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In the summer of 1862, a series of brutal and tragic events unfolded on the Minnesota frontier—events that have since been reduced, in many public retellings, to a “Dakota uprising” or “Indian aggression.” But those who know the history—and those who have lived its legacy—understand that the U.S.–Dakota War was not a sudden outbreak of violence but a necessary, desperate revolt born of starvation, betrayal, and the tightening grip of settler colonial control.
The Indigenous Dakota people did not choose war lightly. They were pushed into it. And their resistance must be understood in that light—not as a rebellion against peace, but as an uprising against the slow suffocation of their sovereignty, dignity, and survival.
Minnesota's Unpaid Debts: Broken Treaties and Broken Promises
In the years leading up to the war, the Dakota people had been stripped of their traditional lands through a series of coercive treaties with the United States government. In exchange for vast territories, the Dakota were promised annuity payments, food supplies, and support for a transition to a new way of life confined to reservations.
But Minnesota—through a mixture of mismanagement, racism, and outright theft—failed to deliver. The U.S. government delayed or diverted annuity payments, often allowing traders and government agents to intercept the funds. Corruption was rampant. Food supplies were withheld or spoiled. Dakota communities, now confined to increasingly restricted lands, were literally starving.
And who controlled the land—the location of their forced new life? White traders, local officials, and federal Indian agents. In other words: the very people who had stolen from them were now lords over their survival.
It was not only unjust—it was fatal.
“Let them eat grass.”
One of the most infamous moments in this period came when Andrew Myrick, a government-affiliated trader, refused to release food to the starving Dakota, reportedly saying, “Let them eat grass.” When violence broke out shortly after, Myrick’s body was found—his mouth stuffed with grass.
It was not vengeance. It was a message.
The Necessary Revolt
When war came, it came not as a choice but as a last resort. Dakota leaders, including Joseph Atokte Godfrey and Little Crow, recognized that continued submission to a government that refused to honor its own treaties was a form of suicide. With their families dying, their lands stripped, and their dignity insulted daily, the Dakota rose.
What followed were several battles, including the Battles of New Ulm, where Dakota warriors sought to reclaim autonomy and survival in the face of settler militias and federal troops.
Though ultimately unsuccessful in military terms, the Dakota’s revolt was a moral indictment of a government—and a state—that had failed to uphold even the most basic promises of decency and mutual recognition.
Control by Location: The Hidden Violence of Reservation Life
One of the least acknowledged dimensions of this history is the strategic weaponization of location. By confining the Dakota to tiny parcels of land and cutting them off from access to food, trade, and traditional lifeways, Minnesota and the U.S. government engineered a situation where mere existence became unsustainable.
This is the overlooked root of the conflict: not hatred, but hunger. Not war, but withholding. The Dakota were pushed into rebellion by design.
When Indigenous people are stripped of land, they are not just stripped of wealth—they are stripped of life. And when the perpetrators of that dispossession control the environment, they wield the power to decide who lives and who dies. The Dakota War was not only about rights or resistance. It was about survival in the face of slow extermination.
The Minnesota Paradox
Minnesota, often praised for its progressive ideals and so-called "Minnesota Nice," harbors a violent legacy. It is a state built not just on land theft, but on the careful suppression of the truth behind that theft. The Minnesota Paradox lies in the contradiction between its moral self-image and its historic and ongoing refusal to account for the crimes that gave it life.
The Dakota War is not an exception—it is an example. It shows what happens when a nation fails to pay its debts, and then criminalizes those who demand justice.
Reckoning With the Truth
The U.S.–Dakota War did not begin at New Ulm. It began with broken treaties, with stolen land, with unpaid debts, and with a systematic effort to crush the Dakota people through control of their location and destruction of their autonomy.
It was a revolt not of convenience, but of necessity.
And until the truth of that necessity is fully acknowledged, the cycles of control, silence, and systemic violence will persist—both in historical memory and in modern practice.
Additional Sources
- Wikipedia (Most Unbiased)
- The Minnesota Historical Society
- New Ulm's Ridiculous Version
- New Ulm - The U.S. Dakota War
- Laura Ingalls Wilder - New Ulm, Minnesota
Key Participants
Alexander Ramsey (Ramsey County - Saint Paul, Minnesota's Capital)
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