The beginning chapters

of Minnesota State History are sad and regrettable. Although there is nothing I can do about events that happened in the past I can educate myself and others so that history does not repeat itself, and I can treat others fairly now. There were Native American tribes living throughout Minnesota when white settlers arrived. The United States Government made and broke a series of treaties with the Native People, leaving them without land to live off of or money to buy food and other necessities. What happened next was a desperate act of desperate people, called The Dakota Conflict or The Sioux Uprising. Settlers were massacred and Dakota were rounded up, tried and sentenced to death. The trials were a travesty of justice, as many didn't even last five minutes. President Lincoln commuted 265 of the sentences, although 38 Dakota were hanged December 26, 1862 in Mankato. In April of 1863 Congress enacted a law that provided for the forcible removal of all Dakota from Minnesota. In 1890 at Wounded Knee the generation of warfare that began in 1862 in Minnesota ended. Years later two men, one white one native, fishing on Lake Pepin talked of reconcilliation. The Mankato Pow Wow is the fruition of that conversation.