Although far from Cuba, Minnesota has a strong interest in the island: its relations with the U.S. and its politics, religions, history, arts and people. Here are upcoming events in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul demonstrating that interest:
Date
Time
Event & Place
“Cuba: The Accidental Eden.” This small island’s varied landscape, its location in the heart of the Caribbean and its longstanding place at the center of Cold War politics have all combined to preserve some of the richest and most unusual natural environments of the hemisphere. For decades, Cuba’s wild landscapes lay untouched while its Caribbean neighbors poisoned or paved over their ecological riches. Now, Cuba’s priceless treasures are about to face an onslaught. Tourism is already on the rise and most experts predict tourism will double once the U.S. trade embargo ends. What will happen to Cuba’s stunning biodiversity – an island filled with amphibians, reptiles and the most biologically diverse freshwater fish in the region? (National Public Television’s Nature’s Episode # 2711 was shown on local public television station, tpt, on August 3 & 4, 2014, and is available online as a DVD.)
“Race to Revolution.” Dr. Gerald Horne, the author of Race to Revolution, discusses his book’s thesis that the histories of Cuba and the U.S. are tightly intertwined and have been for at least two centuries, including the interconnections among slavery, Jim Crow, and revolution. Slavery was central to the economic and political trajectories of Cuba and the U.S., both in terms of each nation’s internal political and economic development and in the interactions between the two countries. This was a Sojourner Truth radio program that was broadcast on August 29th, but can be heard anytime for the next 90 days at www.kpfk.com.
Sept. 2
7:00-8:00 pm
“Cuban Missile Crisis: Three Men Go to War.” This film tells the inside story of the Cuban Missile Crisis, exploring how in October 1962 the earth teetered on the very brink of nuclear holocaust. The documentary brings to life the three central characters John F. Kennedy, Fidel Castro and Nikita Khrushchev, and explores how the world’s most powerful men fell into an abyss of their own making and what courage and luck it took to climb out again. tpt Channel 2.
Sept. 2
8;00-9:00 pm
“Fidel Castro Tapes.” This film takes viewers on a journey like none other. This program uses only news and documentary footage — past and present — to detail the life and times of one of the most controversial political figures of the 20th Century. There is no narration in this film and no interviews. Instead, The Fidel Castro Tapes relies solely on the words of journalists who covered the major events in Castro’s life to tell the story. It is a unique approach, one that gives the viewer a chance to experience the life and times of Cuba’s leader as if they were actually living through them. tpt Channel 2.
Oct. 5
7:30 pm
“A Night in Havana.” A special concert with pianist Nachito Herrera, a Cuban-American resident of the Twin Cities, and his Cuban Orchestra with a dance floor! Ordway Music Theater, 345 Washington Street, St. Paul; www.ordway.org; tel: 651-243-2825. Tickets start at $23, but $10 discount with promo code “NACHITO SPECIAL.”
Oct. 6
5:50-7:30 pm
“What Does the Future Hold for Cuba-U.S. Relations?” Cuba’s top diplomatic official in the U.S., Dr.José Ramón Cabañas Rodríguez, will speak about U.S.-Cuba relations, the impact of Cuba’s economic reforms and ongoing U.S. sanctions and the prognosis for normalized relations. Co-sponsored by the Minnesota International Center and the University of St. Thomas, the event will be at the University of St. Thomas, Thornton Auditorium, 1000 LaSalle Avenue, Minneapolis. MIC & corporate members, cosponsors & students, $5; others, $15. Advance registration requested online or by phone (612-625-1662).
Oct. 11
2:00 pm
“Reembarque (Reshipment).”Film about Haitians immigration to Cuba in the early 20th century and their life in Cuba by Cuban documentary filmmaker, Gloria Rolando. Discussion after the film by Rolando and Robert Byrd, program director of the Jerome Foundation’s Film and Video Program. Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Pillsbury Auditorium, 2400 Third Avenue South, Minneapolis. FREE.
