On December 26, 1862, president Abraham Lincoln, long referred to as “honest Abe” carried out the largest mass hanging in world history (see Guinness Book of World Records) in which 38 innocent Santee Dakota “Sioux” men were hung at Mankato, Minnesota.
What brought about the hanging of 38 Santee Dakota Indigenous men in Minnesota December 26, 1862 was the failure of the u.s. government to honor its Treaties with Indigenous Red Nations. In 1862, the Santee were not given the money and food set forth to them for signing a Treaty for the land where places like the “Mall of America” now sit.
A corrupt American agent refused the Dakota their Treaty rations of food promised to the Dakota. He was, instead, selling the Treaty food to area white people for personal profit.
The Dakota men were forced to began hunting deer for their families – and were then immediately declared by the government and press as “hostiles.” The innocent Santee people were all ruthlessly hunted down by a crazed u.s. military and Minnesota citizenry.
Most of the Indigenous peoples were captured, and the starving Indians were ignored while great emphasis was placed upon the few dead Americans who had become so while shooting indiscriminately at any Indians they could find hunting.
The government and media called it an “Indian uprising”, yet the Santee’s only crime was hunting the deer to feed their families.
Abe Lincoln ordered the hanging of the men that cold day after xmas in 1862. It was said that 38 were hung because there wasn’t enough rope to hang hundreds.
“Largest mass hanging in world history” 38 Santee Dakota “Sioux” Indian men
White government agents assigned by Washington were stealing the treaty money and food and, instead, selling it to their friends in St. Louis, Missouri.
Faced with starvation, the Dakota men went off the reservation land to hunt deer – and were immediately labeled as “hostile” in local papers and military and law enforcement centers.
As the u.s. military, vigilantes, and racist settlers began attacking any Indian they could see, the Dakota were, of course, forced to fight back to defend themselves or die starving.
A few white people died while hundreds of Dakota lost their lives during the so-called “sioux uprising.”
Authorities in Minnesota needed President Abraham Lincoln to order the immediate execution of all 303 Indigenous men who were eventually captured.
Lincoln offered the following compromise to the politicians of Minnesota; they would shorten the list of those to be hung down to 39. In return, lincoln promised to kill or remove every Indian from the state and provide Minnesota with 2 million dollars in federal funds.
On December 26, 1862, lincoln carried out the largest mass execution in world history – nothing short of genocide and murder, all to obtain the land of the Dakota and to appease his political cronies in Minnesota.
On December 6 (1862) President Lincoln notified Sibley that he should “cause to be executed” thirty-nine of the 303 Santee’s, Execution date was the 26th of December. At the last minute, one Indian was given a reprieve. About ten o’clock the thirty-eight condemned men were marched from the prison to the scaffold. They sang the Sioux death song until soldiers pulled white caps over their heads and placed nooses around their necks. At a signal from an army officer, the control rope was cut and thirty-eight Santee Sioux dangled lifeless in the air.
a picture of the thermometer is on the flash album at 
