150-year-old letters give voice to Dakota prisoners

[Beth Brown]

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http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/01/19/dakota-tribe-letters/

150-year-old letters give voice to Dakota prisoners by Dan
Gunderson<http://minnesota.publicradio.org/about/people/mpr_people_display.php?aut_id=25>,
Minnesota Public Radio
January 19, 2011
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Fargo, N.D. — For nearly 150 years, the voices of Dakota men imprisoned
after the Dakota Conflict of 1862 went unheard.

But the details of their imprisonment are starting to emerge, in letters
written by those prisoners after six weeks of fighting along the Minnesota
River Valley that left hundreds of Indians, settlers and soldiers dead.

In a tiny office at North Dakota State University in Fargo, Clifford Canku
has spent 10 years poring over the faint handwriting with a magnifying
glass.

"One letter would take about a week," said Canku, a Dakota elder who teaches
Dakota language at North Dakota State. Canku is one of three lead
translators on the project, which has unearthed never-before revealed
details of a turbulent episode in Minnesota history.

Some of the letter writers talk about the war; others describe prison life.

"We're very cold, and they took the stove away from us," one prisoner wrote.
"It's way below zero and we're freezing. A lot of people have died."

The letters add important first-person perspective to a troubling time in
history, said professor Bruce Maylath, one of Canku's colleagues in the NDSU
English Department. They plan to publish 50 of the letters.

"There's a lot to be bothered by," Maylath said. "This has been a one-sided
story to this point. And for the first time this tells the other side --
directly from the Dakota side. And it tells it in the language they were
most comfortable in."

The written Dakota language was created by a Presbyterian missionary,
Stephen Riggs. When the prisoners wrote to him, he would share the letters
with families. The letters, along with other documents, were stored in a box
at the Minnesota Historical Society for decades.

Hundreds of Dakota men were imprisoned after the war. Some 300 were
sentenced to death. President Abraham Lincoln commuted the death sentence of
265 men, who were then sent to the prison at Fort McClellan in Davenport,
Iowa.

Maylath said the letters indicate prisoners were under great pressure to
convert to Christianity. Interestingly, while missionaries were trying to
save their souls, the Dakota understood being "saved" to mean they would not
be hanged. Maylath said the letter writers asked about young men who
disappeared from prison.

"There's speculation in the letters about perhaps the young men disappeared
because they refused to convert to Christianity," he said. "We do know those
young men were never seen again."

Descendants of the letter writers are alive today. Some of the translators
recognized names while reading the letters for the first time at the
Minnesota Historical Society.
 "This has been a one-sided story ... for the first time this tells the
other side -- directly from the Dakota."
- Bruce Maylath, North Dakota State Univ.

"One of them would turn to me with a letter and say, 'Flag this one. It's by
my great-great-grandfather.'" Maylath said. "And to have the voices of the
ancestors right there, visible in their own handwriting, that was the most
moving thing to me."

The letters reflect the Dakota prisoners' concern after Lincoln was
assassinated. The men feared they might be killed now that the man who saved
them was dead.

Canku said some letters are painful to read. He said the prisoners' letters
tell how at night, guards would rape the Dakota women who worked at the
prison camp, cleaning and cooking.

"When they [guards] came after the women at night, they didn't have any
recourse but to sing and let them know, and pray," Canku said, "to let the
women know 'we're leaving you in the presence of God. Because if we were
able to help we would have stopped what's going on. But we can't.'

"When we read these letters to common everyday people, especially the women
cry and go through a tremendous amount of anguish, because they have their
own stories about what happened to their relatives back then," Canku said.
"A lot of them were killed. Women were raped."

Canku said the content of some letters is likely to be controversial. Some
letters are likely to upset Dakota people, since they identify Dakota men
who collaborated with the U.S. Army. Their descendants don't want that
information publicized, he said.

The letters also raise uncomfortable questions for historians.

"What happened? Did they have concentration camps in Minnesota? Even today,
people don't believe that," Canku said. "People died. They were in prison.
They experienced genocide. And when you talk about these things you are
going to get opposition saying, no, these things didn't happen. But they did
happen."

For Canku, the project is about truth telling. He said it's time for these
long silent voices to be heard.

"I think it's spiritually inspired by our ancestors," he said. "It's time to
do this and give the information out. I feel a tremendous responsibility to
carry this through."

The 50 letters translated so far were chosen because they represent a
cross-section of the 150 letters in the collection.

The letters will be published early next year in book form with the original
Dakota language, the literal translation, and the contemporary English
explanation.
   Broadcast Dates

   - All Things Considered, 01/19/2011, 3:50
p.m.<http://minnesota.publicradio.org/radio/programs/all_things_considered/?date=01-19-2011>
   - All Things Considered, 01/19/2011, 5:50
p.m.<http://minnesota.publicradio.org/radio/programs/all_things_considered/?date=01-19-2011>
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