Oct. 22
7:30 pm
Creole Choir of Cuba. Experience the heart and soul of Cuba through irresistible melodies, poetic lyrics and impassioned vocal and percussive performance. With influences from both the Caribbean and West Africa, the Creole Choir of Cuba tells stories of survival, faith and tragic history, drawing you in with infectious music. Ordway Music Theater, 345 Washington Street, St. Paul; www.ordway.org; tel: 651-243-2825.
If you know of other Cuban events in Minnesota through the end of this year, please add a comment with the relevant information.
Map of U.S.-Dakota War, 1862Fort Snelling, Minnesota
Black slavery existed in supposedly free Minnesota. It happened primarily when U.S. Army officers stationed at Minnesota’s Fort Snelling[1] brought slaves with them at the Army’s expense. This practice did not end until just before the start of the Civil War in 1861 as confirmed by the 1865 adoption of the XIII Amendment to the U.S. Constitution banning slavery in this country.
The focus of the book is Joseph Godfrey, who was born to a black mother (Courtney) and a French Canadian father in the early 1830’s in Mendota, Minnesota across the Minnesota River from Fort Snelling.
At that time Joseph’s mother was a slave owned by Alexander Bailley, a prominent fur trader. She had been born into slavery around 1812 in Virginia and was owned in that state by James Garland until 1820, when she was sold to his brother, U.S. Army Captain John Garland. The Captain then took her with him on Army postings to supposedly free Michigan and Wisconsin and then in 1826 to Fort Snelling. During this time Garland claimed and received extra compensation from the Army for Courtney until he sold her in 1831 to Bailley.
By virtue of his race and parentage, Godfrey upon birth also was a slave owned by Mr. Bailley and is one of the few African Americans known to have born into slavery in Minnesota and the only one known to have grown from birth to adulthood there. Godfrey lived with the Bailley family in Wabasha, Hastings and Shakopee (then known as Faribault Springs), Minnesota. Probably in the 1840s Godfrey was sold or transferred to Bailley’s brother-in-law, Oliver Fairbault.[3]
In or about 1847 Godfrey escaped his owner and walked about 40 miles southwest along the Minnesota River to Traverse des Sioux, a village at a shallow river crossing.[4] There he presented himself to Alexander Huggins, a militant abolitionist Presbyterian missionary whom he had previously met.
Almost immediately, however, Godfrey fled to join the Indian bands led by Chiefs Wabasha and Wakute along the Mississippi River. In 1853 Godfrey moved back along the Minnesota River in south central Minnesota after an 1851 treaty required those tribes to go to a new Dakota reservation in that location. In any event, Godfrey lived with Dakota Indians for over 12 years after his escape from his owner.
Godfrey thus was living with the Dakota when the U.S.-Dakota War broke out and he joined the Indians in that War. On August 18th he was with a Dakota war party that attacked farmers in Milford. Afterwards he said he had killed several men and children that day although the subsequent military commission apparently did not believe any such statements as he was acquitted of murdering anyone himself. Godfrey also participated in other battles of the War. Exactly what he did in these battles is unclear, but in any event on or about September 24th he along with some of the Dakota warriors surrendered to the U. S. Army.
Later he was tried and convicted by a military commission as will be discussed in a subsequent post.
Godfrey was not the only slave living in Minnesota during these years as Bachman’s book explains.
One of these other slaves was Dred Scott, who lived with his owner, Dr. John Emerson, while he was posted at Fort Snelling from 1836 to 1840. Scott, of course, was the subject of the infamous U.S. Supreme Court case of 1857 holding that Scott because he was black was a non-citizen who had no right to bring a claim in a federal court and invalidating as unconstitutional the Missouri Compromise law of 1820-1821 prohibiting slavery in the Northern territories.
[1] Today Fort Snelling is close to the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport and is a National Historic Landmark operated by the Minnesota Historical Society. It is named after U.S. Army Colonel Josiah Snelling, the first Commandant of the Fort while he owned slaves.
