Abstract

"38 Nooses" details the events surrounding the 1862 uprising of the Dakota Indians led by Little Crow within the larger context of the Civil War, the history of the Dakota people, and the subsequent United States-Indian wars.

Abstract In the days following the Battle of Birch Coulie, the decisive battle in the deadly Dakota War of 1862, one of President Lincoln's private secretaries wrote: "There has hardly been an outbreak so treacherous, so sudden, so bitter, and so bloody, as that which filled the State of Minnesota with sorrow and lamentation." Even today, at the 150th anniversary of the Dakota War, the battle still raises questions and stirs controversy. In Birch Coulie John Christgau recounts the dramatic events...