1862 Mankato mass execution

Uncommon card · No. 163317

Following the Dakota War of 1862, the U.S. government executed 38 Dakota men in Mankato, Minnesota, on December 26, 1862, in the largest mass execution in American history. In the course of the conflict, 358 American settlers, 77 soldiers, and 36 militia had been killed. A military commission assembled in the aftermath carried out rushed trials of the Dakota men, some lasting only minutes, and ultimately sentencing 307 to death. All but four death sentences were confirmed by Colonel Henry Hastings Sibley. President Abraham Lincoln then reviewed the cases, commuting 264 sentences but approving 39 executions, one later reprieved, amid pressure from Minnesota officials for harsher punishment. The executions, conducted on a specially built gallows before 4,000 spectators, were guarded by 2,000 troops due to local hostility. A 1912 monument to the hangings was removed in 1971 amid protests, and today, the Mankato Pow-wow and memorial rides honor the executed.

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