[2] The 2013 book is published by Pond Dakota Press, a division of the Pond Dakota Heritage Society of Bloomington, Minnesota ((ISBN 978-0-9850099-0-8. Gideon and Samuel Pond were 19th century Presbyterian missionaries to Minnesota. Bachman is working on another book about the Army’s more general pre-Civil War promotion of slavery in the U.S.
[3] The current Minnesota city of Faribault is named after Oliver’s brother, Alexander Faribault.
[4] This river crossing was used by generations of Dakota and early French fur traders as a trading outpost. Traverse des Sioux was the site of treaty negotiations in 1851 between the U.S. government and the Dakota. Today the Nicollet County Historical Society operates the site as well as the adjacent Treaty Site History Center.
In late April I received a Minnesota Jury Summons ordering me to appear at the Hennepin County Government Center in downtown Minneapolis on May 6th for two weeks of jury duty.[1]
The form advised me that my name “was randomly selected from a list of licensed drivers, state identification card holders and registered voters in [the County].” Each year approximately 30,000 such summonses are issued.
The Summons contained a Qualification Questionnaire that had to be answered and returned to the court within 10 days. In addition to basic personal information, the Questionnaire asked if you were a U.S. citizen, were at least 18 years of age and a resident of Hennepin County, were able to communicate in English, had any physical or mental disability that would affect your ability to serve, had ever been convicted of a felony, had been on jury duty in the State in the past four years and were a judge in the judicial branch.
Although I was eligible for an automatic excuse from such duty for people over 70 years of age, I did not exercise this right. I thought I was fit and able and should fulfill this obligation of citizenship. As a former lawyer who tried some jury cases, I also thought it would be educational and interesting to see the trial process from a different perspective. I thus answered the call for service even though I thought it most unlikely that I would sit on a jury because trial lawyers are reluctant to allow current or former lawyers on a jury due to fear that they would dominate other jurors and use their pre-existing legal knowledge to influence their decision.
On May 6th at 8:15 a.m. I joined 124 other citizens in reporting for duty in the Jury Assembly Room at the Government Center. Our attendance was taken by having the bar codes on our summonses read electronically.
Before we watched a movie describing the jury system in Minnesota and read the State’s Jury Handbook, we were told there were 105 pending cases that might require juries, that we were not to discuss any cases or read or see any media coverage of cases while we served and that we were not to do any independent Internet or other research or investigation regarding such cases. We also were told not to discuss the cases on any social media until they were over.
Around 10:00 a.m. 14 potential jurors were called and escorted upstairs to the courtroom for a case.
Potential Juror in a Civil Case
Hennepin County Courtroom
A half hour later I was included in a panel of 16 for another case, and we were escorted upstairs to the courtroom of Judge Mel Dickstein[2] for a civil case by an interior design company against Bernard Berrian[3] for alleged unpaid fees for work on a condo in downtown Minneapolis.
Judge Mel Dickstein
After brief introductions of the trial lawyers and their clients, the prospective jurors were subjected to voir dire, questioning by the Judge and then by the lawyers to try to determine if any of us had any reasons why we could not be fair and impartial in this case. This process took an hour in the morning and one and a half hours in the afternoon.
One of the judge’s questions was whether we ever had been deposed, i.e., given sworn testimony before trial. I answered “Yes,” and when I said it had lasted for five days, the Judge asked for my reactions to that experience. I said I often was frustrated and had greater sympathy for the many people I had deposed in my legal career and for the clients I had defended in depositions taken by other lawyers.
When trial lawyers question the prospective jurors, in addition to trying to see if there are reasons for disqualifying an individual, they also have other objectives. They want to obtain a sense of what the individuals are like to aid the lawyers’ exercising their preemptory challenges, i.e., dismissing some individuals for no stated reasons. They also try to give prospective jurors a peak at what their case is about and build rapport with the prospective jurors.
