Dakota Captivity At Fort Snelling Summary

There were thirteen hundred Dakota still in captivity at Fort Snelling. Those remaining were taken by steamboat to the Crow Creek reservation in May 1863. The reservation was a land with no lakes, drought stricken desolation, with little to no timber. Shultz writes, “Nothing grew there. Nothing could grow there. It was a barren stretch of emptiness for as far as the eye could see – and beyond. There was not a house within fifty miles, no game, no berries, no edible roots.” 282

By summer of 1863 the vast majority of Dakota had left Minnesota, heading into western territories or north into Canada. Little Crow and his followers had escaped capture and headed west. He settled in Devils Lake, North Dakota. He had hoped to obtain support

He was killed by Nathan Lamson and his son, Chauncy, who had been out in the woods looking for errant horses or deer hunting – depending on which account you read. Ohler 230/ Wowinape had no time to aid his ailing father, other than lay moccasins at his father’s feet and wrapping him in a blanket as Dakota custom dictates to assist Little Crow on his long journey to the spirit world. Rumors started to fly about who this dead man was, but no one was sure he was Chief Little Crow. Wowinape, Little Crow’s son, escaped to Devils Lake but was captured by army scouts July 29, 1863. Soldiers brought in a Dakota youth found half-starved, crawling and clutching rib bones from a wolf he had shot to eat. Wowinape confirmed that his father had been killed 26 days earlier. He handed over a double-barreled gun with a broken stock. He tells of his father’s death to translator Joseph De Marais,

It was near night. He was hit the first time in the side, just above the hip. His gun and mine were lying on the ground. He took up my gun and fired it first, and then fired his own. He was shot the second time when he was firing his own gun. The ball struck the stock of his gun, and then hit him on the side, near the shoulders. This was the shot that killed him. He told me that he was killed, and asked me for water, which I gave him. He died immediately after. When I heard the first shot I laid down, and the man did not see me before father was killed. See footnote – eyes on Dakota

After personally interviewing the teenager, Sibley proclaimed in a note to military leaders: "There is no longer any doubt that the originator of the horrible massacres of 1862 has met his death." Chauncey Lamson received $75 for the Little Crow’s scalp and his father would net $500 -- double the annual salary of the era -- from the 1864 Minnesota Legislature for "great service to the state in shooting Little Crow." http://www.startribune.com/little-crow-s-legacy/166467906/

Wowinape was later sent to Fort Snelling, where he was convicted and sentenced to hang. A strange intervention took place as John Pope advocated a reduced sentence for Wowinape because there was no evidence he had participated in the Dakota uprising. Sibley did not understand this turn of events as there were hundreds of previous