Wilder - 6. Outside the Little Houses

Episode Date: July 13, 2023

At her best, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie books offer a door for readers to walk through to get the full picture of the world the Ingalls were  living in. She may not tell you everything in the books (and in some cases, she tells you very little), but ideally she leaves you wanting more. For instance: Who were the Native Americans living alongside the Ingalls? What were buffalo wolves? Do they still exist? In this episode, we’re going to try and paint a bigger picture for you. Imagine you are standing in the doorway of any one of Laura’s Little Houses. You’re looking outside. What might you actually be seeing? Go Deeper:More on the buffalo slaughtering of the 19th centuryLearn more about the US Dakota War of 1862Little War on the Prairie (This American Life ep 479), featuring Gwen WestermanMni Sota Makoce: Land of the Dakota by Gwen Westerman and Bruce WhiteDr. Chris Wells’ workDr. Flannery Burke’s workSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sonora and IHART's My Cultura Podcast Network present Princess of South Beach, Season 2. Did you miss me? The new season of lies, scandals and skeletons in the closet. I am proud to take office as your first openly gay mayor. This season, it's all out in the open. Listen to Princess of South Beach on the IH Radio app, a book podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, it's Alvastarann on my new podcast, Thinking Out Loud with Alvastarann. I'll be bringing you candid and maybe sometimes a little crazy interviews with people from all walks of life. We'll touch on subjects that you just can't talk about on the radio like life, love, success, failure, whatever else comes to mind But all jacked up because after being in this business for as long as I have I want to get to the bottom of what makes people tick And listen to my new podcast thinking out loud on the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts The last archive is a show about the history of truth in America. Each episode, we tell a story about people coming up with some new way of understanding

the world. Histories of science, technology, democracy. This season, we've got stories on everything from mid-century songwriting machines to social network theory, and plenty of mad inventors. Of course I go, oh my god. Well, it's Dr. Frankenstein's Monster, isn't it? Listen to the last archive on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode contains descriptions of racist depictions.

Listeners, please be advised. At her best, Laura Ingalls Wilder's little house on the Perry books offered door for readers to walk through, or drive through as we did, to find out what is on the other side. Ideally, they prompt you to want to know more. They're an artifact of what's erased and what's alighted and what you haven't been told, and that's valuable too, like so much of learning about our history and understanding, the literature is also looking at the negative spaces. You want to know where in the country the houses were located.

You want to know why it was called Indian territory. Who were the Native Americans living alongside the Ingalls? You want to know if that long-hard winter really existed, what were Buffalo wolves? Do they still exist? What was the full picture of Laura's world? For those who have an impulse to do it, to continue to think about the role that that narrative played

and why and how. There are hints of that outside world in the books if you look for them, but they are few and can be confusing if you don't know the bigger picture. Multiple times, or at Ingalls, Filder will say, Ma hated Indians, Ma hates Indians, but we never know why, at least in the little house

series. Laura and Rose did an extraordinary job of painting a cozy, magical picture of the Ingalls family alone and self-sufficient against the world. But they were neither alone nor in many cases as self-sufficient as the books would like readers to believe. No one was. But understanding the Ingles story as part of a whole demands understanding that many things can be true at the same time.

Part of what's interesting about stories like Little House on the Prairie is that they are true, right? The perspective is an accurate one as far as it goes, but it requires putting yourself in the shoes of an individual embedded in really complicated, sometimes violent systems. The way that American culture knows and doesn't know that history is pretty remarkable. In this episode, we're going to briefly try and paint a bigger picture for you. Imagine you are standing in the doorway of any one of Laura's little houses. You're looking outside. What might you actually be seeing? I'm Glinnis McNickel, and this is Wilder. What might you actually be seeing?

I'm Glilis McNickel, and this is Wilder. ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿ʻ ʻ‿� Sonoro and I hearts my Cultura podcast network, present, Princess of South Beach, Season 2. Gas crews back. Did you miss me? The Calderons are back with a new season of lies, scandals and skeletons in the closet. And speaking of closets... I am proud to take office as your first openly gay mayor. This season, it's all out in the open. What color are your pants? Okay, maybe not everything.

These people look like they're mixed up in some really dangerous stuff. Starring X-Mayo, Dani Pino, Andy Bustillos, Raúles Parcin, Ginadores, Alan Eisenberg, and more. Keep up with the most notorious family in Miami, unravel the mystery with this new season of Princess of South Beach. Listen to Princess of South Beach as part of the Mycultura Podcast Network available on the IHR Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. From IHR Podcasts and Nomadic Engine, you've escaped a serial killer, a season's interrogator,

and the worst explosion in modern naval history. Be acclaimed dramatic thriller returns. What I need to know is who you're with. After shock season two. It's like a ghost. Some people seem to be able to cheat death. We had an agreement to keep each other's secret. Cassie, we have the wings!

