Spirit Lake Massacre

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Abbie Gardner's Cabin
Abbie Gardner's Cabin

The Spirit Lake Massacre was a minor uprising by members of the Wahpetuke, Dakota (Sioux), in protest of the 1851 Treaty of Traverse des Sioux. Led by local chieftain Inkpaduta (Scarlet Point), a group of 14 Sioux attacked Spirit Lake, a settlement in the northwestern territory of Iowa near the Minnesota border. The settlement was comprised of settlers from Milford, Massachusetts. The Sioux proceeded to kill between 35 or 40 settlers from March 8-9, 1857. Abbie Gardner was the only survivor of the massacre, being kidnapped by the Sioux. Years later she was rescued, and returned to Spirit Lake.

Although initially thought to have been committed by outlaws, the massacre would be the first of a series of incidents leading up to the Sioux uprising in eastern Minnesota only five years later. The former site of the Spirit Lake settlement is now occupied by Camp Foster, a YMCA youth summer camp, where several legends and ghost stories stemming from the incident still exist. Abbie Gardner's original cabin still stands at the memorial site, and is maintained by the state of Iowa.

'ACTUALLY ABBIE WAS NOT THE ONLY ON THAT SURVIVES THERE WAS ANOTHER ONE THAT WAS SOLD BEFORE HER TO TWO INDAINS THAT THEN LET HER FREE,'

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[edit] Fiction and Film

The massacre provided a central theme to author McKinley Cantor's historical novel Spirit Lake. It was also later depicted in the silent film With Sitting Bull at the Spirit Lake Massacre in 1927.

[edit] References

  • Keenan, Jerry. Encyclopedia of American Indian Wars, ABC-CLIO, Inc.: California, 1997.

[edit] Further reading

  • Cantor, McKinley. Spirit Lake.
  • Carley, Kenneth. The Sioux Uprising of 1862. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1976.
  • Meyer, Roy W. History of the Santee Sioux: United States Indian Policy on Trial. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1967.
  • Sharp, Abbie Gardner. History of the Spirit Lake Massacre. Des Moines: Iowa Printing, 1892.

[edit] External links