THE KNIGHTS OF THE FOREST, THE SECRET SOCIETY THAT ACHIEVED TO ELIMINATE MINNESOTA INDIANS

Representatives of the U. S. Office of Indian Affairs and the Dakota chiefs (Eastern Sioux) signed several treaties in the 1850s in which Indians ceded large tracts of land in the Minnesota territory (to become a state on May 11,1858) in exchange for economic compensation and the supply of goods.

However, when the treaties reached the Senate for ratification, much of the compensation was rejected and others fell into third-party pockets, even reducing the territory left for the Dakota along the Minnesota River. Little Raven and other tribal chiefs traveled to Washington DC to demand the implementation of the signed treaties... but the great White Chief turned a deaf ear. Still, they held on.

With the arrival of the settlers to the new territories, all change for the Dakota: logging of the forests, the parcelling of prairie land and indiscriminate river fishing drastically reduced the population of bison, elk, deer... If hunting declined, food and furs were reduced to sell.

In addition, the annual payments that the government had to face were increasingly delayed, and when they arrived they went directly into the pockets of the local merchants that the Indians bought on credit in order to make ends meet. In these conditions, all that was missing was the drop that would fill the glass... on August 17,1862, four young Dakota boys entered a corral and stole some eggs.

After being surprised, a fight broke out with the result of five dead white settlers. Knowing that this event would have a strong response from the Office of Indigenous Affairs, the Dakota Council met with Pequeño Cuervo at the helm to decide what to do: it was agreed not to wait for the reaction of the whites and to continue the attacks against the settlements along the Minnesota River to expel the settlers.

Over the next few months, clashes between the Dakota and the settlers continued, and later, the U. S. Army finally settled. Of the more than 1,000 Dakotas captured and imprisoned in Minnesota prisons, 303 of them were convicted of rape and murder of hundreds of settlers in a trial without lawyers or defense.

President Abraham Lincoln commuted the death penalty of 284 warriors, but signed the sentence of the remaining 38. On December 26,1862, they were hanged in Mankato (Minnesota) in what was the largest mass execution in the history of the United States. The rest of the Dakota were expelled from Minnesota to Nebraska and South Dakota.

In addition, Congress suspended the annuities signed in the Dakota treaties for four years and granted money for the families of the dead settlers.

On February 21,1863, Congress passed a law to expel the Winnebago (also called Ho-Chunk) from Minnesota, Wisconsin Indian tribes that had been forced to relocate to southern Minnesota. If they did not participate or support the Dakota, a commission of inquiry also determined so, why were the Winnebago expelled anyway?

The fear of repeating what happened with the Dakota people, prejudice and racial hatred and, above all, the greed of the lands occupied by the Winnebago[remember that they were forced to move from the lands they had been forced to move to after having driven them out of their own lands].

With all these ingredients, the secret organization The Knights of the Forest had been created in Mankato at the end of 1862, whose sole objective was to exterminate all the Indians in the state of Minnesota. The Ku Klux Klan, organized in the southern states in 1867, may have had as a reference to these "knights".

Among the members of this society were influential and prominent people from the area, it is believed that even Minnesota Governor Alexander Ramsey was one of them. All members of this organization had to take an oath...

... in remembrance of the inhuman cruelties perpetrated against defenceless citizens, and in the presence of the members of the order, I solemnly pledge to dedicate my efforts and use my influence and power to eliminate all tribes of Indians in the state of Minnesota. I will sacrifice all political and other preferences to achieve that goal[ ] I will protect and defend all members to achieve the objectives of this order. I will faithfully observe the constitution, rules and regulations of the Knights of the Forest. I will never reveal the name, existence or secrets of this order to anyone other than myself[...] Before all, I commit myself for my sacred honor.

After the Dakota defeat, the members of the order gambled in the bordering forests of the Winnebago Reserve and fired as if it were a game of aim, patrolling the perimeter so that no one dared to leave... the harassment was constant.

In the end, thanks to the political and economic influence of its members, the U. S. Congress succumbed to pressure from the "knights" and laws were passed to expel all Indians from Minnesota. On February 21,1863, some 2,000 Winnebago were leaving the reserve land, amid shouts of joy from the settlers, and were sent to Crow Creek (South Dakota) aboard two steamboats. The government had approved a $50,000 budget for the relocation, an amount clearly insufficient... more than 550 died during the trip and several hundred more shortly after arriving due to the harsh conditions.

The Knights of the Forest did share the land in the reserve.