One of the attorneys in this case, I thought, failed in these secondary objectives by engaging in very detailed and unnecessary quasi-cross examination of some of the members of the panel. At least it annoyed me. Finally the judge called the lawyers to the bench and undoubtedly told them to speed up the questioning because thereafter the questioning was much shorter and was soon over.
As I sat in the jury box, I wondered why this case had not settled, as most similar cases do. Each side had two lawyers (or one lawyer and a legal assistant) at the counsel tables, thus increasing the costs of litigation for both parties. In this preliminary phase, we were not told how much money was at stake, but I could not believe it was immense.
Only one of the panel was excused for cause; she was responsible for taking care of her elderly mother. The lawyers then exercised their preemptory challenges. I was one of those thus striken.
I, therefore, returned to the Jury Assembly Room until 4:00 p.m. when I was released for the day. Later I was told that 124 of the 125 citizens in the Room that day had been called upstairs as potential jurors.
The next day (May 7th) 86 other citizens and I reported to the Jury Assembly Room at 9:00 a.m. This included some who had been on On-Call status the prior day. We were told that there were 35 potential jury cases on the trial calendar for the day.
Around 10:30 a.m. a group of potential jurors was called for a case. However, the Room’s computer had gone down, and all of us had to write our names on slips of paper, and the requisite number of slips was drawn at random from a bowl. I was not included.
At 11: 45 a.m. those of us still in the Room were released for our lunch break.
Potential Juror in a Criminal Case
Judge Lyonel Norris
After we had returned at 1:30 p.m., I was included in a panel of 35 potential jurors and escorted upstairs to the courtroom of Judge Lyonel Norris[4] for a criminal case. The defendant was an African-American man accused of domestic and sexual abuse, as I recall.
Judge Norris and then the lawyers in the case questioned 21 of us who were in the jury box to try to determine if there were any reasons why we could not be fair and impartial jurors in the case. This process lasted the rest of the afternoon until nearly 5:30 p.m. and most of the next morning (May 8th).
We were asked if we or any members of our families, including close friends, had ever been a victim of sexual or physical abuse or ever been accused of such crimes. I was astounded that 9 of the 21 said that they had. Some of the nine were then questioned about the circumstances at the judge’s bench while a “white noise” machine was turned on so that others in the courtroom could not hear what was said. Others of the 9 provided details involving other members of their families in open court. Afterwards one of the 9 was excused when she said she could not be fair and impartial in this case because of the nature of the criminal charges.
I was also surprised by how many of us answered affirmatively to the question of whether we or any members of our families, including close friends, had ever been accused of a crime, including DUI. Most talked about relatives and friends accused of DUI.
Each of the 21 people in the jury box provided basic personal information. I said that I was a retired lawyer and adjunct law professor, that my wife was also retired, that one of our sons lived in the Twin Cities area and was a principal of a gourmet coffee company, that our other son lived in Ecuador and was the C.E.O. of a non-profit environmental group and that I was an active member of Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church.
In response to specific questions, I disclosed I had been a defendant in two civil cases, both of which had been resolved in my favor; that I had testified as a foundation witness in a federal court criminal case; that in the early 1970’s I had been a pro bono (no fee) lawyer for the Minnesota Civil Liberties Union in a lawsuit against a group of Minneapolis policemen for a political raid and that we had obtained compensatory and punitive damages against some of the defendants; that although I had never practiced criminal law, I had become interested in international criminal justice and the International Criminal Court as a result of my teaching international human rights at the Law School; and that my wife had been a volunteer coordinator at Minneapolis’ Neighborhood Involvement Program and Chrysalis Women’s Center which had programs for battered women.
After the questioning of the potential jurors was completed, no one else was excused for cause. Again, however, I was striken by the attorneys.
I returned to the Jury Assembly Room and was excused for lunch. When I returned at 1:30 p.m., I was informed that all of the other potential jurors and I were excused from the balance of our jury duty.
