38 Nooses: Lincoln, Little Crow, and the Beginning of the Frontier's End

Resumen del libro

In 38 Nooses, historian Scott W. Berg recounts the stories of the Dakota War of 1862, bringing to life Dakota leader Little Crow, President Abraham Lincoln, and other players, famous and not, in this overlooked but seminal moment in American history.

In August 1862, after decades of hardship as white settlers moved into the Minnesota Territory, a small group of Dakota men viciously attacked a white family. Before the settlers could retaliate, the Dakotas convened a council at the teepee of their leader, Little Crow, who counseled caution-but anger won the day. So began six weeks of intense conflict along the Minnesota frontier, as Dakotas fought with settlers and federal troops. Once the uprising was smashed and the Dakotas taken prisoner, a military commission tried and convicted more than three hundred Indians of murder. President Lincoln, embroiled in the most devastating period of the Civil War, personally intervened to save the lives of 265 of the condemned men, but the toll on the Dakota nation was still staggering: a way of life destroyed, a tribe forcibly relocated to barren and unfamiliar territory, and 38 Dakota men hanged-the largest government-sanctioned execution in U.S. history.