Dakota 38 horseback ride to Mankato photos

Dakota 38 plus 2 Ride photos from South Dakota to Mankato. Photos by Dave Murray. Thank you!

http://www.dakota382008.com/

By Dakota 38 Riders
MANKATO, Minn. -- Twenty-eight years before the Massacre at Wounded Knee, and 14 years before the Legendary Battle at Little Bighorn, was Minnesota’s Dakota Sioux Uprising of 1862.

It began on August 17, 1862 and ended with the largest mass execution ever recorded in U.S. History.

By order of Abraham Lincoln, 38 Dakota men were hanged in Mankato, Minnesota on December 26, 1862.

Unbeknownst to the masses, the very next day two more Dakota men were also executed. Four months later, in April of 1863 Congress enacted a law providing for the removal of all Dakota people from Minnesota. Three hundred families were held in a concentration camp at Fort Snelling then most of the Dakota Community was moved by river boats to a desolate prairie at Crow Creek, South Dakota.

The convicted prisoners of the war who were not executed, were then moved from Ft. Snelling, Minnesota to Camp McClellan, near Davenport, Iowa. It wasn’t until three years later, President Andrew Johnson ordered a release of the 177 surviving prisoners.

In the spring of 2005, Jim Miller, a descendent of the Dakota People who were displaced after 1863, courageously stepped forward and acknowledged his dream with the people. Miller dreamt of a series of horseback rides that would bring, not just the Dakota people together, but all whose hearts are affected by this tragic history.

Jim’s vision is for horseback riders from all Dakota tribes to ride in December over 330 miles from Lower Brule Sioux Reservation to the site of the mass hanging in Mankato, Minnesota. This is to commemorate the men, women, and children who were forced to march across the cold winter prairies either to the mass hanging in Mankato or to the large concentration camp at Fort Snelling, Minnesota (present day St. Paul.) The ride coincides with the anniversary of the hangings on December 26, 1862.

Four years are required to address this vision, as of 2008, the first three years have been completed. In the past three years, the riders left from the Lower Sioux Indian Community, near Morton, Minnesota and rode down to Mankato, Minnesota.

Because this is the last year and the completion of Miller’s vision, the riders began their new starting point from Lower Brule, SD to Mankato.

His overall vision is to raise awareness about how this historical grief has impacted us from the mass hanging to the surrounding events. In the end, the final outcome of his vision is to bring reconciliation among all people of the region so that we may move forward and live in a good way. Miller is a Vietnam Veteran, an enrolled member of Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, and a

leader in traditional spiritual practices.