This is native land! You don't have the authority! None of you are making decisions to keep the rest of us safe, which leaves me. I'm asking for your forgiveness. Aftershock, season two, starring Sarah Wayne Callies, David Harbor, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Listen to Aftershock on the I Heart Radio app, Apple

Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up? This is Chris Rudiger. I am the owner and co-founder of the 615 House, and you're listening to my new podcast, the 615 House podcast, right here on iHeart. As an artist and entrepreneur myself, I feel incredibly lucky that I get to live in a city where there's so much creativity and artistry. And this podcast talks about it. It's a chance to take a deep dive with some of Nashville's hottest artists as we learn their stories and ask them questions about creativity, social media,

and just how to balance life in an ever-changing industry. We talk about virality and how building a sustainable career is not as easy as it looks. My favorite part is that we get to learn the secrets and stories that you don't always hear on camera. And I try to keep the questions pretty spicy as these artists sit in the hot seat. Come on in, hang out with us as we talk to some of your favorite artists here

on the 615 House Podcasts. Listen to the 615 House Podcasts on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get podcasts. Let's start by going over some of the basics. Laura was born and was constant in 1867. Two years after the end of the Civil War, and five years after the US Dakota War of 1862. Unless you read the little house books alongside an encyclopedia, you'd Dakota War of 1862. Unless you read the Little House books

alongside an encyclopedia, you'd know neither of these things. The only nod we get to the Civil War in Little House is in the first book, Little House in the Big Woods. Laura's Uncle George briefly appears at Grandma's house. According to Pa, George has been, quote, wild since he came back from the war. Uncle George still wears his blue army coat with brass buttons and blows his bugle into the woods.

But that's it. There's no further explanation. As a kid in Canada, having no concept of the Civil War, this meant nothing to me. And considering the global reach of the Little House books, I doubt I'm alone in not understanding the reference. But it's obviously important in the context of Laura's life and the America they would spend her childhood moving through.

The entire Little House series takes place in the aftermath of the Civil War and at the height of the push for Westward expansion. So the period after the Civil War, which is when all of this manifested, was one big land giveaway after another from the federal government in an effort to push settlement west of the Mississippi River. This is environmental historian Chris Wells. He talked to us about the Homestead Act of 1862, one of the largest government efforts to convince settlers to go West.

The basic premise is that anyone who was a citizen or who could become a citizen could make a land claim and, after paying minimal filing fees could have the land deeded to them by the federal government as long as you stayed on the land for a certain period of time and made some improvements to it. Little House is how I learned about the Homestead Act. The process of staking a claim is detailed and by the shores of Silver Lake in a chapter called Pause Bet. After their first winter in the Dakota territories, claim is detailed and by the shores of Silver Lake. In a chapter called, Pa's bet. After their first winter in the Dakota territories,

Pa goes to file on his claim. He lines up overnight. The men behind him try to tackle him because they want his land. But Mr. Edwards, the wild cat from Tennessee, appears and saves Pa. In the books, we're led to believe that homesteaders have an almost divine right to this new land. Pa makes it sound like a game.

Quote, Girls, I've bet Uncle Sam $14 against 160 acres of land. Going to help me win the bet. But of course, the motives behind the Homestead Act are far more complicated than what we're told in the book. The federal government's claim on that land was complicated by the fact that this was essentially

a colonial takeover of Native American territory. One of the reasons the country's leaders wanted to get people onto the land and to settle it was basically to stake a irreversible claim to it and to finalize the process of resting it from hands of indigenous inhabitants. And naturally, the government's decisions were also intertwined with the interests of American industry, namely the railroad.

There are a couple of ways in which the railroad and the Homestead Act are intertwined. That's Flannery Burke, Professor of American Studies at St. Louis University. The railroad was financed by grants of so-called public land to the railroad, which the railroad could then sell to potential settlers to finance the building of the railroad itself. And for the most part, this financing scheme did not work at all. Almost every railroad, I think all but one railroad went big-grept at some point. So it was not an effective form of financing the railroad. The Homestead Act also meant a lot of land was available to people who hadn't been able to own property before.

