Dakota in Exile: The Untold Stories of Captives in the Aftermath of the U.S.-Dakota War by Linda M. Clemmons

Abstract

Reviewed by: Dakota in Exile: The Untold Stories of Captives in the Aftermath of the U.S.-Dakota War by Linda M. Clemmons John R. Legg Dakota in Exile: The Untold Stories of Captives in the Aftermath of the U.S.-Dakota War. By Linda M. Clemmons. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2019. ix + 249 pp. Notes, works cited, index, photographs. $27.50, paper. For most of the twentieth century, scholars of the US-Dakota War routinely followed a recurring stream of historical inquiry: the sixweek- long conflict in south-central Minnesota, rooted from failed annuity payments and periods of Dakota starvation, wrought havoc and death within white settler communities and ended with Lincoln's order to hang thirtyeight Dakota men—the largest mass execution in US history. The US-Dakota War has since garnered renewed scholarly attention to extend the temporal and geographical meanings and histories of that conflict. Steering away from these traditional studies, Linda M. Clemmons's book, Dakota in Exile: The Untold Stories of Captives in the Aftermath of the U.S.-Dakota War, extends the Dakota War history and experiences of Dakota peoples long after the 1862 hanging in Mankato. By doing so, she enables Dakota voices to "describe the war and its aftermath in their own words" (9). Drawing from an assortment of primary source materials, including missionary accounts, newspaper editorials, correspondences, and military reports, Clemmons traces the life and experiences of Robert Hopkins Çaske, a Christianized Dakota, during and after the 1862 Minnesota conflict as a way to prioritize Dakota perspectives and the competing narratives. Ultimately, Dakota in Exile seeks to challenge the traditional framework of the USDakota War by demonstrating the continuity of power structures which Dakota peoples faced from the nineteenth century to the present. The histories of the Crow Creek Reservation (central South Dakota) and the Camp Kearny Prison Camp (Davenport, Iowa) extend the geographic boundaries of the Dakota War beyond Minnesota. This work joins a corpus of literature that argues that the US-Dakota War was not only a Minnesota war but also a "national war," as Minnesota governor Alexander Ramsey coined it, and encompassed broader objectives of westward expansion and settlercolonial ambitions of replacing Indigenous peoples from the American landscape. Clemmons's book fantastically lays out the life and experiences of Çaske during and after the war, revamping our understanding of it and those who experienced it. In her epilogue, Clemmons uses a few modern instances to show the persistence of systemic violence and power through today. Some critics may question Clemmons's emphasis on Çaske, critiquing his positionality as both Dakota and a converted Christian. However, Clemmons's approach at reading against the grain fills important voids in both US and Dakota historiography. Future research could delve into other actors of the Dakota War, but this book's nuanced argument superbly demonstrates the contested meanings of the Dakota War and recenters Dakota perspectives previously pushed to the periphery. [End Page 329] John R. Legg Department of History Virginia Tech Copyright © 2021 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln