159 years ago today, 38 Dakota men were hung in the largest mass hanging in United States history.

38 men hung simultaneously, the day after xmas, with over 4000 settlers watching and celebrating.

These men were from my tribe. These men were my grandfathers. pic.twitter.com/QgzNZvaWul

— Dallas Goldtooth (@dallasgoldtooth) December 26, 2021

The Dakota 38 execution was the largest mass execution in the United States and took place on December 26, 1862

On the day after Christmas in 1862, 38 Dakota men were hanged under .order of President Abraham Lincoln. The hangings and convictions of the Dakota 38 resulted from the aftermath of the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862 in southwest Minnesota.

In addition to the 38 men hanged the day after Christmas, there were terrible injustices committed against 265 others in the form of military convictions and inhuman injustices to more than 3,000 Dakota people who were held captive, then forced to march west out of Minnesota.

It was (and remains) the largest mass execution in U.S. history. But that year, after more than 20,000 casualties at Shiloh and 25,000 at Antietam during the Civil War, headlines did not take much notice of another 38 deaths, especially given the prevailing sentiment at the time about Manifest Destiny and Indian Removal.

[Source: Isaac V. D. Heard, History of the Sioux War and Massacres of 1862 and 1863, NY: Harper & Bros., 1863]

Histories of the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862

Writing when white hatred of the Dakota was at a fever pitch, Heard clearly presented a minority opinion: "The treaties are born in fraud, and all their stipulations for the future are curtailed by iniquity." Although he insisted that another reason for the war was traditional Indian hatred of the inevitable white frontier advance, he nonetheless saw the Dakota as victims who deserved humane treatment.