And a lot of people, regardless of their farming experience, were willing to take the gamble. The Homestead Act was extraordinarily democratic. For its time period, women could homestead, immigrants could homestead, African Americans could homestead. It was locally administered. So discrimination against all of those groups might mitigate against their successful settlement on the land, but it was really open to a wide variety of people. North Dakota was one of the most ethnically and linguistically diverse places in the late 19th century of almost any place in the United States. That diversity is almost entirely absent

from the little house books. With the exception of the Native Americans, the Ingalls encounter, the only non-English-speaking characters we meet is Mr. Hanson, who the Ingalls buy the dugout from, and Mrs. Nelson and her daughter Anna, who only speaks Norwegian. This absence was intentional on Laura and Rose's part.

Rose, in particular, was keen to emphasize the self-sufficiency of the Ingles family, a core theme in the series. The Ingles ability to fend for themselves is part of the cozy magic of the books. The idea of absolute independence from all systems of support reappears again and again. These themes are deeply familiar. The belief in self-sufficiency, the rugged individual, the hard worker pulling themselves up by their bootstraps,

these traits are as closely associated with what it means to be American as cowboys in apple pie. The truth is much different. Any hope of survival on the American frontier was impossible without some sort of outside structural support. The individual is a fantasy, a brutal fantasy. The forced removal of Native people was a social service for settlers. The forced removal of Native Americans was government support. It made the homestead act possible.

Settlers couldn't be settlers if the government hadn't cleared to the land. And settlers wouldn't be able to remain on that land if the government hadn't aligned themselves with the railroads. The financing of the railroad was a social service for settlers. They actually want more government in their life. And here's where we get into multiple things being true at the same time. Because it's also true that on an individual level, home starters were often left to fend for themselves under the most brutal circumstances. I mean, people were literally starving, right? Here's environmental historian Chris Wells again.

You have these plagues multiple years in a row for people who have to feed themselves as you can't feed yourself. Remember the grasshoppers that plagued the Ingalls and on the banks of Plum Creek? There were no social services to help starving settlers. Instead of providing food or money, one of the government's solutions to the problem was to tell farmers to pray the grasshoppers away.

Obviously, that didn't solve the problem. But eventually, the government did provide some relief, though it was scant and at times seemingly cruel. There was a requirement that farmers had to sell their livestock before they could claim any sort of aid and they had to sign a sworn oath that they were entirely without means. So this is something that Laurie Engel's father had to do.

He signed the pledge. He got a barrel of flour worth about five bucks, and then walked a couple hundred miles to a farm where he could hire himself out for the harvest season. In the books, after the Grasshoppers destroy the crops, Paws sets out to look for work of his own volition. Any hint that he was participating in a government relief program

is completely absent. It's also true that the little relief that was provided was more than had ever existed prior to this. So the idea that any sort of aid from the public sector would have been available seems kind of remarkable. What gets lost in how we learn about all this, whether it be from the Little House series or the general narrative of American history, is that two things can be true at the same time. Homesteaders could be getting more support than ever before, and yet it was still not enough. before and yet it was still not enough. So what's true for an individual and what's true in the broader context are often not the

same thing. And I think that's a useful way of thinking about the debates over Pa being a failure and what it was like to be out on the frontier and to be a settler trying to turn what had up until very recently been in the indigenous land that got often violently rested away and then turned over to anyone who bothered to show up and had the will and the means to try to make a go of it. Settlers could be participating in violent systems and still be left enormously vulnerable. So it took a huge amount of violence and willpower and throwing the nations way around to make the land available to settlers.

But then they were sort of on their own. And so that's not a great set of conditions to set people up for success. Home centers may have been left on their own, but they were not left without purpose. If there's one thing America knows how to do better than anyone else, it's telling a story. And more powerful than any government service was the mythology the nation wrapped around itself in the 19th century. We're talking, of course, about Manifest Destiny. The beliefs that white settlers were destined

to expand across America from coast to coast. I did not encounter the term Manifest Destiny until well into my 20s, long after I'd moved to the US. I wanted to know from someone who grew up here whether it was still taught as a part of American history. And if so, how? So I asked Joe.

So obviously I didn't grow up in the American education system. I grew up in the Canadian education system. I grew up in the Canadian education system, which is probably better than ours. It's just very, it's very different. And so a lot of my American history education came through television and also through a very Canadian lens of the Americans like to say they won this war, but if they had, we'd be part of America, sort of skepticism.

But so I'm just curious as we're talking about this, you know, the idea of manifest destiny comes up again and again, where Rose particularly is concerned, but where Little House is concerned. And I want to sort of understand if that was a concept you were taught, and if so, how you were taught?

