The United States-Dakota War Trials: A Study in Military Injustice

Between September 28 and November 3, 1862, in southwestern Minnesota, nearly four hundred Dakota 1 men were tried for murder, rape, and robbery. All but seventy were convicted, and 303 of these were condemned to die. 2 After an official review of the trials, the sentences of thirty-eight were confirmed and, on December 26, 1862, these thirty-eight were hanged in Mankato, Minnesota, in the largest mass execution in American history. On November 11, 1865, after three additional trials, two more Dakota followed them to the gallows