This week I received my State compensation for my jury duty $30.00 ($10.00/day) plus $11.34 for mileage.
Conclusion
I was impressed by the operation of the jury system. People in the Jury Assembly Room were attentive to the instructions and information being conveyed and respectful of the court officials and their fellow potential jurors.
In the two courtrooms the judges and trial lawyers were courteous and respectful of one another and of the potential jurors. I was most impressed with the judges’ emphasis of the need to have fair and impartial jurors and by their questioning of us, especially in the criminal case.
I also got to know some of my fellow prospective jurors and was most impressed by all of our ability and willingness to answer in public questions about our personal lives. I certainly believed that all of us were striving to do our best to provide information to the court about our personal circumstances that might affect our ability to be fair and impartial.
[2] Although I knew or had appeared as an attorney before 19 of the 61 Hennepin County District Judges, I had had no prior experience with Judge Dickstein. Later I did research and discovered that he holds undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Minnesota and was a former Assistant U.S. District Attorney and a former Associate and Partner attorney in the Minneapolis law office of Robins Kaplan Miller & Ciresi, with which I had had several cases in my career. Mr. Dickstein was appointed to the bench in 2002 and elected for retention in 2004 and 2010.
[3] As several other prospective jurors and I stated to the court, we recognized Mr. Berrian as a former professional football player who had played for the Minnesota Vikings football team. After I had been dismissed as a juror in the case, I did some research and discovered that he had his own website.
[4] I also had no prior experience with Judge Norris. Later I did research and discovered that he had been a Law Clerk for Judge Michael J. Davis in state and federal courts, an Assistant Public Defender, Public Defender, Director of the Minnesota Department of Education’s Office of Equity and Assistant Federal Defender before he was appointed to the bench by Governor Mark Dayton in 2011 and then elected to retain his judgeship in 2012. Growing up in Washington, D.C., Mr. Norris in an interview after his judicial appointment said he was a runaway and homeless at age 16. He was fortunate to meet someone “in the business of helping kids,” who lead him to Runaway House and later to Carleton College, one of Minnesota’s premier private liberal arts institutions. There he became interested in law and then attended, and was graduated from, the University of Minnesota Law School.
In 1862 Rev. Charles E. Brown,my maternal second great-grandfather, had been a Baptist missionary to the Iowa Territory and State since 1842, and he and his family lived in the village of Vernon Springs in Howard County in northern Iowa. This was not far from the U.S.-Dakota War in neighboring Minnesota.[1] (In the map to the left, Howard County is the third from the right in the northern tier of Iowa.)
About 31 years after the War Rev. Brown used his diaries to start writing his memoirs, including comments on that War.[2]
He said, “In August 1862, the Sioux Indians in Minnesota raided the homes and villages of settlers, murdering–and mutilating–men, women and children, and burning–and destroying– a large amount of property.”
The Indians, he added, were “[e]ncouraged by and taking advantage of the [Civil War], and incited by agents of the Confederacy, unscrupulous and possibly unauthorized.” The Indians were “brooding–over real and fancied wrong’s [sic] suffered in dealing–with the Government and its agents.” The Indians “took the war path and spread terror, death and destruction through the southwestern part of the State [of Minnesota].”
Because the U.S.-Dakota War was so close to northern Iowa, “thousands of people abandoned their [Minnesota] homes and fled for their lives into Northern Iowa.” By September of 1862, “the panic of the Minnesota settlers was at its height and the town [of Vernon Springs] and roads [were] filled with refugees.”
Into this commotion came Rev. Brown’s son, Charles P. Brown, a Second Sergeant of Company D, Third Regiment of the Iowa Infantry, on a furlough leave from the Civil War. The “blue coat and brass buttons of [his] . . . uniform [were]. . . inspiring. . . . [The uniform] represented the war power of the government, and was looked on as the advance guard of military protection.”
