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<h2>
This Day in History – Dec. 26, 1862: 38 Dakota Men Executed by Order of Abraham Lincoln </h2>
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<div> <img src="https://nativenewsonline.net/images/cmigration/Illustration-of-38-dakota-600x314.jpg" alt="" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="427" height="223"> </div>
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By <span>Native News Online Staff</span> </dd><dd>
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December 26, 2021
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<p><span><b>This Day in History: Dec. 26, 1862—</b></span>On the day
after Christmas, on Dec. 26, 1862, 38 Dakota men were hanged in the
largest mass-hanging in U.S. history. The executions were ordered by
President Abraham Lincoln. In a separate historic order, Lincoln's
Emancipation Proclamation, which granted his administration to free the
slaves, went into effect six days later on Jan. 1, 1863.</p>
<p>The Dakota hangings were the result of conflict between the Dakota and settlers.</p>
<p>American Indian author Mark Charles wrote for <em>Native News Online</em>:</p>
<p>In the fall of 1862, after the United States failed to meet its
treaty obligations with the Dakota people, several Dakota warriors
raided an American settlement, killed 5 settlers and stole some food.
This began a period of armed conflict between some of the Dakota people,
the settlers, and the US Military. After more than a month, several
hundred of the Dakota warriors surrendered and the rest fled north to
what is now Canada. Those who surrendered were quickly tried in military
tribunals, and 303 of them were condemned to death.</p>
<p>The trials of the Dakota were conducted unfairly in a variety of
ways. The evidence was sparse, the tribunal was biased, the defendants
were unrepresented in unfamiliar proceedings conducted in a foreign
language, and authority for convening the tribunal was lacking. More
fundamentally, neither the Military Commission nor the reviewing
authorities recognized that they were dealing with the aftermath of a
war fought with a sovereign nation and that the men who surrendered were
entitled to treatment in accordance with that status.” (<a href="http://usdakotawar.org/history/aftermath/trials-hanging">Carol Chomsky</a>)</p>
<img src="https://nativenewsonline.net/images/Abraham_Lincoln.jpg" alt="" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="346" height="427"> <em> President Abraham Lincoln</em>
<p>Because these were military trials, the executions had to be ordered by the President Abraham Lincoln.</p>
<p>Three hundred and three deaths seemed too genocidal for President
Lincoln. But he didn’t order retrials, even though it has been argued
that the trials which took place were a legal sham. Instead he simply
modified the criteria of what charges warranted a death sentence. Under
his new criteria, only 2 of the Dakota warriors were sentenced to die.
That small number seemed too lenient, and President Lincoln was
concerned about an uprising by his white American settlers in that area.
So for a second time, instead of ordering retrials he merely changed
the criteria of what warranted a death sentence. Ultimately, 39 Dakota
men were sentenced to die.</p>
<p>And on December 26, 1862, by order of President Lincoln, and with
nearly 4,000 white American settlers looking on, the largest mass
execution in the history of the United States took place. The hanging of
the Dakota 38.</p>
<p>Here is <em>The New York Times</em><a href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1863/01/11/90530334.pdf"> account</a> of the hangings:</p>
<p><em>Precisely at the time announced — 10 A.M. — a company, without
arms, entered the prisoners’ quarters to escort them to their doom.
Instead of any shrinking or resistance, all were ready, and even seemed
eager to meet their fate. Rudely they jostled against each other, as
they rushed from the doorway, ran the gauntlet of the troops, and
clambered up the steps to the treacherous drop.</em></p>
<p><em>As they came up and reached the platform, they filed right and
left, and each one took his position as though they had rehearsed the
programme. Standing round the platform, they formed a square, and each
one was directly under the fatal noose. Their caps were now drawn over
their eyes, and the halter placed about their necks. Several of them
feeling uncomfortable, made severe efforts to loosen the rope, and some,
after the most dreadful contortions, partially succeeded.</em></p>
<p><em>The signal to cut the rope was three taps of the drum. All things
being ready, the first tap was given, when the poor wretches made such
frantic efforts to grasp each other’s hands, that it was agony to behold
them. Each one shouted out his name, that his comrades might know he
was there. The second tap resounded on the air. The vast multitude were
breathless with the awful surroundings of this solemn occasion. Again
the doleful tap breaks on the stillness of the scene.</em></p>
<p><em>Click! goes the sharp ax, and the descending platform leaves the
bodies of thirty-eight human beings dangling in the air. The greater
part died instantly; some few struggled violently, and one of the ropes
broke, and sent its burden with a heavy, dull crash, to the platform
beneath. A new rope was procured, and the body again swung up to its
place. It was an awful sight to behold. Thirty-eight human beings
suspended in the air, on the bank of the beautiful Minnesota; above, the
smiling, clear, blue sky; beneath and around, the silent thousands,
hushed to a deathly silence by the chilling scene before them, while the
bayonets bristling in the sunlight added to the importance of the
occasion.</em></p><br> </div>
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