|
 |
|
May 11, 2008
A sketch of the scene depicted on this site's homepage, the execution of thirty-eight Sioux on December 26, 1862, used to fascinate me when, as a boy in Mankato, Minnesota, I would visit the Blue Earth County Historical Museum. Apart from its macabre appeal, the picture impressed me because it captured the most famous event in the history of my hometown
The execution of 38 Sioux at Mankato, Minnesota on December 26, 1862.
The hanging, following trials which condemned over three hundred participants in the 1862 Dakota Conflict, stands as the largest mass execution in American history. Only the unpopular intervention of President Lincoln saved 265 other Dakota and mixed-bloods from the fate met by the less fortunate thirty-eight. The mass hanging was the concluding scene in the opening chapter of a story of the American-Sioux conflict that would not end until the Seventh Calvary completed its massacre at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, on December 29, 1890. http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/dakota/Dak_account.html
Cartoon History Of The Mass Hangings Of 38 Sioux In 1862: The Lakota Conflict Trials!
What was justice and the court system like under Lincoln?
The largest mass lynching in American history.
Set 1:Trials and Executions
On September 28, 1862, two days after the Indians released their white prisoners to Col. Sibley, a military court began trying the Sioux braves. Five officers, with the Rev. Stephen Riggs as interpreter, were to decide which warriors were guilty of taking part in the uprising. |
The way the Conflict Trials are propagandized to us when they are mentioned at all, is that the intervention of President Lincoln saved lives. Closer examination however, allows us to understand what it means to have military tribunals try cases.
Lincoln fans don't like to ask if those executed knew english, had a lawyer, or even knew what they were being executed for!
The links today are a fascinating look from a legal perspective at the trial I call-
A Mass Lynching.
Posted at 07:21 am by Psychomike
|
|
|
