Today marks the first full day of fighting in the US-Dakota Conflict of 1862. Adjustment to life on a small reservation, broken promises by the federal government, and a crop failure in 1861 culminated on the morning of August 18 when a Dakota force struck the Lower Sioux Agency in Minnesota killing the inhabitants, destroying buildings and taking food for their families. They then surprised a forty-man US Army relief party from Fort Ridgely, Minnesota, killing nearly all the troops.

The Dakota Conflict of 1862 would claim the lives of over 500 settlers, US soldiers and Dakota; and it began three decades of intermittent warfare between Plains Indians and the United States government.
While most of the conflict took place in southwest Minnesota, Fort Abercrombie, in present-day North Dakota, was also besieged for six weeks.

Written by Christina Sunwall

Sources:
Assumption College, Department of History <http://www.assumption.edu/users/McClymer/his260/defaultSioux.html>
Minnesota Historical Society < http://www.mnhs.org/places/sites/lsa/index.html>
IVERSITY OF MISSOURI-KANSAS CITY (UMKC) SCHOOL OF LAW
State Historical Society of North Dakota <http://www.nd.gov/HIST/abercrombie/abercrombie.html>
University of Missouri-Kansas City, School of Law <http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/dakota/Dak_account.html>

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