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around Brown County. The memory of all 123 individuals and 73 families who perished in the
fighting in late August remain alive 155 years later as the community reminisces on the
sacrifices they endured.24 While the white memory lives strong in the alleyways and repurposed
buildings of New Ulm, the Native commemoration affects the larger Midwestern regions of the
United States.

In addition to the Mahkato Wacipip in 1965 hosted by Bud Lawrence and Amos Owens,
the Dakota honored the 1700 women, children, and elderly population forced to march from
Mankato to Fort Snelling, St. Paul, Minnesota during the frigid winter months of 1862 and
1863.25 Starting in the Lower Sioux Agency Reservation, and traveling eastward towards Fort
Snelling to focus on the travesty which plagued the Dakota prisoners after the conflict subsided.
This march focuses on “the primary intent to remember [the Dakota] ancestors who suffered, but
it was also was about giving testimony to the truth about a shameful past…hidden over the past
140 years.” Along with this trek, Dakota members plant posts with the names of the fallen souls
who perished during the War in 1862, allowing modern “Dakota [to] make tangible connections
to their past.”26 In addition to this journey in 2002, the formation of the much larger “Dakota 38
plus 2 Memorial Ride” brings reconciliation back to the Dakota people along the Minnesota
River valley. Within this dedicatory ride, thirty-eight men journeyed on the backs of stags from
the Lower Brule Indian Reservation in South Dakota to the site of the mass execution in

24 Darla Cordes Gebhard and John Isch, Eight days in August: The Accounts of the Casualties
and Survivors in Brown County during the US-Dakota War of 1862 (New Ulm: Brown County
Historical Society Press), 2012, 1-2.
25 Carley, The Dakota War of 1862, 77-79.
26 Waziyatawin Angela Wilson, Ed. In the Footsteps of our Ancestors: The Dakota
Commemorative Marches of the 21st Century (St. Paul, Minn.: Living Justice Press, 2006), 7-12.