The Spirit Lake Massacre

by Thomas Teakle

CHAPTER I

[1] See Richman’s John Brown Among the Quakers, and Other Sketches, p. 203.

[2] Senate Documents, 1st Session, 32nd Congress, Vol. III, Doc. No. 1, p. 411.

[3] Flandrau’s State-Building in the West in the Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society, Vol. VIII, pp. 483, 484.

[4] Judge Charles E. Flandrau’s State-Building in the West in the Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society, Vol. VIII, p. 483.

[5] Rev. Moses N. Adams’s The Sioux Outbreak in the Year 1862 in the Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society, Vol. IX, p. 432.

[6] “The inferior power knows perfectly well that, if it does not accept the terms, it will ultimately be forced out of its domains, and it accepts. This comprises the elements of all Indian treaties.”—Flandrau’s State-Building in the West in the Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society, Vol. VIII, p. 483.

[7] Flandrau’s State-Building in the West in the Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society, Vol. VIII, pp. 483, 484.

[8] The massacre at Ash Hollow, often mentioned as a cause of the massacre at Okoboji, was the culmination of a campaign of terror planned by Gen. Harney against the Oglala and Brulé Sioux. The line of march was Fort Leavenworth, Fort Kearney, Fort Laramie, and Fort Pierre. At Ash Hollow near the Blue River and about four miles from the left bank of the North Platte he found Little Thunder’s band of the Brulé Sioux. When his cavalry had surrounded the Indians, he planned an advance with his infantry. Little Thunder desired a council. Gen. Harney refused, saying that he had come to fight. As Harney advanced, he motioned the Indians to run. They did so and ran directly into Harney’s cavalry. Finding themselves trapped, they fought savagely to the end. “The battle of Ash Hollow was little more than a massacre of the Brulés.... Though hailed as a great victory ... the battle of Ash Hollow was a ... disgrace to the officer who planned and executed it. The Indians were trapped and knew it ... and the massacre which ensued was as needless and as barbarous as any which the Dakotas have at any time visited upon the white people.”—Robinson’s History of the Dakota or Sioux Indians in the South Dakota Historical Collections, Vol. II, pp. 224, 225. See also General Harney in the South Dakota Historical Collections, Vol. I, pp. 107, 108; Beam’s Reminiscences of Early Days in Nebraska in the Transactions and Reports of the Nebraska State Historical Society, Vol. III, pp. 301, 302; House Executive Documents, 1st Session, 34th Congress, Vol. I, Pt. II, Doc. No. 1, pp. 49-51.

[9] Royce’s Indian Land Cessions in the United States in the Eighteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, Part II, pp. 710-712, 726; Kappler’s Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, Vol. II, pp. 250-255, 305-310.

[10] See references in note 9 above.

[11] Royce’s Indian Land Cessions, p. 736; Kappler’s Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, Vol. II, p. 346.

[12] Royce’s Indian Land Cessions, p. 737.

[13] Royce’s Indian Land Cessions, pp. 736, 737, 762, 763, 766-768, 778, 779; Kappler’s Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, Vol. II, pp. 349, 474-477, 495, 546-549.

[14] Royce’s Indian Land Cessions, pp. 768, 772; Kappler’s Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, Vol. II, pp. 500, 518.

[15] Royce’s Indian Land Cessions, p. 778; Kappler’s Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, Vol. II, pp. 557-560.

[16] In exchange for all lands claimed by the Sioux in northwestern Iowa and southwestern Minnesota they were granted a reservation as follows: “all that tract of country on either side of the Minnesota River, from the western boundary of the lands herein ceded, east, to the Tchay-tam-bay River on the north, and to Yellow Medicine River on the south side, to extend, on each side, a distance of not less than 10 miles from the general course of said river; the boundaries of said tract to be marked out by as straight lines as practicable”.—Kappler’s Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, Vol. II, p. 590; Hughes’s The Treaty of Traverse des Sioux in 1851 in the Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society, Vol. X, Pt. I, pp. 112, 113.

[17] Royce’s Indian Land Cessions, p. 784; Kappler’s Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, Vol. II, pp. 591-593.

[18] “It was with great reluctance that the Sioux Indians consented to surrender this favorite hunting and camping ground to the whites, as they did by the treaty of 1851.”—Gue’s History of Iowa, Vol. I, p. 288.