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The Dakota Uprising

Back in the day on August 17th, 1862, four Dakota natives killed five white settlers while returning from an unsuccessful hunting expedition in Minnesota. Councils were held immediately after the incident where the Dakota people, deeply divided, decided that war with settlers and the U.S. military was inevitable. The summer of 1862 had been particularly difficult for the natives as broken treaties and settler encroachment on their land culminated in hunger and starvation. With heightened tensions, a meeting in early August was called between the government, natives and traders. It was there that Andrew Myrick, a spokesperson for the traders, uttered words more cruel than Marie Antoinette could ever dream of when he dehumanized the Dakota by saying, “So far as I’m concerned, if they are hungry, let them eat grass.” War would follow soon after on August 18th when the Dakota attack the Redwood Agency and federal troops killing forty-four.

The Dakota uprising would end in late December when President Lincoln presided over the largest mass execution in U.S. history. Thirty-eight natives were hanged from a single scaffold.

For Uprising, this is your truth professa’ saying it’s no mystery why they conceal our people’s history