Plus 2! The Hanging of Shakopee and Medicine Bottle

​The bloody U.S.-Dakota War had been over for three years. Thirty-eight Dakota men had been hanged in Mankato. But white military and political leaders weren’t satisfied. They felt they had to hang two more...

Shakopee, left, and Medicine Bottle were hanged three years after the U.S.-Dakota War.

Medicine Bottle and Shakopee had fled during the aftermath of the Dakota War of 1862 and had escaped across the Canadian border to Manitoba with more than 500 Dakota refugees from the war.  Fearing death at the hands of the angry Americans, they tried to find a way to remain safe in Canada.

However, in January 1864, Shakopee and Medicine Bottle stopped by the home of a friendly white trader near Winnipeg’s Fort Garry. That Canadian trader, John McKenzie, was paid by the U.S. Army to help capture them. McKenzie drugged Shakopee and Medicine Bottle, then he and his men tied them up and transported them to the soldiers at Pembina. The Minnesota Legislature paid $1,000 to McKenzie as a bounty.

Kangaroo court trials were held and both Shakopee and Medicine Bottle were convicted despite no real evidence that they had committed atrocities.  At noon on Nov. 11, 1865, 425 soldiers marched in formation to surround a specially constructed double gallows at Fort Snelling. More than 400 rabid white settlers turned out to watch the hangings of two Dakota leaders: Medicine Bottle and Shakopee. 

This is why there is a remembrance for the 38 people hanged for the 1862 uprising... PLUS 2.