ettlers had pushed well up the Minnesota River valley by summer 1855. That fall, large numbers of German immigrants built farms and towns just northwest of where the Big Cottenwood River joins the Minnesota River. They called their settlement New Ulm. This development must have been perplexing to Little Crow, since he had pushed so strongly for establishing the lower boundary of the reservation at the mouth of the Big Cottonwood, and he had received assurances in 1851-52 and again in 1854 that his people would be given the land above that river. Some Sioux men pulled up surveyor stakes near New Ulm and killed several oxen. While not always the case, the men involved were usually young hunters, still economically tied to the chase and unwilling to accept the changes that went on so rapidly about them. As the new Indian agent, Charles Flandrau, said not long after replacing Murphy: "The advance of the whites over the frontiers has been so rapid in Minnesota that the hunting grounds of the Indians has been taken from them before they have had time to become fully domesticated." Leaders such as Little Crow did much to hold these young men in check, even though many chiefs doubtless agreed with their actions and disliked the aggressive Germans. . . .
 
he chief turned next to land issues and relations with whites both on and off the reservation. He complained especially of the German settlers, who crowded onto the lands near the mouth of the Big Cottonwood River and, in fact, had moved well above its mouth. Little Crow clearly remembered that during his 1854 trip, "you gave me that line . . . the great spirit took pity on me, and made you give it to me." But, he continued, "your Dutchmen [Germans] have settled inside of it." Little Crow could not understand why the government had not removed them. Whites on the reservation also fell under his censure. He was particularly displeased with John Magner, who used his position in charge of the warehouse to exploit Dakota women. . . .
 
elations with white settlers just outside the borders of the reservations deteriorated even further during the early 1860s. The tremendous increase in white population caused many of the problems, although ethnic conflict also existed. Most newcomers were from Germany or Scandinavia and carred a cultural baggage into Minnesota that was of necessity thrifty, so they saw no reason to share resources with the Indians. On one occasion, a white settler refused to parcel out his catch of fish taken from the Minnesota River within sight of the Indians' camps. Moreover, the new horde of settlers harvested what little game still remained in the Big Woods and along the Big Cottonwood River, destroying the last vestiges of a hunting economy, and then sold those furs to the traders at the agencies. Nathan Myrick later claimed that fully 25 percent of his business in skins by 1860 came from nonreservation whites.
Understandably, Dakota hunters slowly came to see these interlopers as selfish people who hoarded food rather than share it. One young white girl, who distinctly remembered the increased hostility of the Indians, later noted that while the Indians had been friendly to begin with, their attitude changed markedly in 1862. "They became disagreeable and ill-natured," she noted in retrospect. "They seldom visited us and when they met us, passed by coldly." Clearly, blanket Indians had come to hate whites in general and placed them in the same category as the farmer Indians. Both groups -- but especially the whites -- had little regard for the sacred Dakota obligation to work for the betterment of the group rather than the individual. It was simply a matter of time before the deep-seated animosities that were building between these two groups -- farmer and hunter -- erupted into violence. . . .
 
he fighting in the settlements opened a new phase of the war. Unlike the Americans at the agency, the settlers had had only sporadic contact with the Indians, many having lived in the area less than a year. The white farmers seldom had the opportunity to develop any substantial bonds with the Sioux, even though many later claimed that a friendly exchange of game and furs for food and liquor had occurred regularly. Actually, the Sioux had little to barter and were perceived most of the time as beggers. On the other hand, the warriors blamed the white farmers for killing game and turning hunting grounds into farms. The members of the Mdewakanton soldiers' lodge particularly disliked the German and Scandinavian settlers, who shared very little with them. Their attitude was best exemplified during the early hours of fighting by the angry cry of Shakopee: "The gutteral speakers [Germans] have made me so angry that I will cut off their heads while they are still breathing." The killing of white settlers in the countryside began in earnest shortly after noon.
Most of the Dakota warriors who sought revenge among the white farmers turned either to the Beaver Creek settlements just across the Minnesota River from Redwood or to Milford Township, northwest of New Ulm in Brown County. Many Dakota men, including Little Crow, believed that the whites in these settlements had stolen land from them. Within the Milford settlements, fifty-odd settlers -- mostly German speakers -- were killed in a few hours. In most cases, women and children fell to the same hatchets and shotguns that killed the men of the community. Dakota warriors had never discriminated in war; the killing of an enemy of any age or either sex led to the right to wear an eagle feather. Similar carnage -- probably precipitated by Shakopee's soldiers -- occurred north and south of the Beaver Creek region, where some estimates placed the white population in the thousands. While many settlers managed to reach safety at places like New Ulm or the fort, several hundred people suffered horrible deaths. The acts of brutality included the mutilation of bodies, heads and limbs occasionally being severed. Such acts were in keeping with traditional Sioux warfare. Dakota warriors did not believe that enemies should be left physically intact, since they would have to fight the same adversaries again in the world beyond their own.
The killing continued in the settlements from the early afternoon of August 18 into August 21. During this time, Dakota raiding parties reached well beyond the confines of the upper Minnesota valley. Their warriors ranged as far south as the Iowa border, eastward into the counties adjacent to the Mississippi, and into the southwestern regions of the state, nearly wiping out a small settlement at Lake Shetek. In all, more than four hundred civilians lost their lives, and about a hundred women and children were taken captive in those four days. Little Crow had joined a race war that augured the extermination of one side or the other.

from Little Crow: Spokesman for the Sioux by Gary Clayton Anderson, Minnesota Historical Society Press, St. Paul (1986), p.p. 82, 101, 130, 138-139