I don't remember learning about manifest destiny when I was a kid or a teenager. I learned it when I was in grad school at NYU studying religious studies. I think that was the first time that I heard the phrase manifest destiny. Isn't that crazy that I was in graduate school? But I also think it's so telling that you heard it in religious studies. Like, that says quite a lot because my understanding of it now, I mean, the idea that white Americans

were divinely ordained to settle the entire continent of North America feels like a religious belief system. Oh, head and sending up in a religious studies, master's program. Threaded throughout the Little House books is the idea the Ingles are pursuing some kind of mythic Western movement. One of Pa's core character traits is that he always wants to keep going. All the way out to a place called Oregon, he tells Laura. This reinvention of self is core to American mythology.

If one enterprise fails, you simply pick up and keep going to the next, driven by hope, and the potential of winning the bat with Uncle Sam. We think of the Little House series and the Ingalls family as fulfilling this idea of the Westward American journey. When we talked to historian Flannery Burke about this, she pointed out something so obvious I was stunned it had never occurred to me before.

One of the things that is frequently overlooked even by scholars these days, is that Laura Ingalls and her family were moving north and south much more frequently than they were moving west. Of course, I knew this practically. I'd mapped out Laura's travels on an atlas since childhood. We had driven to all of the houses. Laura was born in Wisconsin.

Then the family went south to Kansas. Back up to Wisconsin. Then over to Minnesota. South again to Iowa. Then back up, on a little bit west to South Dakota. And that's where they stop. Until Laura and Almanzo and Rose go south again to Missouri. But here's an extraordinary example of mythology over reality, because even knowing all of this,

I'd always conceived of their journey as a westward one. I think the power of the mythology that makes it hard for us to imagine the Ingles family moving north and south, that same mythology of the frontier, the mythology of manifest destiny, the power of that myth cannot be underestimated. It is just extraordinarily, extraordinarily powerful. And so people think, well, we moved further and further west, even if they didn't. And if we move further and further west, then we had to do better and better. Progress is a necessary part of that mythology. But the Ingalls never really did better. Until Laura achieved financial success in her 70s, every member of the family essentially

died in poverty. But that mythology of Western movement and progress and success is a hard one to shake because its promise of a new beginning is so appealing. For Rose especially, it may have provided her with the dramatic and purposeful narrative her actual upbringing lacked. No one romanticized the Ozarks. The Ozarks are where the Wilders settled. It's where Rose Wilder Lane grew up until she finished high school in the south.

And the Ozarks, if the Midwest is overlooked, the Ozarks are overlooked by everybody. You know, not part of the Midwest, not part of the West, not part of the South, their own place. It's not surprising to me that Rose Wilder Lane and the Little House Books might come out of that environment. Rose had always resented her poor upbringing in the Ozarks. The frontier myth, on the other hand, gave poverty and suffering meaning. There was a lot of poverty and a lot of suffering. And without that fantasy, it's easy to imagine

it would have been unbearable. The divide between American mythology and reality is perhaps never more stark than when it comes to the history of Native Americans. The mythology of the heroic white settler has enabled us to look away from the brutal truth of the Native American experience. After the break, we're going to talk about one

of the most significant events in American history, one that contributes to the worst narratives, but continues to be left out of many history books. It also helps put in context some of Ma's worst behavior. Sonoro and IHARTS My Cultura Podcast Network, present, Princess of South Beach, season two. Gas crews back. Did you miss me? The caledrons are back with a new season of lies,

scandals and skeletons in the closet. And speaking of closets. I am proud to take office as your first open-leagated mayor. This season, it's all out in the open. What color are your pants? Openly game major. This season it's all out in the open. What color are your pants? Okay, maybe not everything. These people look like they're mixed up in some really dangerous stuff.

Starring ex-Mayo, Dani Pino, Andy Bustillos, Raúles Parasin, Ginadores, Alan Eisenberg, and more. Keep up with the most notorious family in Miami. Unravel the mystery with this new season of Princess of South Beach. Listen to Princess of South Beach as part of the Mycultura Podcast Network available on the IHR radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Cassandra Wallace. From IHR Podcasts and Nomadic Engine.

You've escaped a serial killer, a season's interrogator, and the worst explosion in modern naval history. Be acclaimed dramatic thriller returns. What I need to know with you, who you're with. After shock, season two. He's like a ghost. Some people seem to be able to cheat death. We had an agreement to keep each other's secret.

Cassie, we have the wings! This is native land! You don't have the authority! None of you are making decisions to keep the rest of us safe, which leaves me! I'm asking for your forgiveness. After Shock, season 2, starring Sarah Wayne Callies, David Harbor, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Listen to After Shock on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up, this is Chris Rudiger.

