Product Details

• Actors: Garrison Keillor, Floyd Red Crow Westerman
• Format: Color, NTSC, Black & White
• Language: English
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Twin Cities Public Television
• VHS Release Date: July 21, 1993
• Run Time: 60 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6302803144
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #104,689 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sad story well-told, September 18, 2001

By 

Harold Nicol (Little Canada, MN United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Dakota Conflict (The 1862 Great Sioux Uprising) [VHS] (VHS Tape)

The Dakota Conflict, or Sioux Uprising, of 1862 was the bloodiest war in United States history with Native Americans. Innocent men, women and children were brutally killed by enraged Dakota men following years of treaty swindles and near-starvation. Settlers, mostly recent immigrants, were the sacrificial lambs. The result was the expulsion of the Dakota from Minnesota and a mass hanging of 38 warriors... the largest mass execution in U.S. history. This showed on PBS some years back. If you do a search on the internet you can still find outlets that sell the tape. There was a sequel narrated by Robbie Robertson called "Dakota Exile" produced in 1995 that I like even better. That tape can be found through videofinders or Twin Cities Public Television in St. Paul, MN.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A documentary film about a major, but not well known war., November 21, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: The Dakota Conflict (The 1862 Great Sioux Uprising) [VHS] (VHS Tape)

A sobering documentary of the events leading up to and following the war between the Dakota people and Minnesota settlers during the Civil War years.

The film, using many old photographs and voices, recreates the thoughts, motives & feelings of the times. Narration provided by Garrison Keillor.

Well worth watching.

END

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A major event in U. S. history that is largely ignored, July 2, 2006

By 

Charles Ashbacher (Marion, Iowa United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Dakota Conflict (The 1862 Great Sioux Uprising) [VHS] (VHS Tape)

In the majority of the history books, when you read of battles between white settlers/U. S. soldiers and the Dakota Sioux it is about the battles in Montana and the states of North and South Dakota. Rarely do you hear the state of Minnesota mentioned. And yet, a series of pitched battles between whites and the Dakota Sioux raged in Minnesota during the 1860's. Hundreds of white settlers were killed and many more fled Minnesota in fear of their lives. Like all other conflicts between the white encroachers and the Native Americans, it ended with a total white victory, destruction of most of the Dakota nation and another blot on the history of the United States.
This tape recounts this time in history and uses a unique approach. Garrison Keillor, who speaks in English and Floyd Red Crow Westerman, who speaks in Sioux, jointly narrate it. Vintage photographs and readings from the newspapers and diaries of the day help recreate what happened in the fateful year of 1862. It is a tragedy from several perspectives, there is the usual white greed and duplicity, and promises made to the Dakota were routinely broken. When well meaning people on both sides tried to find common ground, they were ignored or swept away. Once the fighting was over, 38 Dakotas were simultaneously executed in the largest mass execution ever carried out in the United States. That group included a Dakota who had risked his life to protect some white settlers from being killed by his fellow Dakotas. The order for the execution was signed by then President Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln tried to find a middle ground between the white hysteria that demanded the extermination of the Dakota and treating the captured Sioux as enemy combatants. In the end, he settled on these executions as a form of political compromise.
This tape is an accurate recapitulation of yet another sad event in American history, where whites simply used their overpowering strength to destroy people who had a natural right to their property. In the end, a large group of Dakota warriors chose to die fighting rather than slowly die due to economic and cultural strangulation. This is their story that must be remembered, even though it generally is not.