MANKATO — The hope of Dakota elders that young tribal members would take up the task of riding from Nebraska and South Dakota to Mankato to honor the Dakota men executed here has been proven out.
Thursday morning about 50 riders, mostly in their teens and 20s, arrived at Reconciliation Park in downtown Mankato. Many of them had set out on Dec. 10 from Fort Thompson in Lower Brule, South Dakota, taking part in the Makatoh Reconciliation and Healing Horse Ride. Others started a few days later from Santee, Nebraska, taking part in the Dakota Exiles Ride.
Some joined the groups along the way.
Aandegoons Neeland, a 16-year-old from the White Earth reservation in northwestern Minnesota, joined the ride as the Exile riders were coming through Iowa.
“It was a good ride,” he said.
At Reconciliation Park, near the site where 38 Dakota were hanged on Dec. 26, 1862, following the U.S.-Dakota War, elders told the gathered crowd of spectators of the goals of the rides and annual ceremony at the park.
“We do this for the 38. Many of us are descendants of the 38.
“They didn’t teach our history in schools,” said Jim Hallum, of Santee.
He talked of what happened to the Dakota after the war, with men exiled from Minnesota and the women, children and elderly sent by steamboat to other areas, including Fort Snelling and Crow Creek, South Dakota.
“A lot of atrocities happened at Fort Snelling. At Crow Creek 300 babies died in the first year. No one knows that.”
Hallum said the women were routinely abused by soldiers and the women did anything they had to to try to keep their children alive, including picking through horse pies looking for kernels of corn they could use to make soup.
“Women did anything for their child. I know women here would do whatever they had to for their kids,” Hallum said.
He said life on the reservation today is a nightmare for many.
“Everyday we see things we shouldn’t have to see.” Child abuse, drug and alcohol addictions and suicides are far to regular.
“Suicide has become the norm. It’s the leading cause of death.”
Wilfred Keeble said the rides are “prayer rides” to help heal and continue the reconciliation effort.
“When you’re talking reconciliation you’re talking healing.”
But the process is also difficult. “It’s hard to forgive people for moving into our home and driving us out. But the situation we’re in can’t continue.”
A speaker read out the 38 names as the ceremony concluded.
There was also a group of runners who arrived Thursday morning, after starting out from Fort Snelling.
The Dakota 38+2 Wokiksuye Ride, which for 17 years brought Indigenous horse riders to the heart of Mankato, ended last year, as many of the riders retired or had passed away. The +2 refers to two Dakota chiefs who were hanged at Fort Snelling in 1865.
In 2005, Lakota spiritual leader Jim Miller dreamt of Dakota people returning home to Minnesota on horseback, which spurred the annual memorial ride.