I am the owner and co-founder of the 615 House, and you're listening to my new podcast, The 615 House Podcast, right here on I Heart. As an artist and entrepreneur myself, I feel incredibly lucky that I get to live in a city where there's so much creativity and artistry. And this podcast talks about it. It's a chance to take a deep dive with some of Nashville's hottest artists as we learn their stories and ask them questions about creativity, social media, and just how to balance life in an ever-changing industry. We talk about viability and how building a sustainable career is not as easy as it looks. My favorite part is that we get to learn the secrets and stories that you don't always hear on camera.

And I try to keep the questions pretty spicy as these artists sit in the hot seat. Come on in, hang out with us as we talk to some of your favorite artists here on the 615 House podcast. Listen to the 615 House Podcasts on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get podcasts.

In some ways, the little house books can read like an energy for a lost world. And to a degree, that's what they are. Paul moves his family out of the big woods because he complains that there is no game. The land has been stripped bare. In 1850, which is right after Minnesota territory was created as a territory,

the settler population was 6,077. That's environmental historian Chris Wells again. By 1857, the population swe doubled again by 1880 to 780,000, and by 1890 it was 1.3 million. This influx of settlers took an immediate toll on the land and the people who had long called it home. Prior to this population explosion, America had literally been the land of plenty.

Looking as far as you could see across the Great Plains and have it just be covered with an undulating mass of bison as far as you could see. So there was experiences of overwhelming numbers of a single animal or insect or bird were one of the ways that some people thought of what made America different and special compared to the old world Europe. And that super abundance was characteristic. That super abundance quickly disappeared. Much of it during Laura's lifetime, the extraordinary description she provides of her natural surroundings in the books, are actually a landscape that no longer exists.

And while she doesn't say so specifically, all through the books has woven this sense of loss. In the final pages of By the Shores of Silver Lake, the last book to convey any feeling of wildness, Laura's youngest sister Grace gets lost on the prairie. Laura eventually finds her in a large round hollow in the ground that's carpeted in violets. She later asks Pa what the hollow was. Quote, could it be a fairy ring?

It isn't like a real place, truly. They aren't like ordinary violets. Ma naturally admonishes Laura for believing in fairies. But then Pog explains, quote, You're right, Laura. Human hands didn't make that place. But your fairies were big, ugly broods. That place is an old buffalo wallow. Now the buffalo are gone and grass grows over their wallows. Grass and violets. I know that was so appealing to me. You know Laura riding free on the prairie or the buffalo wallow with the crocuses. Here's Lizzie Skernick, writer and professor of children's literature at NYU.

And what's interesting is, of course, when you say, oh, that's an old buffalo wallow. It's like, yeah, it's old. There's no fun to bubbleo anymore. Pa never tells us why the buffalo are all gone. The buffalo are all gone, because the US government had exterminated them in an attempt to remove the main food source of the Native Americans and make the land available for white settlement.

In the late 1860s, the government called for Huntsman to slaughter as many Buffalo as they could. Buffalo Bill, the legendary Western figure, was so named because he claimed to have killed over 4,000 Buffalo in 18 months. One US Army colonel was quoted as saying, quote, kill every Buffalo you can. Every Buffalo dead is an Indian gun, end quote. Many of the hunters were equipped by the US Army with guns to do just that. Between 1840 and 1890, the population of Buffalo in the US went from 35 million to 541.

The removal of food sources for Native Americans by the U.S. government is a reoccurring event over the 19th century and one that takes many forms. It is also the root cause of one of the most important conflicts between settlers and Native Americans in American history. One that for a long time has been left out of many history books. It's almost entirely left out of the little house books. Multiple times, lower Ingalls, Filder, will say, Ma hated Indians, Ma hates Indians. But we never know why. There's a hint there, but we don't know what it is. That's Gwen Westerman, author of the book, Minnesota Makoce, the Land of the Dakota. Dr. Westerman is a professor of English literature at Minnesota State University in Mancado.

In the book, Little House on the Prairie, there is a scene where Ma is talking to the neighbor, Mrs. Scott, the woman who voices the most racist lines in the Little House series. Mrs. Scott says, quote, I can't forget the Minnesota massacre. My pond brothers went out with the rest of the settlers. At this point, Ma hushes Mrs. Scott. And when Laura later asks, what is a massacre, Mah says it is something Laura would understand when she was older.

