Kindle Price: $22.73

Save $4.22 (16%)

Promotions apply when you purchase

These promotions will be applied to this item:

Some promotions may be combined; others are not eligible to be combined with other offers. For details, please see the Terms & Conditions associated with these promotions.

Read with our free app
You've subscribed to ! We will preorder your items within 24 hours of when they become available. When new books are released, we'll charge your default payment method for the lowest price available during the pre-order period.
Update your device or payment method, cancel individual pre-orders or your subscription at
Your Memberships & Subscriptions

Buy for others

Give as a gift or purchase for a team or group.
Learn more

Buying and sending eBooks to others

  1. Select quantity
  2. Buy and send eBooks
  3. Recipients can read on any device

These ebooks can only be redeemed by recipients in the US. Redemption links and eBooks cannot be resold.
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Amazon book clubs early access
Loading your book clubs
There was a problem loading your book clubs. Please try again.
Not in a club? Learn more
Amazon book clubs early access

Join or create book clubs

Choose books together

Track your books
Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free.
Explore Amazon Book Clubs

Follow the author

Gary Clayton Anderson
Follow
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

Massacre in Minnesota: The Dakota War of 1862, the Most Violent Ethnic Conflict in American History Kindle Edition

by Gary Clayton Anderson (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 59 ratings
See all formats and editions

In August 1862 the worst massacre in U.S. history unfolded on the Minnesota prairie, launching what has come to be known as the Dakota War, the most violent ethnic conflict ever to roil the nation. When it was over, between six and seven hundred white settlers had been murdered in their homes, and thirty to forty thousand had fled the frontier of Minnesota. But the devastation was not all on one side. More than five hundred Indians, many of them women and children, perished in the aftermath of the conflict; and thirty-eight Dakota warriors were executed on one gallows, the largest mass execution ever in North America. The horror of such wholesale violence has long obscured what really happened in Minnesota in 1862—from its complicated origins to the consequences that reverberate to this day. A sweeping work of narrative history, the result of forty years’ research, Massacre in Minnesota provides the most complete account of this dark moment in U.S. history.

Focusing on key figures caught up in the conflict—Indian, American, and Franco- and Anglo-Dakota—Gary Clayton Anderson gives these long-ago events a striking immediacy, capturing the fears of the fleeing settlers, the animosity of newspaper editors and soldiers, the violent dedication of Dakota warriors, and the terrible struggles of seized women and children. Through rarely seen journal entries, newspaper accounts, and military records, integrated with biographical detail, Anderson documents the vast corruption within the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the crisis that arose as pioneers overran Indian lands, the failures of tribal leadership and institutions, and the systemic strains caused by the Civil War. Anderson also gives due attention to Indian cultural viewpoints, offering insight into the relationship between Native warfare, religion, and life after death—a nexus critical to understanding the conflict.

Ultimately, what emerges most clearly from Anderson’s account is the outsize suffering of innocents on both sides of the Dakota War—and, identified unequivocally for the first time, the role of white duplicity in bringing about this unprecedented and needless calamity.
 
Previous page
  1. Print length
    385 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    University of Oklahoma Press
  5. Publication date
    October 17, 2019
  6. File size
    31565 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  10. See all details
Next page
Due to its large file size, this book may take longer to download

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Exhaustively researched and copiously documented, Anderson’s history of the Minnesota-Dakota War of 1862 offers fresh perspectives and a superior understanding of both Dakota culture and federal Indian policy. This will become the standard work on the subject.”—William E. Lass, author of Minnesota: A History and Navigating the Missouri: Steamboating on Nature’s Highway

“Anderson’s account of the Dakota uprising of 1862 is now the definitive one of an event—shamefully corrupt in its origins, horrific in its unfolding, and tragic in its aftermath—that must stand among the most appalling and revealing in the long history of Indian-white relations.”—Elliott West, author of The Essential West: Collected Essays and The Last Indian War: The Nez Perce Story

“Treating all aspects of the 1862 Dakota War with matching gravity, Gary Clayton Anderson's Massacre in Minnesota can justifiably lay claim to being the finest single-volume treatment of "the most violent ethnic conflict in American history." Highly recommended."  - Civil War Books and Authors
 

“Gary Clayton Anderson’s well-written book provides a readable, single-volume portrayal of this defining event in Minnesota history that remains controversial today.”—South Dakota History
 

“After four and a half decades of scholarship—including the ethno-biography, Little Crow: Spokesman for the Sioux (1986), and a co-edited collection, Through Dakota Eyes (1988)—Gary Clayton Anderson came to the conclusion that he had not provided a clear explanation for the combination of circumstances that caused the Dakota War of 1862…With this career capstone book, Anderson has given us our best understanding of the terrible Dakota War of 1862 and its tragic consequences, to date.”—New Mexico Historical Review
 

About the Author

Gary Clayton Anderson, George Lynn Cross Research Professor at the University of Oklahoma , is author of The Conquest of Texas: Ethnic Cleansing in the Promised Land, 1820–1875. His book The Indian Southwest, 1580–1830: Ethnogenesis and Reinvention won the Angie Debo Prize and the publication award from the San Antonio Conservation Society.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07W2VNHP3
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ University of Oklahoma Press (October 17, 2019)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 17, 2019
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 31565 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 385 pages
  • Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 0806164344
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 59 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Gary Clayton Anderson

Gary Clayton Anderson

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
59 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Charles H. Jensvold
5.0 out of 5 stars Painful to read, but important!
Reviewed in the United States on July 6, 2023
Verified Purchase
This was a painful, yet very important book for me to read. Having grown up and farmed on the lands of the Sisseton and Wahpeton Oyate, only now do I more clearly understand the history of the land that raised me, fed me, sent me to school, and has allowed me to retire in relative comfort. My farm lies in the corner of Sargent and Richland counties in North Dakota and Marshall and Roberts counties in South Dakota. Being of Norwegian ancestry, my grandparents settled on these lands, the lands formed and led for many of its early years by Gabriel Renville.

