n 1862, when the north and south were locked in Civil War, Minnesota felt the fury of an even more fundamental internal conflict. The Santees, an eastern branch of the Sioux Nation, having endured ten years of traumatic change on the upper Minnesota River, launched the first great attack in the Indian wars. Eleven years earlier the tribe had sold 24 million acres of hunting ground for a lump sum of $1,665,000 and the promise of future cash annuities. The Santee's culture was not only disrupted, the Sioux gradually found themselves dependent on trade goods, which made them easy prey for the white merchants. The merchant would give them credit and collect directly from the government. The Indians saw little of the annuities for which they had sold their birthright. Their anger finally reached the flash point when, following a winter of nea
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