The Minnesota massacre is referring to the U.S. Dakota War of 1862. And whether or not Laura did understand it later, no further mention of it is made. The explanation behind all these hints lies in a place called Mankato, Minnesota. Mankato is located 82 miles southwest of Minneapolis, and 79 miles due west of Walnut Grove, Minnesota. Mankato is never mentioned in the books, but if you watched the Little House TV series,

the name will likely be familiar to you. And the television show, it feels like someone is either going to or coming from Mankato every second episode. I also watched the Little House on the Prairie TV series. And what I knew was that when Ma and Pa wanted to get away from the kids, they went to Mankato. Last summer, Joe and Emily and I went to Mankato. We needed a stop over between Burr O'Gioa and Dismet South Dakota and I knew the name from the television show and thought it would be

fun to be there. This is a cute little town. Yeah, that's not a maple. They've got a pride flag in my town. The coffee hag. We have got to go to the coffee hag. I have a leg going straight. It turned out to be one of the most important stops on our trip. Mancato, Minnesota, is the site of the largest mass execution in American history.

The hanging of 38 Dakota men in 1862, known as the Dakota 38. President Abraham Lincoln mandated the execution as punishment for the U.S. Dakota War of 1862. The history of Dakota people in Minnesota is often condensed to one event. And that's the war in 1862. And that is even condensed in a way that makes it sound like

there was one event that caused it. This is Dr. Gwen Westerman again. Sometimes that story is told as decotamin and we're out hunting and took eggs from a farmer and there was an argument that there was shooting and the farmer was dead. It's not that simple, it's never that simple. This is decades of interactions, negotiations,

and treaties that had legal, documented, and implied obligations on both sides. Between 1837 and 1858, the Eastern Dakota, who resided in what is now Minnesota, signed a series of treaties with the U.S. government, government seating land in exchange for annual cash payments and other provisions. The Eastern Dakota were then displaced and moved to a reservation that was 20 miles wide along either side of the Minnesota River. The Civil War resulted in the US government falling

behind on their payments. And this, combined with the particularly harsh winter of 1861, left the Dakota on the brink of starvation. It was a hard time in 1862 for everybody who lived here. There had been drought, there had been grasshopper infestations, settlers were struggling and failing. They were moving away because of the difficult situation they were in because of what was happening on the land for everybody. So failure to supply the promised goods and services of the 1850 Treaty, conditions

of the land and the environment at the time, the tension among people because of these adverse conditions are all circumstances that led up to what happened in 1862. So there is no single cause that we can point to. The U.S. Dakota War took place between August and December of 1862. We're going to go over the basic facts of what happened, but as Gwen Western men noted, the full history of the war is a long and complicated one, and we've included links to further resources

in the show notes. On August 17th, a Dakota hunting party stole eggs from settlers in a town west of Minneapolis. This raid led to the deaths of five settlers. After extensive discussion, Little Crow, a chief of the Metawakaton band of Dakota, decided to continue the raids. Remember, this was 1862, the height of the Civil War.

And because of this, the US government was slow to send troops to Minnesota. Instead, former Minnesota governor Henry Sibley led a mostly volunteer militia against the Dakota. The following month, US forces defeated the Dakota. Three days after this defeat, though Dakota surrendered, releasing nearly 300 captives. The Dakota were then held until military trials could take place in November. In the end, 358 settlers had been killed in addition to 77 soldiers in 29 volunteer militia. It is not known how many Dakota died.

We do know what happened in the aftermath. Approximately 2,000 Dakota were rounded up, whether they had participated in the war or not, including women and children. And they were then marched under harsh winter conditions, hundreds of miles away to fort-snelling, where they were interned in a stockade under punishing conditions. Hundreds died. A military commission found 392 Dakota men guilty. Many of these trials lasted less than five minutes. Of the 392 men, President Abraham Lincoln, wanting to appease white settlers,

but concerned about further conflict that might divert resources from the Civil War, sentenced 39 Dakota men to death. One was reprieved, and 38 men were hanged. Two more were later captured, and they were also hanged. The U.S. Dakota were ended with the largest man-ass hanging in American history. 38 people were hanged. President Abraham Lincoln signed the order to do it, but only after issuing a ton of pardons to reduce the number to the much smaller but still largest in U. in US history, 38.

And then several hundred more people died in sort of the non-combatant camps that got set up through the winter. When we were in Mancado, we visited the site of the hanging. It is located on a sliver of pavement between lanes of traffic and railroad tracks. There's a Buffalo Statue at one end, and at the other, a large structure that looks like parchment with the poem, commemorating the deaths of the war. This is the hanging spot. This is the spot where the 38 were hung once. Like I said, it's actually the spots in the street

between the winter warrior statue, which is over there. And then this mound, this kind of the in between, with that being the buffalo being the trying, making it all. This is Dan Zielski, chair of the Macado Medewakatin Association, which hosts educational events for Nondecota to learn more about Dakota culture. And can you explain to us what we're sitting in front of?

