May 6, 2024—Yesterday, the CAIRNS director stopped at the Blue Earth County Library on his travels back to Pine Ridge Reservation. The library is built on or near the site where the gallows were built in December of 1862. The day after Christmas that year, thirty-eight Dakotan men were hanged. It was the largest mass execution in U.S. history. The library was closed, so the director could not ascertain what information pertaining to the hanging is available inside. But outside, beneath the library’s name, is a plaque with these words: “Dakota (Sioux) Memorial – 1862. The last act of Minnesota’s...
May 6, 2024—Yesterday, the CAIRNS director stopped at the Blue Earth County Library on his travels back to Pine Ridge Reservation. The library is built on or near the site where the gallows were built in December of 1862. The day after Christmas that year, thirty-eight Dakotan men were hanged. It was the largest mass execution in U.S. history. The library was closed, so the director could not ascertain what information pertaining to the hanging is available inside. But outside, beneath the library’s name, is a plaque with these words: “Dakota (Sioux) Memorial – 1862. The last act of Minnesota’s...