Following the Dakota Conflict of 1862 in Minnesota, the U.S. military launched a punitive campaign known as the Sibley and Sully Expeditions. By mid-1863, troops had entered present-day North Dakota in a two-pronged effort to crush the Sioux between the two generals’ forces.
On this date in 1863, General Sully’s troops attacked a peaceful encampment of Yanktonai and Lakota, many of whom had no connection to the Minnesota conflict. A small group of Santee were present. Most of the men were out hunting while the women were drying meat for winter. As soldiers approached, campers frantically took down tipis and tried to flee.
Sully’s troops killed around 300 men, women, and children, and captured between 150 and 250. Many more later died from injuries, disease, or malnutrition at the Crow Creek prison camp. Soldiers destroyed between 200,000 and 500,000 pounds of dried meat.
Women tied small children to travois pulled by ponies and dogs, which scattered in all directions. The town of Monango, North Dakota, is said to be named for one such child, though it’s more likely the name was a railroad acronym.
In 1971, Pat Gourneau visited Whitestone Hill with his family. He prayed with his peace pipe amid the quiet prairie and fields of Indian Blanket flowers. The public knew little of the massacre at that time. Dee Brown’s book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee had just been published, bringing attention to a later massacre, where fewer Native people were killed than at Whitestone Hill.
Roughly 22 soldiers died in the Whitestone attack and 38 were wounded, some by friendly fire when Native people were trapped in a ravine.
Samuel Brown, an interpreter during the 1862 expedition, later said:
“Don’t believe all that’s said about Sully’s ‘successful’ expedition. It was worse than what the Indians did in 1862. He didn’t fight men; he slaughtered women and children. The Nebraska 2nd attacked without orders, while the Iowa 6th were shaking hands with the same people.”
In 1942, Dickey County residents erected a memorial reading:
“In Memory of the Sioux Indians who died on this battlefield September 3–5, 1863, in defense of their homes and hunting grounds.”
Present that day were descendants of Two Bears, including his grandson Basil Two Bears. It was reportedly the first U.S. monument honoring Native people who died in battle.
Dakota Datebook by Lise Erdrich
Sources:
- Paul N. Beck, Columns of Vengeance: Soldiers, Sioux, and the Punitive Expeditions 1863-1864, pages 153-176. Chapter 7, "THE PRAIRIE WAS COVERED WITH WHITE WARRIORS." University of Oklahoma Press, 2014.
- Pat Gourneau Letters, 1971-72
- HMdb.org. The Historical Marker Database. In Memory of the Sioux Indians who died on this battlefield September 3-5, 1863. in defense of their homes and hunting ground.
- http://genealogytrails.com/ndak/dickey/keystone-twp.html
- https://www3.mnhs.org/usdakotawar/stories/history/aftermath/punitive-expeditions
- The location is referred to as the Whitestone Hill battlefield, but in tribal memory it is the Whitestone Hill massacre site. The oral history of Whitestone Hill tells us that many women and children were killed while the men were out hunting.
- https://www3.mnhs.org/usdakotawar/stories/history/aftermath/punitive-expeditions
- Dickey County Historical Society. Whitestone Memorial to Indians unveiled, Whitestone Hill Battlefield, Dickey County, N.D.
- History of Dickey County ND R.M. Black, Editor/ Ellendale Centennial Jubilee Committee, Ellendale, ND . 1930
- https://archive.org/stream/HistoryOfDickeyCounty1930/History%20of%20Dickey%20County%20ND%20by%20R.M.%20Black%201930%20_djvu.txt
