AC. They Took Her To An Unoccupied Teepee And Perpetrated The Most Horrible And Nameless Outrages, 1862

They Took Her To An Unoccupied Teepee And Perpetrated The Most Horrible And Nameless Outrages, 1862

August 1862, the Sioux Indians conduct widespread and well-coordinated attacks on every white settlements in Minnesota. This eventually led Abraham Lincoln in December of 1862 to order the largest mass execution in American history where 38 Sioux men were hanged for their role in the attacks.

Many modern historians have criticized the United States government for carrying out these executions, even using words such as genocide to describe the acts. But what exactly were the Sioux or Dakota Indians accused of doing? It turns out that over 500 settlers were brutally massacred in these attacks and many women and children were carried off as captives, which some considered a fate worse than death.

In this episode, we will hear about one woman’s account of the attack made on her family and of her ordeals as she was made a captive and carried off by the Sioux Indians. We will be reading from this book, A History of the Great Massacre by the Sioux Indians in Minnesota, including the personal narratives of many who escaped. This book was published by Charles Bryant and Abel Merch all the way back in 1864, just 2 years after the massacre took place.

We will read the account of Mary Schwandt, who had been born in Germany in 1848 and who had come to America in 1858 and then settled with her family in Minnesota in 1862, just a few months before the attacks took place. As mentioned above, over 500 settlers were killed in this massacre, yet only 38 Sioux Indians were executed for their role in the attack, while hundreds more participated.

As you hear Mary’s story, you can decide for yourself whether the executions were just punishments for the outrages committed upon Mary, as well as her family and other settlers in Minnesota. In the forenoon of the 18th of August, 1862, the Indians came to my father’s house, shot my father while on the house shingling, killed my mother and sister Caroline in the yard.

Frederick and Christian and John Waltz and John Frost were all killed in the house or nearby. August was beaten by them and left for dead, but afterward came to and saw the murders all committed while lying in the grass near the house. I was at the time away from home living with Joseph B. Reynolds at Redwood, 10 miles above the Lower Sioux Agency.

August on his way to Fort Ridgely found a child 5 years old and carried it several miles when by the advice of a German woman who had fallen in with him, he left the child in a house some 18 miles from the fort. She urged as a reason for this course that she herself was badly wounded. And although a large boy accompanied her, she did not think the party could escape encumbered with this child who would have to be carried all the way.

Yielding to the advice of the wounded woman, the party proceeded leaving the child alone in bed. It was afterward recovered at Camp Release so much injured by wounds and exposure that it died soon after reaching Fort Ridgely. On the morning of the 18th of August, Mattie Williams, Mary Anderson, Mr. Patwell, Mr. L.

Davis, a Frenchman, and myself put our clothing into a two-horse wagon and started for New Ulm. When we arrived at John Moore’s, a half-breed, we were informed that the Indians were killing all the whites on Beaver Creek and Sacred Heart and were advised to keep off the road and follow Mr. Reynolds who had gone on ahead of us. Mr.

Patwell thinking he could do better kept the road until we had crossed the Redwood. He then left the road turning up the Redwood and kept out in the open prairie and went about 8 miles from the stream. An Indian on horseback came up behind us and stopped us and told us to turn around and go to Big Stone Lake and stay there till Tuesday.

And he would come up and tell us what the Indians were going to do. Mr. Patoile refused to return and continued on toward the lower agency, keeping off on the prairie to the right. We could see the smoke of the burning buildings as we supposed them to be at the agency. If the Indians were indeed killing the whites, of which we were not entirely certain, as we had been within about 2 miles of the agency at one time and could see the buildings yet standing.

We soon after met an Indian armed with a bow and tomahawk and without any gun. Mr. Patoile asked him if it was true that the Indians were killing the whites at the agency and on Beaver Creek. He replied that he did not know. Patoile told him that he had heard it was so and that we were making our escape to New Ulm. When he heard this, he went up to a horse the Frenchman was then riding and taking hold of the bridle, demanded the animal, claiming it as his.

The Frenchman got off the horse and Mr. Patoile then got out of the wagon and told the Indian the horse was his, who became angry and shot an arrow at the Frenchman but missed him when he left the horse and sprang into the wagon and we drove on as fast as possible, leaving the horse behind us. The Indian ran after us on foot and kept shooting at us as long as his arrows lasted and then turned back and went after the horse which we had left behind us.

