An Archaeology of Fear and Loathing: Building, Remembering, and Commemorating the Civilian and Military Fortifications of the Dakota-U.S. War of 1862 in Minnesota

In the late summer and fall of 1862, while most of the nation was engrossed in the increasingly bloody War Between the States, the people—Natives and newcomers—of the still young state of Minnesota fought their own "Civil War" (Carley 2001). Although it remains relatively unknown outside of the state, the impacts of the Dakota-U.S. War of 1862 are far-reaching and ongoing (e.g., Faimon 2004; Peacock 2013; Wilson 2004). In 2012, on the occasion of the sesquicentennial of the war, then Minnesota governor Mark Dayton acknowledged these continuing tensions in a public statement:

...hostile feelings do still exist between some Native Americans and their neighbors. Detestable acts are still perpetrated by members of one group against the other. Present grievances, add to past offenses, make it difficult to commemorate the past, yet not continue it.

Nevertheless, Governor Dayton would go on in the statement to declare 17 August 2012 to be "a Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation in Minnesota" and to ask "everyone to remember that dark past; to recognize its continuing harm in the present; and to resolve that we will not let it poison the future" (Office of Governor Mark Dayton 2012).