This is a memorial to the 38 plus two who were hung. Now, as you can see, there are tobacco ties all over it. Those are sacred items that are made where they take the tobacco, roll it up into a tie. As you see, the four basic colors that represent our manquado, but our rockets and people here, are the black, the red, the yellow, and the white. And so you'll see those colors quite often around here. Before researching this podcast, I had never heard of the U.S. Dakota War. But as usual, I wasn't sure if this was because I grew up in Canada

or because it's not widely taught in the American education system. So once again, I asked Joe, I think my impression and one that's only grown stronger from the trip we did last summer is that the American education system is very fractured and often like localized to the state you grew up in. So did you learn about the U.S. Dakota War when you were in school? I can tell you right off the bat that our Native American history was sorely lacking. A lot of things were glossed over.

Specific wars were glossed over. So we got kind of a bird's eye view. I didn't hear anything about the Dakota War until we got to Mancato on our road trip. And then it felt like to me that people who'd grown up in Minnesota were familiar with it, but that literally the further we got away from Minnesota like as the miles ticked up, there was less and less familiarity with that as an historic event. Even though it was a huge historic event, it sort of doesn't factor into America's idea of itself, I guess. No, I don't think a lot of things having to do with the Westward expansion of the American colonies and the early American states factor into how America wants to mythologize itself.

And I'd be really interested actually to talk to a current high school student about what they're being taught because American history that was taught in the 80s, I'm sure is very different. All right, but hope is different than the American history that's being taught now. But what I've realized is that what I was taught in terms of American history was largely through the eyes of the people who had power and then were allowed to tell the stories. Does learning any of this make you reconsider your idea of the people who had power and then were allowed to tell the stories. Does learning any of this make you reconsider your idea of the country? Working on this podcast with you has made me reconsider the idea of our country and the ideals that we were founded on and it is definitely making me reconsider

how we should and who should be telling American history. When I began asking around on our travels, it became clear that despite its national historic implications, and despite the fact it's the largest mass execution in US history, the US Dakota War is treated as local history. Outside of Minnesota, it's seemingly not well known at all. In Minnesota, you're in your...I think it's sixth grade. You have to take a Minnesota history class and I think it's a full semester long. So yes, we did learn about this and then the Mankato massacre. It was horrible.

That's the young college student who waited on us when we had dinner on our first night in Mankato. She told us that in Mankato, the memory of the war and the Dakota 38 is very well known. A reconciliation park. It's a hot spot for protests in the city, so it's really cool down there.

I actually started, tried to start a petition on our university, the Mancato University. There's a statue of Abraham Lincoln there, which I always thought was an portable taste. I mean, he did a lot of great things, don't give me wrong, but it was the fact that he signed off on that and seeing Mancato wear this mask hanging, the biggest mystery happened. So it just felt wrong and unethical to have the statue of a film on the university. Robert Ham. But. Did it go up to the work?

Did it go anywhere? No, they've been trying for years to get it out of there. I don't know what's really dragging their toes. The US Dakota War resulted in the Dakota being entirely banished from Minnesota. In 1863, the government voided all treaties with the Dakota. And that summer, the governor of Minnesota offered $25 bounties for the scalps of Dakota men. The remaining Dakota were moved to a reservation in what is now South Dakota. Take a minute and think about that. Two states in this country are named after Native American tribes that originated from elsewhere. Their presence in what is now North and South Dakota

was only the result of their expulsion from their original home. More than 150 years later, the U.S. Dakota War still brings up complicated, passionate feelings in Minnesota. In some places, it continues to be referred to as a conflict or an uprising instead of a war. Until the 1970s, when it was removed, the hanging monument, as it was known, marked the mass execution site, but had been erected by white residents and viewed as a celebration of the event. Even if you didn't learn about it in history class or realize the connection, we are still feeling the legacy of that war now. The coverage of it by the media at the time, which focused almost exclusively

on the accounts of white settlers, determined much of the narrative around, quote, dangerous bloodthirsty Indians that we still see in culture today. The idea that is so predominant in the way that history is taught here is that Indians were bloodthirsty savages and they attacked those brave, courageous pioneers. That's Dr. Debbie Rees again. You might remember we spoke to Dr. Rees in the first episode and that she runs a website called American Indians in Children's Literature. What is left out is those men who were engaged in that were dads. And they had babies at home and they had farms and they had crops and all of their identity

as people of a community is erased when we think of them as this just blebthirsty savage. That narrative was embedded in the frontier shortly afterward and was still strong seven years later when the Ingles arrived on the Osage diminished reserve in 1870. In fact, maybe even more than the Civil War, the US Dakota War is the event that greatly affected Laura's childhood. It's so significant that Laura's biographer Caroline Fraser chose to open her book Prairie Fires with it. It was just one of the bloodiest and most horrifying spectacles of American history, and certainly as the event that tipped off the whole next 30 years in terms of Indian policy and Indian removal and so forth.

