Indian Massacre in Minnesota was written over 100 years ago by a man whose job was to process claims for property damaged by Sioux raiders after they went on the warpath, killing pioneer families and taking many of those who survived into captivity. The book begins by giving a brief account of the Sioux and the harsh treatment by our government.

In 1862, four years after Minnesota was ratified as the thirty-second state in the Union, simmering tensions between indigenous Dakota and white settlers culminated in the violent, six-week-long U.S.-Dakota War. Hundreds of lives were lost on both sides, and the war ended with the execution of thirty-eight Dakotas on December 26, 1862, in Mankato, Minnesota--the largest mass execution in American history. The following April, after suffering a long internment at Fort Snelling, the Dakota and Winnebago peoples were forcefully removed to South Dakota, precipitating the near destruction of the area's native communities while simultaneously laying the foundation for what we know and recognize today as Minnesota. In North Country: The Making of Minnesota, Mary Lethert Wingerd unlocks the complex origins of the state--origins that have often been ignored in favor of legend and a far more benign narrative of immigration, settlement, and cultural exchange. Moving from the earliest years of contact between Europeans and the indigenous peoples of the western Great Lakes region to the era of French and British influence during the fur trade and beyond, Wingerd charts how for two centuries prior to official statehood Native people and Europeans in the region maintained a hesitant, largely cobeneficial relationship. Founded on intermarriage, kinship, and trade between the two parties, this racially hybridized society was a meeting point for cultural and economic exchange until the western expansion of American capitalism and violation of treaties by the U.S. government during the 1850s wore sharply at this tremulous bond, ultimately leading to what Wingerd calls Minnesota's Civil War. A cornerstone text in the chronicle of Minnesota's history, Wingerd's narrative is augmented by more than 170 illustrations chosen and described by Kirsten Delegard in comprehensive captions that depict the fascinating, often haunting representations of the region and its inhabitants over two and a half centuries. North Country is the unflinching account of how the land the Dakota named Mini Sota Makoce became the State of Minnesota and of the people who have called it, at one time or another, home.

There is a great deal of information on the native peoples of the United States, which exists largely in national publications. Since much of Native American history occurred before statehood, there is a need for information on Native Americans of the region to fully understand the history and culture of the native peoples that occupied South Dakota and the surrounding areas. The first section is contains an overview of early history of the state and region. The second section contains an A to Z dictionary of tribal articles and biographies of noteworthy Native Americans that have contributed to the history of South Dakota. The third section contains several selections from the classic book, A Century of Dishonor, which details the history of broken promises made to the tribes throughout the country during the early history of America. The fourth section offers the publishers opinion on the government dealings with the Native Americans, in addition to a summation of government tactics that were used to achieve the suppression of the Native Americans.

"This book is written because in a short time none can tell what the Dakotas of Minnesota were when the first white mission for them began. This fragment of the History of Minnesota may be of more value at some future time than it is now.It may be thought strange that the writer, who was so many years a missionary among the Dakotas, has said nothing about the way in which they received or rejected Christianity; but he thought it better not to mention that subject at all than to treat it superficially, and justice could not be done here without too greatly extending this work. My main object has been to show what manner of people the Dakotas were as savages, while they still retained the customs of their ancestors."Looking for an evangelistic opportunity, the Pond brothers determined that the Dakota people, living in what is now southern Minnesota, would make an appropriate mission. They arrived at St. Peters (now St. Paul, Minnesota), on May 1, 1834, with no formal training or credentials and no financial sponsorship other than their personal savings. Marpiya Wicasta (Cloud Man), chief of a village living at Lake Calhoun (present-day Minneapolis) had requested assistance with farming, and Gideon took this role, intending to learn the Dakota language.The brothers believed that the ability to speak the language accurately was essential if their message was to be received. As they learned, they devised an alphabet suitable for recording the sounds of Dakota, and they taught this to their neighbors, thus bringing them the ability to read and write in their own language. They also began to compile a Dakota dictionary, to which later missionaries also contributed. The Pond alphabet and the Dakota-English dictionary are still in use. The Ponds also taught the Dakotas subsistence agriculture.Pond writes: "They were very sensitive to ridicule, and had a great dread of appearing in a ludicrous light. It did not always please them to have white visitors, especially strangers, enter their homes, ask impertinent questions, and scan too closely their clothing, furniture, etc. They were too courteous to resent what they considered the impertinence of their ill-bred visitors, but they did not speak very flatteringly of them after they were gone, and it was unpleasant for one who knew their feelings to accompany such visitors to their tents and interpret for them. They were not very confiding, but when they became thoroughly convinced that a man was honest, they would trust him with almost anything."The Dakotas supposed that thunder was the voice of a bird, which used lightning as a means of destroying enemies. Many of them really thought they had seen this marvelous bird. With a prior belief in its existence, it is not strange that a terrified imagination should discover it among the dark flying clouds of a thunder storm. This bird they worshipped."Another object of worship was Taku-Shkan-Shkan, or that which moves. Stones were the symbol of this deity, and, sometimes at least, his dwelling-place. The Indians believed that some stones possessed the power of locomotion, or were moved by some invisible, supernatural power; and intelligent men affirmed that they had seen stones which had moved some distance on level ground, leaving a track or furrow behind them. The moving of the stone and the track behind it were doubtless the work of some cunning rogue, but some men of good common sense evidently believed that some stones could move or were moved by the god of which they were the symbol."