President Lincoln and the Sioux Indian uprising in Minnesota in 1862

[David Lockmiller]

(04-16-2013 03:31 PM)Liz Rosenthal Wrote:  David, please let us know the response from Sherman Alexie to your question! By the way, what did Bill Moyers say when Mr. Alexie stated his position about Lincoln?

I watched the entire live broadcast that lasted one hour. It was all done with live typing like a text message in immediate response to other text messages. At the beginning, the moderator said that the Bill Moyer's site (this is where the interview took place) had received a number of advance questions (including mine). My question was not asked and therefore not answered. It could have been that he answered only live show questions.

But in the PBS television interview, it was Bill Moyers that brought up the issue. He had read a poem a number of times over which Sherman Alexie had written and which seemed to bother Bill Moyers. I had intended to post separately the portion regarding Lincoln from the TV interview, but your request of me was "on point" (as the lawyers say) and so I am posting this as a reply at your request.

Bill Moyers began by asking Sherman Alexie to read the poem. What follows is a "paste and copy" of the TV interview transcript from the Bill Moyer's website:

BILL MOYERS: There's a poem that I have read several times in anticipation of this meeting. And this one is troubling. Another Proclamation.

SHERMAN ALEXIE: Another Proclamation.

When
Lincoln
Delivered
The
Emancipation
Proclamation,
Who
Knew
that, one year earlier, in 1862, he'd signed and approved the order for the largest public execution in United States history? Who did they execute? "Mulatto, mixed-bloods, and Indians." Why did they execute them? "For uprising against the State and her citizens." Where did they execute them? Mankato, Minnesota. How did they execute them? Well, Abraham Lincoln thought it was good

And
Just
To
Hang
Thirty-eight
Sioux
simultaneously. Yes, in front of a large and cheering crowd, thirty-eight Indians dropped to their deaths. Yes, thirty-eight necks snapped. But before they died, thirty-eight Indians sang their death songs. Can you imagine the cacophony of thirty-eight different death songs? But wait, one Indian was pardoned at the last minute, so only thirty-seven Indians had to sing their death songs. But O, O, O, O, can you imagine the cacophony of that one survivor's mourning song? If he taught you the words, do you think you would sing along?

BILL MOYERS: Talk about that.

SHERMAN ALEXIE: Well, essentially, they were executed for terrorism. The perception of being terrorists for defending themselves and their people from colonial incursions.

BILL MOYERS: As the Whites had been pushing into Minnesota, pushing them further west. And promised them, as I understand it, food in exchange for land. And then the food didn't come. And the Indians reacted violently.

SHERMAN ALEXIE: And then all over the country massacres happening of people they, you know, they would push these tribes and these people onto reservations and then send the soldiers in to wage war on them. I just learned, I don't know why I didn't know this, some sort of denial I guess. But they gave medals of honor to U.S. soldiers who participated at Wounded Knee, absolute massacres of unarmed women, children, and elderly people.

They gave medals of honor. And, you know, this idea of Lincoln as this great savior. Which is true. But in deifying him, it completely, completely whitewashes the fact that he was also a complete part of the colonization of Indians, a complete part of the wholesale slaughter of Indians.

BILL MOYERS: He lived in the in between like everyone. What I know of this incident is that 303 Indians were sentenced to death. President Lincoln commuted the sentences of 265 of them on the basis he himself said of not enough evidence, but allowed 38 of them to be hanged.

SHERMAN ALEXIE: So, the hypocrisy abounds. So once again, the way in which I watch Lincoln the movie is far different than most people watch Lincoln.

That movie in no way portrayed the complexity of human beings, and certainly does not portray the complexity of Lincoln, who for his genius was also, you know, an incredibly, as any politician, an incredibly conflicted and conflicting man, who was capable of ordering great evil. And who did, in fact, by ordering it, created a great evil, committed great evil, a sinful, sinful man that Lincoln.

I don't know whether either Sherman Alexie or Bill Moyer's read my question and the informative material on President Lincoln's cases review which was written by Professor Burlingame. I will probably never know. But it would be a measure of both men as to how each responds if they do read the material.

---

I want to make a new reply on the Bill Moyers interview because of a short exchange between Bill Moyers and Sherman Alexie which occurred immediately following the reading of the poem.

BILL MOYERS: Talk about that.

SHERMAN ALEXIE: Well, essentially, they were executed for terrorism. The perception of being terrorists for defending themselves and their people from colonial incursions.

In the material that I quoted from Professor Burlingame's book on the Minnesota Indian Uprising, I focused upon Lincoln's "lawyer review" of the convictions and did not include anything specific regarding Indians being "executed for terrorism" as Sherman Alexie phrased the basis for the execution of the 37 Indians.

I left out of my posting to the Bill Moyer's website, the following description of events on the ground as General Pope related to President Lincoln:

"You have no idea of the wide, universal,and uncontrollable panic everywhere in this country. Over 500 people have been murdered in Minnesota alone and 300 women and children are now in captivity. The most horrible massacres have been committed; children nailed alive to trees and houses, women violated and then disemboweled--everything that horrible ingenuity could devise." "Abraham Lincoln, A Life" Volume II, pages 480-81.