The proximity of the U.S.-Dakota War also prompted “some families in our immediate neighborhood [to engage in] . . . hastily packing . . . a few thing’s [sic] and leaving.”
In addition, The Iowa county where the Browns lived (Howard County) organized and mounted a “company . . . for home defense, armed with such weapons, rifles and shot guns as were available, and set out to meet the savages.” However, this “company of home guards did not meet any Indians.”
This undoubtedly was due, according to Rev. Brown, to the “prompt action by Governor Ramsey of Minnesota, and General Sibley with militia and volunteers, speedily overpowered the Indians, defeating, capturing and punishing them.”
Brown continued, “About twelve hundred Sioux Indians were engaged in the raid. Governor Ramsey estimated the loss of life among settlers at eight hundred.” In addition, between twenty and thirty thousand people had abandoned their homes, and the loss of property was estimated from two and one-half to three million dollars.”
“Five hundred Indians were captured, tried by a Military Court, and three hundred sentenced to suffer death by hanging. Of this number thirty-eight were executed December 26, 1862.”
The sources of Brown’s information about the War are not stated, but the essence of his account is consistent with what historians today have to say.
I, however, am disappointed that he did not see any of the reasons for the Dakota’s initiating the War (other than his acknowledging that they had suffered real wrongs in dealing with the Government and its agents). Nor does he seem to be aware of the due process problems of the military commission’s prosecution and conviction of the Indians. Most seriously, as a Christian pastor he does not cope with the obvious religious issues associated with Governor Ramsey’s demand for extermination of the Dakota Indians or with the execution of the 38 Indians on the day after Christmas.
[1] A summary of the War was provided in a prior post. Subsequent posts will explore this year’s sesquicentennial commemoration of the War and Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church’s October 7th worship service devoted to remembering the War and its consequences.
[2] Charles E. Brown, Personal Recollections of Rev. Charles E. Brown with Sketches of His Wife and Children and Extracts from an Autobiography of Rev. Phillip Perry Brown 1790-1862 with Sketches of His Children and the Family Record 1797-1907 at 82-85 (Ottumwa, IA 1907).
In August 1862 war broke out between the United States and the Dakota Indians along the Minnesota River Valley in the southwestern part of the new State of Minnesota.[1]
The war was sparked by years of broken promises to the Indians, insults by the traders and starving Indian children and by an encounter on August 17th near the village of Acton. Four young Indian hunters, returning from an unsuccessful hunting trip, stopped at the village to see if they could get food from the settlers. An argument erupted, and the Indians killed five settlers.
Chief Little Crow
Early the next day the Dakota Indians at their nearby village deliberated and concluded that they had to go to war under the leadership of Chief Little Crow. That day they attacked and killed 20 traders and white settlers at the Lower Sioux Agency as well as 24 soldiers from nearby Fort Ridgely (20 miles west of the town of New Ulm).
Battle of New Ulm, MinnesotaMap of U.S.-Dakota War, 1862
This war lasted for the next six weeks with six key battles at New Ulm, Fort Ridgely, Birch Coulee and Wood Lake, Minnesota. In all 100 Indians and over 600 settlers and soldiers were killed.[2]
An estimated 20,000 settlers in this area fled to Mankato and St. Paul, Minnesota to escape the fighting. In addition, some went south to the adjoining State of Iowa.
Governor Alexander Ramsey
About half way through the War, on September 9, 1862, Minnesota Governor Alexander Ramsey called a special session of the Minnesota Legislature to address the State’s dire situation. Over 1,000 people had been killed or wounded. Destruction spread out over the western frontier, which had been depopulated with people fleeing for safety. Agricultural losses were unknown. Transportation of supplies to all points west and north was almost impossible.[3
Governor Ramsey’s lengthy address that day to the Legislature contained twelve sections describing the situation and making a demand for action. The description of the situation before the outbreak of war included the following:[4]
Our “frontier settlements [have been] suddenly attacked and desolated by a treacherous foe, living unsuspected in our midst, whose first warning of hostility [came in the] indiscriminate massacre of men, women and children.” Further, the “circumstances of this outburst give it an aspect of wanton malignity and perfidy scarcely paralleled, if at all, in the tragic annals of Indian crime.”