It was really quite shattering to figure out what that is. And I just thought I have to write about this because it puts her entire childhood but also particularly the events that she covers in Little House on the Prairie, which is the most important of the series, I think, in an entirely different light than I had ever understood before. And so I just felt like I have to open with this.

This is, in many ways, who she was, what her life was, what her mother's relationship and fear, and 10th sphere of Indians. That's what that was all about. That's where that was coming from. It's reasonable to assume this was the narrative that Ma was taking with her when Pa relocated the family to a legally squat on Osage land. That terror we sense in her is, in part, the terror of the experience that had been sold to white homesteaders on the frontier by the press for years. And it's a narrative that has persisted through many Hollywood westerns ever since.

How much of all this context in history should have been included in the books is, I think, up for debate. Laura did not sit down to write the history of America, which is not to suggest Laura is not responsible for the racist violent content that is in the books. And there is plenty. Next week, we're stepping back into the little houses. We're going to take a long hard look at the problems of Laura and talk about what is in the books

that has resulted in a lot of criticism and the renaming of a Major Children's Literary Award. There's more than you might think or even remember. That's next week on Wilder. Wilder is written and hosted by me, Glonis McNichol. Our story editors are Joe Piazza and Emily Marinoff. Our senior producer is Emily Marinoff. Our producers are Mary Dew, Shino Ozaki and Jessica Crine-Chitch. Our associate producer is Lauren Philip,

sound designed in mixing by Amanda Rose Smith, production help from a booze afar and a savory Sharma. Our theme and additional music was composed by Lise McCoy. We are executive produced by Joe Piazza, Nikki Tor, Allie Perry, and me. If you're enjoying Wilder, please consider rating and reviewing us on Apple podcasts. It actually helps us out quite a lot.

Special thanks to Gwen Westerman. Dr. Westerman is featured on an episode of this American Life about the U.S. Dakota War titled Little War on the Prairie, and we encourage you to check it out. You'll find a link to it in our notes. Thanks to Danzee Lyski for showing us around Reconciliation Park in Mancato, and thank you to everyone at the Hotel and to it in our notes. Thanks to Danzee Lzki for showing us a round reconciliation park in Mancato, and thank you to everyone at the hotel in restaurant in Mancato who shared their thoughts on this history with us. Thank you as always to CDM Studios. Please see our show notes if you want to know more about the people we interviewed, the places we visited, the books we mentioned, you can also find our contact info there if you want to write

to us with your own thoughts and questions. Follow us on Instagram at Wilder underscore podcast and on TikTok at Wilder podcast, where you can see behind-the-scenes footage from all our travels. Thank you for listening. We'll see you next week. So, Nora and I, Hearts My Cultura Podcast Network, present, Princess of South Beach, Season 2. Did you miss me? The new season of lies, scandals and skeletons in the closet. I am proud to take office as your first openly gay mayor.

This season, it's all out in the open. Listen to Princess of South Beach on the I Heart Radio app, a book podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, it's Alvastarann, on my new podcast, thinking out loud with Alvastarann. I'll be bringing you candid and maybe sometimes a little crazy Hi, it's Elvis Jaran on my new podcast, Thinking Out Loud with Elvis Jaran. I'll be bringing you candid and maybe sometimes a little crazy interviews with people from all walks of life. We'll touch on subjects that you just can't talk about on the radio, like life, love, success, failure, whatever else comes to mind. But I'll jacked up because after being in this business for as long as I have, I want to get to the bottom of what makes people tick. Now listen to my new podcast, Faking Out Loud on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. The last archive is a show about the history of truth in America. Each episode, we tell a story about people coming up with some new way of understanding the world. Histories of science, technology, democracy. This season, we've got stories on everything from mid-century songwriting machines to social network theory, and plenty of mad inventors.

Of course I go, oh my god. Well, it's Dr. Frankenstein's Monsters, isn't it? Listen to the last archive on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.