On my cycle ride, stopped at Sheridan Memorial Park which has a plaque for each of our wars. I appreciate how the plaques don’t whitewash or romanticize war. Minnesota’s US-Dakota War of 1862 is a case in point.
In September 1862, Taoyateduta, a chief of the Mdewakanton Dakota, explained his tribe’s motives to militia commander Henry Sibley. “For what reason we have commenced this war I will tell you. We made a treaty with the Government and beg for what we do get, and can’t get it until our children are dying with hunger.” (Trader) A. J. Myrick told the Indians they would eat grass or their own dung.
US-Dakota War plaque, Sheridan Memorial Park.
Today is Indigenous People’s Day in Minnesota. Many states still continue to celebrate Columbus Day today instead, explicitly honoring a man who never stepped on American soil and who treated indigenous people with extreme cruelty.