Previously “the Sioux, or Dakota Indians of Minnesota had, as a tribe, lived in terms of unbroken amity and confidence with the citizens of this State, a friendship running back for more than a generation of traders and trappers. The depredations often committed by [Indian] individuals, even the murderous raids of [a band of Indians] . . . at Spirit Lake, in 1857 . . . did not disturb this general feeling of confidence in our Indian neighbors.”
“In return for their lands, . . . which they had voluntarily relinquished to the [U.S.] . . . by treaty, a home had been given them in the western part of the State, and munificent provisions made for their comfort, education, and reclamation to civilized pursuits.”
The Governor’s speech then set forth a detailed account of the war up to September 9th before he made the following chilling Demand or call for action:
“Our course then is plain. The Sioux Indians of Minnesota must be exterminated or driven forever beyond the borders of the State.”
“The public safety imperiously requires it. Justice calls for it. Humanity itself, outraged by their unutterable atrocities, demands it. The blood of the murdered cries to heaven for vengeance on these assassins of women and children. They have themselves made their annihilation an imperative social necessity. Faithless to solemn treaty obligations, to old friendships, to the ties of blood, regardless even of self-interest when it conflicts with their savage passions, incapable of honor, or of truth or gratitude; amenable to no law; bound by no moral or social restraint;–they have already destroyed in one monstrous act of perfidy, every pledge on which it was possible to found a hope of ultimate reconciliation.”
They must be regarded and treated as outlaws. If any shall escape extinction, the wretched remnant must be driven beyond our borders and our frontier garrisoned with a force sufficient to forever prevent their return.”
After the end of the war, the U.S. speedily tried 392 Dakota Indians before a military commission in Minnesota. Of these, 319 were convicted, and all but 16 were sentenced to be hanged.[5]
Bishop Henry WhipplePresident Abraham Lincoln
Minnesota Episcopal Bishop Henry Whipple was offended by what he thought were injustices in the trials and sentences. He, therefore, went to Washington, D.C. to plead for mercy from President Abraham Lincoln. The President was moved by this plea and after reviewing all the cases reduced the number of death sentences from 303 to 38 with the remaining 265 to be imprisoned.
Hanging the 38 Dakota Indians
On December 26, 1862 (the day after Christmas), the 38 were hanged in Mankato, Minnesota. This is still the largest mass execution on U.S. soil in U.S. history.[6]
Early the next year (1863) the U.S. Congress revoked all of the treaties with the Dakota Indians and passed a law banning all Dakota Indians from Minnesota.
Dakota Camp @ Fort Snelling
In the meantime, in the Fall of 1862 the U.S. Army detained hundreds of Indian women and children and placed them in a stockade or concentration camp near the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers and under the guard of Fort Snelling high on the adjacent bluff. An outbreak of measles killed 160 to 300 of those in the camp during the winter of 1862-1863.
[1] This post is based upon a six-part series in the StarTribune by Curt Brown, August 12-18, 2012. The series is available for only $2.99 as a downloadable e-book, In the Footsteps of Little Crow: 150 Years After the U.S.-Dakota War. There also is a Minnesota History Center website devoted to the War. Subsequent posts will discuss a contemporary settler’s comments on the War, this year’s sesquicentennial commemoration of the War and Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church’s October 7th worship service devoted to remembering the War and its consequences.
[2] After the second battle of New Ulm, the wounded settlers and soldiers were treated by Dr. William Mayo, the subsequent co-founder of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
[3] Monjeau-Marz, Alexander Ramsey’s Words of War, 1 Minnesota’s Heritage 63 (Jan. 2010).
