Some people call it a clash of cultures. I don't, that's too general

Mr. LaBatte talks about Dakota and Euro-American relationships.

Words to look for: 
Fur traders, missionaries, settlers

Audio Chapters

JL: Whites had been among the Indians for, let's see…Fur traders came in probably middle 1700s, 1775 area. Missionaries came about 1824. The government made their first treaty in 1805. As soon as that first treaty was made, the first settlers started coming in. There was a lot of interaction between the Indians and some of the whites. The new settlers on the frontier were a variety of people. Some were afraid of the Indians, some welcomed them. There’s a story about a woman out here in Brown County who always made extra bread for when the Indians stopped, and they were among the people who were warned by the Indians to flee before the war started. There were other people who tolerated the Indians. There were also angry Indians, that even though they agreed in their treaties [that] they would stay on the reservation, they continued to leave and were seen as far away as St. Croix River Valley, their former hunting grounds. But every year they would go there, there would be more and more settlers, more farms that they would have to go around. And then there would be petitions from these settlers saying that they [the Indians] were supposed to stay on the reservations and the state should be doing something about this. Some people call it a clash of cultures. I don't, that's too general. I like to get into more specifics, first-person accounts.

Oral History- Interview | Narrator John LaBatte Interviewer Deborah Locke made in New Ulm, MN | Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Citation: Minnesota Historical Society. U.S. - Dakota War of 1862. Some people call it a clash of cultures. I don't, that's too general March 19, 2024. http://www.usdakotawar.org/node/1074

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