President Lincoln and the Sioux Indian uprising in Minnesota in 1862

[David Lockmiller]

Last Sunday, April 14, I watched on PBS Bill Moyers interview with Sherman Alexie, poet and award-winning writer. In that interview, Mr. Alexie, a native American, vilified President Lincoln for permitting the execution of 37 of the 303 Sioux Indians convicted of war crimes in the Minnesota Indian uprising and sentenced to death. Today at 1PM ET, at the Book Club web site, Sherman Alexie will have a live chat and answer questions submitted by viewers in advance. An hour ago, I posted the following question:

If you, Sherman Alexie, had been President of the United States, instead of Abraham Lincoln, at the time of the war crimes convictions and sentences to death of 303 Sioux men, what would have been your response in detail?

Following this question, I included in my post the following abbreviated history of President Lincoln's response from "Abraham Lincoln: A Life” Volume II, pages 480-84, by Professor Michael Burlingame, 2008.

President Lincoln ordered General Pope to "forward, as soon as possible, the full and complete record of these convictions" and to prepare "a careful statement." As President Lincoln and two Interior Department lawyers scrutinized the record of the trials, they discovered that some had lasted only fifteen minutes, that hearsay evidence had been admitted, that due process had been ignored, and that counsel had not been provided the defendants.

President Lincoln authorized the execution of only 37 of the 303 condemned men (35 were found guilty of murder and 2 were convicted of rape). Lincoln explained his reasoning: "Anxious not to act with so much clemency as to encourage another outbreak on one hand, nor with so much severity as to be real cruelty on the other, I caused a careful examination of the records of the trials to be made, in view of first ordering the execution of such as had been proved guilty of violating females." He further sought to discriminate between those involved in massacres and those involved only in battles. At the last minute before the executions, President Lincoln pardoned Round Wind, who had helped some whites to escape.

On December 26, 1862, the convicted rapists and killers died on the gallows while a peaceful crowd of more than 5,000 looked on. In 1864, Minnesota Governor Ramsey told President Lincoln that if he had executed all 303 Indians, he would have won more backing for his reelection bid. “I could not afford to hang men for votes," came the reply.

In 1864, Lincoln pardoned two dozen of the 264 Sioux who, after being spared the death penalty, had been incarcerated. The same year, he intervened to spare the life of Pocatello, chief of a Shoshoni band in Utah.

In response to Episcopal Bishop Henry Whipple, who lobbied the president to reform the corrupt Indian agency system, Lincoln pledged that "if we get through this war, and if I live, this Indian system shall be reformed." In his December, 1862 annual message to Congress, President Lincoln urged that Congress change the system.