[5] There was little due process of law in the proceedings of this military commission, (Chomsky, The United States-Dakota War Trials: A Study in Military Injustice, 43 Stanford L. Rev. 13 (1990).)
[6] The 38 bodies were buried in a common grave near Mankato, but many of the cadavers were exhumed to be used for medical education. Dr. William Mayo had at least one such cadaver that he kept in his home for anatomy lessons for his sons.
For at least the last 24 years, the National Geographic Society has conducted the annual Geographic Bee in the U.S. to promote the study of geography.
This year the National Champion will receive a $25,000 college scholarship, a trip to the Galapagos Islands and lifetime membership in the Society. The 2nd and 3rd place national winners will receive $15,000 and $10,000 college scholarships respectively. This year’s national Bee will be held at the Society in Washington, D.C., May 22-24, 2012 and will be shown live on the National Geographic Channel on cable television.
Minnesota State Geographic BEE Contestants, 3/30/12
Each state has its own Bee to select its candidate for the national competition. This year’s state competitions were held on March 30th. Minnesota’s was at St. Cloud State University for 100 fourth through eighth graders who won their local schools’ competitions and who were the highest scorers on a written examination out a field of 500. Here was the makeup of this year’s 100 Minnesota contestants: fourth graders, 3; fifth graders, 6; sixth graders, 9; seventh graders, 23; and eighth graders, 59. Only 7 of the 100 were girls.
Minnesota Geographic BEE Final Round, 3/30/12
The Minnesota Bee started with four Preliminary Rounds. The 15 top scorers in those four sessions with perfect scores of 8 were then assembled for a Tiebreaker Round to select the top 10 individuals for the Final Round, two of whom were girls. These 10 were questioned, and eventually only two individuals were left for the Championship Round. More questions were addressed to the two contestants until one individual was eliminated, leaving the other as the state champion. The deciding question was “Name the Baltic country that replaced its currency (the kroon) in early 2011 with the Euro, becoming the most recent country to join the eurozone?” (Correct answer: Estonia.)
The Minnesota State Champion this year was Gopi Ramanathan, an 8th grader from Sartell Middle School; he also was the State Champion in 2010 and the second-place state winner in 2011. The second-place winner this year was William Bogenschultz, an 8th grader from Ramsey Junior High School in St. Paul; he was the State Champion in 2011 and the second-place state winner in 2010.
The procedures for the Bee are very detailed and very fair as were the questions.
For example, in the Preliminary Round that I observed, there were 21 contestants, who were randomly assigned numbers 1 through 21 and who were then questioned in that order. For each of eight rounds of questions after an initial practice round, the moderator announced the type of question that would be asked. For example, the first round was a set of questions asking which of two named states in the U.S. had a certain characteristic. She then asked questions, and the contestant had 15 seconds to answer. One of the questions in the first round was “Which state has the longer shoreline, Maryland or New Hampshire?” (Correct answer: Maryland.) The questions got more difficult with each passing round. In the eighth and final round the questions were about political geography, and one of the questions was “What southeastern Asian country near the Gulf of Tonkin was reunited in 1976, Myanmar or Vietnam?” (Correct answer: Vietnam.)
Similar procedures were followed in the Tiebreaker, Final and Championship Rounds with increasingly more difficult questions.
Before the start of questioning in the Final Round, a film “What will you do with geography?” was shown. It had brief comments by a number of people whose jobs required knowledge of different types of geographical subjects. I learned a lot about this topic from the film and thought it was answering a question that many of the contestants and their parents probably had.
Elliott Krohnke
I attended the Minnesota Bee because my grandson, Elliott, a sixth grader at Lakes International Language Academy (LILA) in the town of Forest Lake, was one of the 100 contestants. Afterwards Elliot said that this year’s competition would help him prepare for next year’s BEE. (Last Spring as a fifth grader, he prepared a presentation at his school about Libya and the NATO bombing,)