We subsequently supposed that he had crossed the river and sent the Indians after us as our captors came from that direction. When we arrived opposite the fort, Mr. Patoile supposing we could not cross the river as there was no ferry there, continued down on the New Ulm road. The horses were now very tired and we frequently got out and walked.

When within about 8 miles of New Ulm, some 50 Indians with horses and wagons and barrels full of flour, and all sorts of goods and pictures taken from the houses, came from the direction of that town. They seemed to be all drunk, were very noisy, and perfectly naked, and painted all over their bodies.

Two of them on horseback came on ahead of the rest, and on each side of us, and ordered us to stop. The team was turned out of the road, and all but Patola jumped out of the wagon. They came up and shot him, some four balls entering his body, and he fell out of the wagon dead, and they left him lying there. The rest of us ran toward the woods and hid in a slough in the tall grass.

The men were both killed in the slough. When we jumped from the wagon, Davis exclaimed, “We are lost.” I heard nothing said by anyone else. The Frenchman ran in a different direction from where we were. I have a faint recollection of seeing him fall when he was shot. Mr. Davis was with us and was shot about the same time.

Mary Anderson was away behind us and was shot through the lower part of the body, the ball entering at the hip and coming out through the abdomen. She was not killed, and the Indians must have carried her to the wagon, as when I again saw her, she was in a wagon being drawn by one of the savages. As they came toward us, we screamed when one of them took hold of Maddie and tore off the shaker, and took hold of me, one holding each arm, and forced us back to the wagon.

They put Maddie in the wagon with Mary, and me in another driven by the black man, Godfrey. The wagon with Maddie and Mary went toward the agency. The one I was in went off into the prairie. I asked Godfrey what they were going to do with me. He said he did not know. He told me they chased Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds, and he thought they killed them.

About 2 or 3 miles out on the prairies, we came to the squaws, for whom Godfrey told me they were looking. Here we all sat down, and the squaws took bread from the wagons and all ate. The Indians fixed up their hair and tied it up with ribbons. It was now about 5:00. We remained where we were about 1 hour, and then went to the house of Wakuta, a chief of the Wahpekute tribe, about half a mile from the agency. Here I found Mrs. W.

De Camp, who with her two children were captured at the lower agency. It was about 8:00 when we arrived at Wakuta’s house, and the buildings were still burning at the agency when we got there. I could see them plainly from where we were. I had been there about half an hour when an Indian came who Mrs. De Camp supposed to be friendly, as he was a farmer Indian, and fearing others would come and abuse us, she asked him to stay.

After a while, a number more came, and after annoying me with their loathsome attentions for a long time, one of them laid hands forcibly upon me. When I screamed, and one of the fiends struck me on my mouth with his hands, causing the blood to flow very freely. They then took me out by force to an unoccupied teepee near the house, and perpetrated the most horrible and nameless outrages upon my person.

These outrages were repeated at different times during my captivity. The details of this poor girl’s awful treatment in our possession are too revolting for publication. The Editors. At 10:00 or 11:00 Maddie and Mary Anderson came. The ball was yet in Mary’s body, and Wakuta tried to cut it out, but failed. Mary then took the knife from the hand of Wakuta and removed it herself.

We remained here some 4 days. Cold water was poured upon cornmeal for Mary to drink, but we had nothing to eat except some potatoes we dug in the garden for those 4 days. On the fourth day we went to the camp of Little Crow. Mary Anderson was taken along but died at about 4:00 on the morning of the 22nd of August.

We had some chicken here but no bread. Mary ate some of the chicken and drank some of the broth. This was the last she ever ate. I was with her when she died. It rained very hard a part of the night and water ran through and under the teepee on the grounds and Mary was wet and had no bed clothing to keep her dry or warm.

She was very thirsty calling for water all the time but otherwise did not complain and said but very little. I watched while Maddie slept and she watched while I slept. I was awake when she died and she dropped away so gently that I thought she was asleep until Maddie told me that she was dead. She was a good girl and before she died she prayed in the Swedish tongue but I did not understand what she said.

