Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division/LIBRARY OF CONGRESS PRINTS AND PHOTOGRAPHS DIVISION - Execution of the thirty-eight Sioux Indians at Mankato Minnesota in December 1862.
Settlers had come from miles around. The hotels were full. And some spectators were camped out in tents and wagons.
The giant gallows erected between Front Street and the Minnesota River was a marvel: a perfect square, supported by oak timbers, and able to hold 40 nooses — 10 on each side.
(Pantheon Books/PANTHEON BOOKS) - \"38 Nooses\" by Scott W. Berg.
It was the day after Christmas, 1862 — 150 years ago this Wednesday — and the largest mass execution in American history was scheduled for 10 a.m. in the hamlet of Mankato.
The condemned were 38 Dakota Indians convicted in what is said to be the largest killing of whites in any Indian war in American history.
There had been a delay of a week, because the authorities couldn’t find enough strong rope.
Now the Indians had painted their faces and, chanting their death songs, were guided to the gallows. They were hooded. Nooses were placed around their necks, and after three solemn beats of a drum, the platform on which they stood dropped.
Forgotten savagery
Growing up in a rambler outside St. Paul, author Scott W. Berg had always heard the story of the hanging and the savage “Dakota War” from which it grew. But he had not learned about it in school.
“We were never taught this,” he says. “But I probably heard about it when I was 7 or 10. I’m sure I heard about it by the time I was out of elementary school.”
The episode, which happened against the huge backdrop of the Civil War, is scarcely known outside Minnesota, says Berg, 46, an assistant professor of English at George Mason University.
His new book, “38 Nooses: Lincoln, Little Crow, and the Beginning of the Frontier’s End,” published by Pantheon Books, aims to end its obscurity and put it into the mainstream of its times.
Berg is also the author of the 2007 book “Grand Avenues: The Story of Pierre Charles L’Enfant, the French Visionary Who Designed Washington, D.C.”
The execution’s sesquicentennial, which will be commemorated in Minnesota this week, coincides with the Civil War’s 150th anniversary. But it is part of the Indians’ tragic “parallel history,” Berg says.
He recounts the five months of killing and betrayal that raged across the prairie of southwestern Minnesota in the summer and fall of 1862, concurrent with some of the biggest battles of the sectional conflict.
Between 400 and 600 settlers — many of them women and children — were slain, along with scores of soldiers. Fewer than a hundred Indians died, Berg says, but many more would perish later of malnutrition and disease.
Coming amid the Civil War, with its lingering codes of honor and gallantry, the Dakota War was a bitter racial conflict with atrocities and talk of extermination and removal. Scalps were taken on both sides.
“They are to be treated as maniacs or wild beasts,” one U.S. Army general wrote of the Indians, “and by no means as people with whom treaties or compromises can be made.”
A newspaper editor wrote that a Dakota “has just as much right to life as a hyena, and he who would spare them is an enemy to his race.”
Far removed from the theater of the Civil War, Berg’s story still features many of its figures: Abraham Lincoln, who stayed the executions of more than 200 of the Indians, has a major role, as does disgraced Union Gen. John Pope.
Can modest golem and a mercurial jinni find love in Lower Manhattan?
1368827928000
A science writer for The Washington Post, Margaret Webb Pressler decided to unravel the mystery of her husband’s biology.
1368825487000
The harrowing story of a black man pressed into sexual slavery after the Revolutionary War.
1368742926000The books Washington has been reading.
1368722950000
Steven Nadler’s fascinating survey of Golden Age Dutch culture, Cartesian philosophy and art connoisseurship.
1368662393000A novel about the unusual friendship between a South African refugee and an American expatriate.
1368630487000
Egan's biography of American West photographer Edward Curtis garners $7,500 and a week at the summer program in New York State.
1368624811000
Things fall apart when a young girl is left alone in the house with her emotional cousin.
1368573677000
The author of ‘The Time Traveler’s Wife’ returns with a novella for the Royal Ballet in London.
1368571595000
Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon races to solve a mystery based on Dante’s “Divine Comedy.”
1368504060000
The Irish poet will speak tonight at the Folger Library
1368477011000
Writer Thomas De Quincey must apprehend a murderer terrorizing London — or take the fall himself.
1368394543000The books Washington has been reading.
1368226868000
Author stuffs stale history lessons into his multi-generational journey through the City of Light.
1368136718000The Post Most: EntertainmentMost-viewed stories,videos, and galleries in the past two hours
Loading...
Comments