Shakopee III
Shakopee III was a Mdewakanton Dakota chief who was involved at the start of the Dakota War of 1862. Born Eatoka, which means "Another Language," he became known as Ṡaḳpedaƞ or Little Six after the death of his father in 1860.
Following the Dakota uprising in Minnesota, Little Six fled to Rupert's Land in present-day Manitoba, Canada. In January 1864, chiefs Little Six and Medicine Bottle were drugged, captured and transported across the U.S.–Canadian border to Pembina. There, they were arrested by Major Edwin A. C. Hatch and taken back to Fort Snelling. Little Six faced trial by a military commission in December 1864 and was executed by hanging on November 11, 1865. The Little Six Casino operated by the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community in Shakopee, Minnesota is named after him.
Struggle for influence
By the time Little Six became chief in 1860, almost all bands of Dakota who had ceded their lands to the U.S. in the Treaties of 1851 and 1858 had moved to reservations bordering the upper Minnesota River. Shakopee's band was located more than one mile west of the mouth of the Redwood River.According to Reverend Samuel W. Pond, Chief Little Six struggled to gain influence over his band. Little Six was inexperienced compared to his more charismatic uncle, Red Middle Voice. According to Pond, Red Middle Voice had surrounded himself with strongmen while his brother was still alive, and exerted "chief control over the band after he was dead," even though he was not formally recognized as chief.
Formation of Rice Creek village
Red Middle Voice gained support among disaffected members of Shakopee's band who were unhappy with living conditions on the reservation. He broke from his brother's band and led his supporters to the north side of Rice Creek, some distance above the mouth of the Redwood River, where they established their own village. Rice Creek village, as it became known, was technically on U.S. land, but its members let it be known that they were willing to defend the encampment at all costs.The Rice Creek band was looked down upon by the other Lower Sioux Dakota as troublemakers and misfits. However, over time, they attracted others, including some Sissetons and Wahpetons, who wanted to break away from their bands. By early 1862, they had about fifty members, with fifteen tepees.
Role in U.S.–Dakota War of 1862
Support for an uprising
On August 17, 1862, four young Mdewakanton hunters from Rice Creek village killed five Anglo-American settlers in present-day Acton, Minnesota. They returned to Rice Creek village that evening and told Cut Nose and Red Middle Voice, who were supportive of an uprising to drive settlers out of the region. Together with 100 warriors, Red Middle Voice went eight miles downstream to recruit his nephew, Little Six.Little Six, in turn, resolved that an all-out war would only be possible with the backing of Chief Little Crow III. Although Little Crow initially scoffed at the idea, the group convinced him to lead them. Little Crow then ordered an attack on the Lower Sioux Agency the next morning, setting into motion the five-week Dakota War of 1862.
Attack at the Lower Sioux Agency
At daylight on August 18, 1862, warriors marched south toward the Lower Sioux Agency. The majority were from the bands of Red Middle Voice and Shakopee, but warriors from other Lower Sioux bands eventually joined them. Historian Gary Clayton Anderson writes that it is difficult to identify which warriors committed murders on the first day, but concludes that Cut Nose and Little Six were both involved, based on survivor narratives from Justina Boelter and Samuel Brown.Capture of Brown family
In his narrative of the war, Sam Brown described the capture of his family by Little Six, Cut Nose, Dowanniye and others near their home, which was about eight miles east of the Upper Sioux Agency. On August 19, 1862, Sam Brown, his mother Susan Frenier Brown, his siblings, and other families were in wagons heading for Fort Ridgely, when they were stopped and surrounded on the road by a large Dakota war party.According to Brown, the Dakota warriors were intent on killing them. His mother stood up in the wagon, waved her shawl, and shouted loudly in Dakota that "she was a Sisseton – a relative of Wanataan, Scarlet Plume, Sweetcorn, Ah-kee-pah and the friend of Standing Buffalo, that she had come down this way for protection and hoped to get it." Nevertheless, Cut Nose, Little Six and Dowanniye were among the first to run toward them, "shaking their bloody tomahawks menacingly in faces."
They finally stopped when one of the warriors recognized Susan Brown and declared that her life, and the lives of her family members, should be spared. She had taken the man in during the previous winter when he was freezing, and he wished to repay her kindness. The warriors then turned their attention to five of the white men who were with them and insisted on killing only them. They explained that they had all taken a vow the day before, and that if they spared the men, Little Crow and the soldiers' lodge might order to have them killed.
After further negotiations – including Susan Brown's threat to bring down the wrath of the entire Sisseton and Wahpeton tribes if the other men were harmed – the warriors relented and let the five men go. The Brown family was then taken to Rice Creek village. During the journey, they encountered the corpses of three men and one woman, whom Cut Nose confirmed they had killed earlier.
