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In the midst of the Civil War, a thirty-year conflict began
as the federal government sought to concentrate the Plains Indians
on reservations. Violence erupted first in Minnesota, where, by
1862, the Santee Sioux were confined to a territory 150 miles
long and just 10 miles wide. Denied a yearly payment and agricultural
aid promised by treaty, these people rose up in August 1862 and
killed more than 350 white settlers at New Ulm. Lincoln appointed
John Pope (1822-1892), commander of Union forces at the Second
Battle of Bull Run, to crush the uprising. Pope promised to deal
with the Sioux "as maniacs or wild beasts, and by no means
as people with whom treaties or compromises can be made."
When the Sioux surrendered in September 1862, 1,808 were taken
prisoner and 303 were condemned to death. Defying threats from
Minnesota's governor and a senator who warned of the indiscriminate
massacre of Indians if all 303 convicted Indians were not executed,
Lincoln commuted the sentences of most, but did finally authorize
the hanging of 37. This was the largest mass execution in American
history, but Lincoln lost many votes in Minnesota as a result
of his clemency.
In 1864, fighting spread to Colorado, after the discovery of
gold led to an influx of whites. In November, 1864, a group of
Colorado volunteers, under the command of Colonel John M. Chivington
(1821-1894), fell on a group of Cheyennes at Sand Creek, where
they had gathered under the governor's protection. "We must
kill them big and little," he told his men. "Nits make
lice" (nits are the eggs of lice). The militia slaughtered
about 150 Cheyenne, mostly women and children.
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