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Abolition Lab Fall Lecture Series - "In Search of Refuge: Dakota Mobility, the US-Canadian Border, and Extralegal Violence after the Dakota War, 1862-1865"

October 20 4:15 PM - 5:30 PM

Trustees' Room (Room 302), Alumni Hall

Free

This event is open to the public.

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This talk will tell the story of two Mdewakanton Dakota chiefs, Little Six (Shakopee or Sakpe) and Medicine Bottle (Wa-Kan-O-Zhan-Zhan), that fled Minnesota after the U.S.-Dakota War into British Canada. In their quest to seek refuge from a vicious and retributive U.S. Army, the two men were lured into the home of a hired U.S. Agent outside of Fort Garry (Winnipeg), drugged, kidnapped, and shipped to Fort Snelling in St. Paul, Minnesota to face trial. A multi- day military tribunal heard Little Six and Medicine Bottle’s case and, even with minimal evidence, sentenced the men to death. Similar to their relatives that the U.S. Army executed in 1862, the largest mass execution in U.S. History, Little Six and Medicine Bottle’s story reconfigures the chronological and geographic scope of the U.S.-Dakota War. Little Six and Medicine Bottle’s story contributes to the broader narrative of the Dakota diaspora, which pushed Dakota from their homeland (Mni Sota Makoce) into places throughout the Midwest, including the Quad Cities region. This story contributes to a larger project that explores how the Dakota used the U.S.-Canadian border as a strategic tool of survival, diplomacy, and refugeedom. 

Bio: John R. Legg is a historian of Native American history during the nineteenth century. He completed his BA in History from Middle Georgia State University  in 2017, and his MA in History and graduate public history certificate from Virginia Tech in 2020. He is currently a Ph.D. Candidate in history at George Mason University, where his training is focused on Native  history, oral history, and digital public history. He is currently writing his dissertation, which focuses on the movement and diplomacy of Dakota people from Minnesota into British Canada after the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862.  His work has been supported by the American Philosophical Society and George Mason’s Office of the Provost.