Dakota in exile : the untold stories of captives in the aftermath of the U.S.-Dakota war

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Title:

Dakota in exile : the untold stories of captives in the aftermath of the U.S.-Dakota war

Author:

Clemmons, Linda M., 1969- author.

ISBN:

9781609386337

Physical Description:

xvii, 260 pages ; 23 cm.

Series:

Iowa and the Midwest experience.

Contents:

Introduction -- 1. War, trials, execution, and exile, 1862/63 -- 2. Crow Creek, Dakota Territory, 1863/66 -- 3. Camp Kearney prison, Davenport, Iowa, 1863/66 -- 4. Resilience, resistance, and survival: literacy -- 5. Resilience, resistance, and survival: Christianity -- 6. Resilience, resistance, and survival: the Dakota scouts -- 7. Conflicts continue, 1866/69 -- Epilogue.

Subject Term:

Dakota War, Minnesota, 1862.

Dakota Indians -- History -- 19th century.

Dakota Indians -- Government relations -- History -- 19th century.

Dakota Indians -- Social conditions -- 19th century.

Summary:

"Following the Dakota-U.S. War of 1862, the federal government passed legislation exiling all Dakota (whether they had participated in the conflict or not) from Minnesota. Dakota families were relocated to an isolated and drought-plagued reservation in Dakota Territory called Crow Creek, while over three hundred Dakota men were incarcerated at a military prison in Davenport, Iowa. Historians have neglected to tell the important story of the Dakota's exile, survival, and eventual reunification in 1866. Using Dakota language sources, government documents, missionary records and newspaper accounts, I will discuss trauma, survival, and resistance among the Dakota in the post-war period by weaving together three intertwined, but mutually exclusive, narratives: those of the Dakota, the missionaries, and the public and government officials. After 1862 will add to literature on federal Indian policy and Protestant missionaries in the post-Civil War period; it also contributes to the growing body of work examining how Native Americans survived warfare, removal, and historical trauma"--

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Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... Stillwater Public Library	970.3 CLE	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

Robert Hopkins was a man caught between two worlds. As a member of the Dakota Nation, he was unfairly imprisoned, accused of taking up arms against U.S. soldiers when war broke out with the Dakota in 1862. However, as a Christian convert who was also a preacher, Hopkins's allegiance was often questioned by many of his fellow Dakota as well. Without a doubt, being a convert--and a favorite of the missionaries--had its privileges. Hopkins learned to read and write in an anglicized form of Dakota, and when facing legal allegations, he and several high-ranking missionaries wrote impassioned letters in his defense. Ultimately, he was among the 300-some Dakota spared from hanging by President Lincoln, imprisoned instead at Camp Kearney in Davenport, Iowa, for several years. His wife, Sarah, and their children, meanwhile, were forced onto the barren Crow Creek reservation in Dakota Territory with the rest of the Dakota women, children, and elderly. In both places, the Dakota were treated as novelties, displayed for curious residents like zoo animals.

Historian Linda Clemmons examines the surviving letters from Robert and Sarah; other Dakota language sources; and letters from missionaries, newspaper accounts, and federal documents. She blends both the personal and the historical to complicate our understanding of the development of the Midwest, while also serving as a testament to the resilience of the Dakota and other indigenous peoples who have lived in this region from time immemorial.

Author Notes

Linda M. Clemmons is professor of history at Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois. She is the author of Conflicted Mission: Faith, Disputes, and Deception on the Dakota Frontier.

Reviews (2)

Choice Review

In this superbly researched and expertly written account of suffering inflicted on the Dakota after their uprising in Minnesota during 1862, Clemmons (Illinois State) keys into the experiences of Robert Hopkins, whom history caught in a stupendous double bind. As a Dakota, he was hated by many immigrant European Americans, who stereotyped all Dakota as savage scum worthy of extermination. As a Christian convert and preacher, most of his own people ridiculed Hopkins. Clemmons writes with passion, precision, and a wonderful eye for personal detail that takes readers to the scene. In excerpts from letters by Hopkins and others as well as contemporary newspaper accounts, immigrants seethe with a drive for vengeance against the Dakota, herding them into prisons where many starved and became mortally ill from several diseases as well as lack of heat in winter. On reservations that were little more than open-air concentration camps, Dakota slowly starved on "cottonwood soup"--"a large tank of cottonwood boards … filled with water, flour, and a small piece of pork.… Dakota families received one ladle of this 'thin gruel' every other day. … By all accounts, the soup was inedible and 'had a very offensive odor.'" Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. --Bruce Elliott Johansen, emeritus, University of Nebraska at Omaha (emeritus)

Library Journal Review

In Conflicted Mission, Clemmons (history, Illinois State Univ.) began her chronicle of the Minnesota frontier in 1835 with the arrival of missionaries who endeavored to "save" the Dakota. While living and working with the Dakota into the early 1860s, the missionaries documented how the mistreatment of Native peoples set the stage for the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862. The author's latest work focuses on the U.S.-Dakota War and its catastrophic consequences to the Dakota, including the mass execution of 38 Dakota men in Mankato, MN, in 1862. Many of the men who were spared the gallows by President Abraham Lincoln were imprisoned for several years at Iowa's Camp Kearney while their families were dispersed to the Crow Creek Reservation. In 1866, the men were released and allowed to reunite with their families at a reservation in the Nebraska Territory. The Dakota were unable to return to their homelands since Minnesota had banned them from its boundaries. VERDICT Both works by Clemmons are recommended to anyone interested in the history of the Midwest as they tell of the maltreatment that led to the removal process endured by the Dakota, a group whose horrific experiences were overshadowed by the U.S. Civil War.-John R. Burch, Univ. of Tennessee at Martin © Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Robert V. Hopkins Jr. ...

Foreword	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xi
Preface	p. xiii
Introduction	p. 1
1 War, Trials, Execution, and Exile, 1862-1863	p. 17
2 Crow Creek, Dakota Territory, 1863-1866	p. 41
3 Camp Kearney Prison, Davenport, Iowa, 1863-1866	p. 63
4 Resilience, Resistance, and Survival: Literacy	p. 91
5 Resilience, Resistance, and Survival: Christianity	p. 109
6 Resilience, Resistance, and Survival: The Dakota Scouts	p. 131
7 Conflicts Continue, 1866-1869	p. 155
Epilogue	p. 171
Notes	p. 177
Works Cited	p. 235
Index	p. 249

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Library Journal Review

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