The rope was cut at precisely 10:15 on the morning of December 26th, 1862, and the platform dropped. In unison, the bodies of 38 Dakota men swung into the frigid Minnesota air, their death song still echoing in the ears of the 4,000 white spectators who had gathered to witness the spectacle. It was, and remains, the largest single-day execution in American history, a mass lynching sanctioned by the United States government that concluded one of the most brutal and tragic chapters of the American frontier.

The events that led to the gallows in Mankato were not born of sudden, inexplicable savagery, but rather a slow, agonizing starvation forced upon a people by a government that had broken its word. In the midst of the Civil War, with the nation’s attention turned toward the bloody conflict in the East, the promises made to the Dakota people in Minnesota were forgotten. The annuities and rations guaranteed by treaty, the very lifeblood of a tribe confined to a reservation, were withheld.

The Dakota were not just frustrated; they were starving.

The pressure had been building for years. As Minnesota moved toward statehood in 1858, the Dakota were systematically forced from their ancestral homes. The inexorable wave of manifest destiny brought a staggering influx of settlers—170,000 whites poured into the territory, overwhelming a Dakota population of just 7,000.

The game that had sustained the tribe for generations was quickly depleted. Hunting could no longer feed the people, and a crop failure coupled with a brutal winter in 1861 left the Dakota completely dependent on the food and money promised in their treaties, which never arrived.

In early August of 1862, desperation boiled over. Warriors broke into a warehouse at the Yellow Medicine Agency to steal flour. They were removed, but the underlying crisis remained unresolved.

At a subsequent meeting, it became devastatingly clear that the Americans had no food to give. When asked if local traders could extend credit to the starving tribe, a trader named Andrew Myrick, who operated a shop at the Redwood Agency, delivered a line that would seal his fate and ignite a war. “As far as I am concerned,” Myrick declared, “if they are hungry, let them eat grass and their own dung.”

The insult was a declaration of war in itself. The Dakota chief, Little Crow, who had long advocated for peace and accommodation, heard the words and knew that his people were on their own. The decision to fight, however, was made for them.

On August 17th, four young Dakota men on a hunting trip encountered a settler’s farm. Accounts differ on the details—a refusal of food, an attempt to steal eggs—but the result was the same: violence erupted, and five settlers, including two women, were killed. The tribe knew the Americans would seek reprisals for the deaths of women, and they knew they would be held accountable for the actions of a few.

A council for war was formed. Little Crow was reluctant, having tried to work with the Americans for years, but he understood the grim reality. Starvation was certain, and reprisals were inevitable.

On the morning of August 18th, Little Crow led an attack on the Redwood Agency. The assault was swift and deadly. Thirteen settlers were killed, but the Dakota warriors quickly became distracted by the looting of stores, seizing flour, meat, guns, and liquor.

The chaos allowed over 50 settlers to escape, but not Andrew Myrick. The Dakota found him and sent a brutal message. He was beheaded, and his mouth was stuffed with grass.

The uprising then spread like wildfire through the Minnesota River Valley. The Dakota raided homes and towns, slaughtering hundreds of settlers. The initial attacks were against civilians, not the military—poor farmers and their families who had come west for a chance at a better life under the Homestead Act.

They were people trying to carve out an existence on land that, to the Dakota, was their sacred home. The violence was indiscriminate and horrific. Men were shot down, women were taken captive, and homes were burned.

Thousands of settlers fled in terror, seeking refuge at places like Fort Ridgely.

Among the captives was a 13-year-old girl named Mary Schwandt. She had just started working for the Reynolds family, a new and exciting opportunity for a lonely farm girl. On the morning of the attack, she fled with the family and other employees toward Fort Ridgely, but they were overtaken.

The men were shot in front of her, and she was taken prisoner. For six weeks, Mary was subjected to horrors that are almost incomprehensible. She was taken to Little Crow’s village, where she watched a friend die.

She was threatened with a tomahawk by Little Crow himself and was “utterly degraded.” The worst moment came when she recognized goods and cattle from her own family’s home among the captors, realizing that her parents had been killed. Only her brother survived, left for dead with a tomahawk wound to the head.

Mary’s life was saved by an old Dakota woman named Wanukwin, who bought her for a pony. Wanukwin hid her from warriors who came to abuse or kill her. Amidst the violence, there were Dakota who tried to save people, a testament to the complexity of the conflict.

But for Mary, the trauma was permanent. She was one of 269 prisoners freed by Colonel Henry Sibley’s troops on September 26th at a village that came to be known as Camp Release.

The uprising was effectively over, but the reprisal was just beginning. Colonel Sibley ordered the creation of a military commission to conduct trials for the captured Dakota. The proceedings were a sham.

There were no defense attorneys, and the trials often lasted only minutes. Survivors of the massacres were called to point out Dakota who had participated. In just over a week, 303 Dakota men were found guilty of murder and rape and sentenced to death.

The entire process was driven by a furious, grieving white population that wanted vengeance, not justice.

President Abraham Lincoln, however, intervened. He reviewed the cases with two lawyers, separating those who had committed atrocities against civilians from those who had merely fought in battles against the militia. He commuted the sentences of all but 38 men, those who had personally participated in the massacres of settlers and the violation of women.

Minnesota Governor Alexander Ramsey warned Lincoln that the settlers would take private revenge if he didn’t execute them all, but Lincoln held his ground. He would not sanction the execution of men for fighting in a war.

On December 26th, 1862, the 38 condemned men were led to a massive square gallows built in Mankato. They stood on a platform that would drop when a single rope was cut. Citizens of Mankato offered money for the honor of cutting the rope.

The job went to William Duley, a man whose own family had been killed in the uprising. As the Dakota sang their death song, a drum pounded, and Duley cut the rope. The platform fell, and the 38 men were hanged simultaneously.

It was a spectacle of death, witnessed by 4,000 people.

The aftermath was as brutal as the execution itself. The remaining 2,000 Dakota prisoners were held in a concentration camp, where hundreds died of disease. In the following year, all previous treaties with the Dakota were declared null and void, and the tribe was expelled from Minnesota entirely.

A bounty of $25 was offered for the scalp of any male Indian who remained behind. Little Crow, who had escaped, was later shot and killed while picking raspberries with his son. His scalp was put on display at the Minnesota Historical Society.

The story of the largest execution in American history is not a simple tale of good versus evil. It is a tragedy of broken promises, starvation, and revenge. The settlers who watched the hangings saw savage murderers who had killed their families and friends.

They saw a people who had attacked innocent civilians, and they demanded justice. Mary Schwandt, who had endured unimaginable suffering, later wrote that she saw Little Crow’s scalp on display and felt a “satisfaction at the sight.” She asked for forgiveness for that sin.

But the Dakota saw a government that had lied to them, starved them, and told them to eat grass and dung. They saw a people who had taken their land and their way of life. They were a warrior culture who had tried peace and were met with broken promises.

When there is no legitimate way to redress grievances, violence becomes the only option. The men who were hanged were not all savages; they were fathers, sons, and warriors who were fighting for their survival. The dark truth of Mankato is that both sides were victims of a system that failed, and the price of that failure was paid in blood on a freezing December morning.