Brown recalled that Little Six had taunted his brother-in-law and their wagon driver with a song about killing men who made him angry:
Shakopee or Little Six, who was also on horseback, would now and then galop ahead and then suddenly turn and with a whoop and a yell dash toward us and cock his gun and eye us fiercely. Mother did not like this. She told him that she wanted none of his foolishness around her, and that he must either shoot and kill or stop his antics. He would reply that we were his prisoners and should not talk so much, and then commenced singing the war song. He would shake his tomahawk at Blair and Lonsman and then repeat the war song that got so familiar afterwards...When he saw that mother was not afraid of him he quit his fooling.
Battle of Fort Ridgely
On the evening of August 19, Little Crow called a council in which he argued in favor of an all-out attack on Fort Ridgely, a move which Little Six supported. They viewed the capture of Fort Ridgely as the key to gaining control over the entire Minnesota River valley.At noon on August 20, 350 to 450 Dakota men left the camp which had been set up near Little Crow's village, and headed toward Fort Ridgely. Little Six was reportedly among the chiefs who led their bands in the first Battle of Fort Ridgely, with the objective of overrunning the fort.
Little Crow himself was seen ordering his men on the west side of the fort, distracting the U.S. garrison while the other Dakota bands crept up the ravine to the east and took control of some of the outbuildings on the fort's northeast corner. In response, an artillerist from the 5th Minnesota Infantry Regiment and a refugee from the Lower Sioux Agency aimed two howitzers at the northeast corner and fired. Supported by musket fire, the artillery shells drove the Dakota away from the buildings and back into the ravine.
The Dakota fired from a distance for five more hours, and withdrew back to the Lower Sioux Agency in the evening. This was the first time that the Sioux had encountered artillery shells, and they were disturbed by the severe injury and deaths caused by the "rotten balls."
Rest of the war
The extent of Little Six's involvement in the rest of the war is unclear. On August 24, Little Crow led the Lower Sioux bands in a hasty retreat ten miles north to Rice Creek, to unite with Little Six, Red Middle Voice and their bands. On August 28, the unified camp broke up and formed a large caravan, crossing the Yellow Medicine River where they organized a new camp.In a council held on August 31, Little Crow argued in favor of heading toward the "Big Woods" west of Hutchinson, Minnesota. He faced opposition from other band chiefs, including Little Six, who advocated heading south instead to collect plunder they had left behind at Little Crow's village and at New Ulm, which had been abandoned.
In the end, they agreed to divide their forces. One party went west on raids in the Big Woods with Little Crow. The larger party led by Gray Bird and Mankato went south and ended up in the Battle of Birch Coulee. Little Six, however, is not reported to have gone with either.
Chief Big Eagle later stated in his narrative of the war that Little Six "took part in the outbreak, murdering women and children, but I never saw him in battle, and he was caught in Manitoba and hanged...My brother, Medicine Bottle, was hanged with him."
Escape to Rupert's Land and capture
After the Dakota War of 1862, Shakopee, Medicine Bottle, and their followers fled north across the international border to the Red River Colony in Rupert's Land, at the time still a part of British North America. Hundreds of their followers settled near Fort Garry, at the mouth of Assiniboine River, beyond the jurisdiction of the U.S. military. Although their presence was not welcomed by British colonial authorities, little could be done against them legally, since they had committed no offenses in British North America.Hatch's Battalion
Back in Minnesota, a new mounted battalion was raised under Major Edwin A. C. Hatch, a newly commissioned officer with no military experience. On General Henry Hastings Sibley's suggestion, the battalion was sent to the town of Pembina to guard against a possible incursion by the Dakota Sioux who had taken refuge in the Red River Colony. "Hatch's Battalion" reached Pembina on November 13, 1863, after marching 400 miles from Fort Snelling.Hatch was particularly keen to capture Shakopee. Little Six was said to have boasted in Pembina that he had personally killed more than fifty men, women and children during the war in Minnesota.
On December 15, Hatch sent twenty troops to St. Joseph, an old British trading post forty miles west of Pembina where a group of Sioux were encamped. At 3:00 am, they surrounded the camp as the Dakota were sleeping, and shot them as they emerged from their tepees, killing six. The incident shocked and demoralized the Dakota. Soon afterwards, the governor of Rupert's Land sent a message to Hatch that many Dakota were willing to surrender if none were punished for the uprising in Minnesota.
Hatch responded by letter stating that he was willing to take them into custody and feed them, if they turned in their weapons and surrendered Little Six and seven or eight other suspected murderers. During the month of January 1864, a total of 91 Dakota surrendered in Pembina.