In August 1862, with the Dakota facing starvation, some tribal factions attacked white settlements, the Lower Sioux Agency and Fort Ridgely in south central and southwestern Minnesota. The fighting lasted six weeks and many people on both sides were killed or fled Minnesota. Troops under the command of former Gov. Henry Sibley, now a U.S. Army colonel, were sent to support Fort Ridgely and the settlers, ultimately defeating the Dakota forces and bringing the war to a close by the end of September.
On Dec. 26, 1862, 38 Dakota were hanged in Mankato in the largest mass execution in U.S. history. More than 300 Dakota men had initially been sentenced to death but 262 were commuted by President Abraham Lincoln. The rest of the approximately 1,600 non-combatant Dakota and mixed-race people who surrendered at Camp Release near Montevideo – mostly women, children and the elderly – were force-marched to Fort Snelling. There, they were held over the winter of 1862-63 in an internment camp, sometimes called a concentration camp, below the fort before being forcibly removed from the state to reservations in the Dakota Territory and what is now Nebraska.
While the war lasted just six weeks, the issues surrounding its causes and aftermath continue to affect Minnesota and the nation.
