sacred) Pipe By Edwina Lewis http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/nati... The Native American did not use tobacco for pleasure or personal indulgence. Rather, they fashioned pipes to be used as sacred objects and only on special occasions. Commonly known as a "peace pipe," the instrument was used in ceremonies to bring good or oppose evil.

Suggest topics for discussion from this lesson.

1. Concerning the Pike’s Peak gold rush, what could the government have done to insure the safety of the miners other than remove the Indians to a reservation? 2. Do you think the whites really didn’t understand that the chiefs that signed the treaties could only speak for their own bands? 3. In the instance of the Fort Laramie Treaty, what would have been a fair dollar amount, say per-head, to be given the Indians? 4. In the case of the Eastern Sioux of Minnesota, what other means of righting the wrong done to them could they have done?

Bibliography:

Hart, Herbert M. Old Forts of the Northwest. Superior Publishing Company.

Lavender, David. The Great West. Houghton Mifflin Company, New York. 1965.

Unruh, John D., Jr. The Plains Across: The Overland Emigrants and the Trans-Mississippi West, 1840-60. University of Illinois Press, Chicago. 1993.

Utley, Robert M. The Indian Frontier of the American West, 1846-1890. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. 1984.

Utley, Robert M. The Lance and the Shield: The Life and Times of Sitting Bull. Henry Holt and Company, New York. 1993.

Willison, George F. The Gold Rush: The Search for Treasure in the American West. Indian Head Books, New York. 1992.

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