She had a ring on her finger which she wished Maddie to give to her mother if she died but after her death her finger was so swollen that we could not get it off and it was buried with her. Joseph Campbell, a half-breed, assisted us in having her buried. Maddie and I saw her carried to the grave by the Indians wrapped in an old piece of teepee cloth and laid in the grounds near Little Crow’s house.

She was subsequently disinterred as I am informed and buried at the Lower Sioux Agency. A likeness of a young man to whom she was to have been married we kept and returned to him and her own we gave to Mrs. Reynolds who yet retains it. When at Wakhuta’s Mary wanted some clothing very much as that she had on was all bloody and Wakhuta gave her a black silk dress and shawl, both no doubt stolen from some white woman either by himself or some other person.

The Indian who took me prisoner gave me to his niece Winona. The whites called her Maggie. Her husband’s name was Wakin Yan Waste, or Good Thunder. I was forced to call them mother and father. We remained at the village of Little Crow about a week, or perhaps a little more, and then moved toward Yellow Medicine, and camped about 15 miles above Crow’s village.

The next morning they heard the soldiers were coming, and they awoke me and took off the dress they had compelled me to wear, and put my own on me again. But the soldiers did not come, and we started again for Yellow Medicine, which place we reached about noon. After we got started, they again heard that the soldiers were coming, and a scene of dreadful confusion followed.

Some ran out in the prairie and scattered out in all directions, while others hastened the teams along as fast as they could go. But again were we doomed to disappointments. No soldiers came. When within about 4 miles of Yellow Medicine, they ordered me out of the wagon, and compelled me to walk. We remained at Yellow Medicine some time, I think some 3 weeks.

Here we had potatoes and beef to eat, and sometimes a little bread. They made me carry water and make bread. We usually got water from the nearest slough. At first they were very good to me in some respects, waking me up at breakfast and bringing me soap, water, and a towel to wash myself. But this lasted only about 2 weeks, when they took off my clothes and dressed me in garments.

They told me the Sissetons were coming down from Big Stone Lake, and would kill me unless I dressed like a They wanted to paint my face and put rings in my ears, but I refused, and they did not insist. We finally left Yellow Medicine and moved on day by day until we reached the place where we were subsequently rescued by the forces under Colonel Sibley, since known as Camp Release.

So, that’s it for this episode from Charles Bryant and Abel Merchant’s 1864 book about the Minnesota Sioux Massacre. This was probably the most widespread Indian attack at a single time in US history with at least 500 American settlers killed. The Indians were more motivated to attack than usual because the US government had been behind on providing their annuities due to the outbreak of the Civil War.

The war had also taken many of the fighting age men away and reduced the number of soldiers who were defending the settlements. Mary Schwandt eventually married William Schmidt and they had at least five children from 1871 through 1886. She lived to the age of 91 and died in New Prague, Minnesota on July 26, 1939. When Mary’s first owner was angry at her and threatened to kill her, Snana traded Mary for a pony and protected her until General recovered her at Camp Release.

Over 30 years later in 1894, Snana wrote to Mary after seeing a story about her captivity in a newspaper and they began a regular correspondence and they visited each other about once per year until Snana died in Nebraska in 1908. As I mentioned at the beginning of this video, many modern historians claim that the punishment of the Sioux, including the hanging of 38 men who took part in this massacre, was excessive.

One example is the website societypages.org who says that these events should not be described as a Sioux Massacre but as the Dakota Genocide with the Dakota being the victims. Another website zinnedproject.org, named after radical historian Howard Zinn, claims that the Dakota were executed for their role in a war of self-defense.

In this story we just read, it didn’t sound like the Indians were the ones who were trying to defend themselves. And on the website of the Nation magazine, they lament that Lincoln ordered the execution of 38 Dakota Indians for rebellion, but never ordered the execution of Confederate officials or generals. This channel was begun because our true history is now viewed as unworthy of presentation by history channels on TV.

And because many modern so-called historians are trying to subvert our history. So here on this channel, our mission is to preserve the true history of our civilization by reading directly from old books. These stories were written down long ago by people whose shoes we are unworthy to stand in.

If you’d like to support the mission of our channel, then please become a Patreon or YouTube channel member. Members will receive full access to all of our members-only videos, and your contribution towards keeping actual history alive will be recognized at the end of each episode. So if you want to see more episodes like this, then be sure to like and subscribe, and we’ll see you next time on Unworthy History.