FEBRUARY 16, 1863:
The U.S.
House of Representatives declares that the Sioux Nation by "most savage
war upon the United States" had lost all their treaty rights, and that
"all lands and rights of occupancy within the State of Minnesota . . . be
forfeited to the United States." This was followed by an act authorizing
the president to remove the Sioux Indians to "a tract of unoccupied land
outside of the limits of any state,” which turned out to be in the Dakota
Territory. The number of Sioux actually removed was perhaps 2,000, who were being
held in a concentration camp (there is no other word for it) at Fort Snelling. A
$125 bounty was placed on the head of any remaining Sioux in Minnesota.
Minnesota’s Governor Ramsey declared that the Indians "must disappear or
be exterminated."
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