Thanks, Gary, for bringing to light this well researched book and the details of the many people involved in the Dakota War of 1862. Although one can never know the exact thoughts that persons had, your book certainly gives insights as to the difficult decisions faced by the individuals and groups on all sides of the conflict.
Charles Jensvold, Detroit Lakes, MN
2 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Bryan Baldwin
5.0 out of 5 stars Thorough and Well Documented History
Reviewed in the United States on December 8, 2021
Verified Purchase
The Dakota War of 1862, prosecuted by the Lincoln Administration during the early days of the American Civil War, was one of the bloodiest ethnic conflicts in American history. Overshadowed by the cataclysm of the Civil War, the Dakota of 1862 was left largely unexamined within broader context of the history of the American west. In Massacre in Minnesota: The Dakota War of 1862, the Most Violent Ethnic Conflict in American History, University of Oklahoma professor Gary Clayton Anderson chronicles this conflict based on over forty years of historical research. Although the sources of the conflict had been simmering for decades, it reached a flashpoint in August of 1862 that resulted in thousands of casualties on both sides, a refugee crisis, and the largest public execution in American history. The Dakota War of 1862, and its aftermath, would dramatically shape the post-Civil War landscape in the west.

In his preface, Anderson admits that he initially avoided taking on the Dakota War of 1862 as a younger historian because the war “is a conflict of corruption, and magnified by extreme violence in which thousands suffered on both sides (xii).” With the benefit of wisdom and perspective, Anderson produces a well-researched and readable history that avoids narratives and myth and captures historical truth.
6 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Bertha Aguirre
5.0 out of 5 stars History of Dakota Indian Land In Minnesota
Reviewed in the United States on June 9, 2021
Verified Purchase
This is a very interesting Native American History of Indian land in Minnesota. The story of the Dakota's history and their land by Minnesota river/Mississippi river. The treaty monies set aside for the Indians were abused by H. Sibley and A. Ramsey, but the mass corruption simply slipped away. and that 38 warriors that were executed on December 26, 1862 in Mankato, Minnesota base on hearsay and mistrials. One run-away African American slave Joseph Godfrey that live with the Native American was saved. This all happen under the direction of the crooks and racism General Henry H. Sibley and Minnesota governor Alexander Ramsey. President Abraham Lincoln sign off on the execution base on political implications. Why did he not get a second opinion from other sources is beyond me. Then afterwards the state started re-locating the Dakota's to Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota into Montana and Wyoming. No wonder their are no reservations for the Sioux in Minnesota. this is a great book and a true history that should be taught in the school system. Congress and others have not been great through out the American history and still the same to this day. So sad.
3 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
patricia
5.0 out of 5 stars Nice. Book👍
Reviewed in the United States on August 9, 2022
Verified Purchase
Nice book:)
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Paul Grimstad
5.0 out of 5 stars Sad but true.
Reviewed in the United States on March 8, 2021
Verified Purchase
The plight of the Native American is clearly a European cause.....interesting book on just how mistreated, coerced and lied to, those people were and the settlers/government wonder why the anger!!!
6 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
shane b
5.0 out of 5 stars Incredibly well researched
Reviewed in the United States on December 2, 2022
A lot of depth into specific attacks - especially the Chapter on the day of the Massacre itself. Incredibly interesting details on a topic I knew very little about. Highly recommend.
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Union65
2.0 out of 5 stars Lincoln and the Dakota War
Reviewed in the United States on December 10, 2022
This book doesn’t note Lincoln's promise following the 1862 Sioux-U.S. War. As a young man Lincoln had saved a Native American's life from bloodthirsty soldiers. Now, as President, Lincoln commuted the sentences of 265 Dakota men, having insisted that in review a distinction be made between murder or rape and participation in battle.

Lincoln had earlier asked the Secretary of the Interior to look into the matter of Indian Affairs reform. When Bishop Henry Whipple visited Lincoln in Washington to plead the cause of the 303 condemned men and to inform Lincoln of the perfidy of Government agents toward the Indians, Lincoln said that he could "feel the rascality of this Indian business down to my boots" and vowed to several people that when "this war ends, and if I live, this Indian system shall be reformed!" He brought the subject up in Annual Message to Congress, but Congress did nothing.

In 1864 Lincoln told the Native American rights advocate John Beeson, "You may rest assured that as soon as the pressing matters of this war is settled the Indians shall have my first care and I will not rest until Justice is done to their and your satisfaction."

Lincoln had inherited a lamentable and deplorable Indian system. Who knows what a second term might have brought to US government—Native American relations.
5 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Grover Smith
1.0 out of 5 stars Self described as " white duplicity"
Reviewed in the United States on October 11, 2022
In books self description refers to cause as "WHITE DUPLICITY" tells me up front this is a P.C. that is anti white. Funny we praise the Buffalo soldiers while condemning all other multiethnic soldiers as villainous. Francis Parkman is the best author on American early history his histories end with Oregon Trail.,
5 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Report an issue

Does this item contain inappropriate content?
Report
Do you believe that this item violates a copyright?
Report
Does this item contain quality or formatting issues?
Report