Prof. Chomsky Discusses Trials Following the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862

Professor Carol Chomsky was quoted in an article in NetNewsLedger commenting on the trials of Dakota held after the U.S.-Dakota War in 1862. Thirty-eight Dakota men were hanged in Mankato, Minn. on December 26, 1862, after military commission trials conducted starting in late September that year. “The trials of the Dakota were conducted unfairly in a variety of ways. The evidence was sparse, the tribunal was biased, the defendants were unrepresented in unfamiliar proceedings conducted in a foreign language, and authority for convening the tribunal was lacking. More fundamentally, neither the Military Commission nor the reviewing authorities recognized that they were dealing with the aftermath of a war fought with a sovereign nation and that the men who surrendered were entitled to treatment in accordance with that status.” As noted in the NetNewsLedger article, the Dakota 38 were remembered on December 26, 2017 in an annual ride, conducted as part of efforts “to overcome the traumas of colonization, Indian Residential School, and the continued issues with addiction to alcohol and drugs.”