Customer Reviews

Six Weeks in the Sioux Tepees: A Narrative of Indian Captivity

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Sarah Wakefield, being an educated doctor's wife in 1862, had a lot more than many of the people who lived through the 1862 Uprising/Conflict, she was able to relate in a logical way what happened to her, without anger. She tells of the way she and her children were taken care of by Chaska and his family. How their lives were spared because of the Dakota family. Her words show another side of the story, how whites were saved by the Dakota. When many were saying they had been abused, Sarah told of care. When Chaska was hanged on 26th December she was understandably distressed, here was her saviour, who she had promised would be spared as she was, dead, through a quirk of fate. In 1997, I and another woman working on a Native American Committee to honor the dead of the conflict in Minnesota wrote to President Clinton asking for a pardon for Chaska, on Sarah Wakefield's behalf. Chaska's name should be cleared. It has been 136 years and he is still known as a man who abused women and children during a six week war. Read this story and if you feel the same way, please write to the President as well. Chaska saved Sarah's life, his name should at least be cleared of wrongdoing.Thank you.

The main text (pages 51 to 127) of this book was first published in 1864 and is an expanded version (63 pages versus 54 pages in the original printings) of an account Sarah Wakefied [1829-1899] wrote in 1863 about her experiences during the 1862 Dakota war in southern Minnesota. This particular edition by June Namias includes a 45 page introduction, 24 pages of notes, and an 18 page bibliography. Among other books, Namias has written [1993] White Captives: Gender and Ethnicity on the American Frontier, 1607-1862. The bibliography reveals that Namias' doctoral dissertation of 1988 had almost this exact title, the subtitle being very slighly different. My rating is for Sarah Wakefield's text only.

Sarah Wakefied was married in September 1856 to John Wakefield, who was appointed in June 1861 as physician for the Indians at the Upper Sioux reservation. By 1862, the Wakefields had two children: James, born in 1858, and Lucy, born in 1860. Sarah Wakefield begins her account with her family's arrival at the Lower agency and the ride to the Upper agency.

The troubles started at the Lower Sioux agency, and Wakefield tells us that the tribes there had complained before this that they were not treated as well as those of the Upper agency. (64) Although she blames near starvation of the Indians as a powerful cause of the war, she does not excuse the Sioux for their rampage: "I do not wish anyone to think I uphold the Indians in their murderous work. I should think I was insane, as many persons have said I was. I wish every murderer hanged, but those poor men who were dragged into this through fear I pity, and think ought to be spared." (64)

Sarah Wakefield and her children were captured by two Indians, her husband not being present, and the driver of the wagon they were traveling in was murdered. Her life was spared by a man named Chaska, who helped, along with his familty, to protect her and her children throughout their captivity. She had known Chaska before her capture. He had "many times" been to her house in Shakopee, where the Wakefields lived before cominig to the Upper Sioux agency. (68)

Apparently Wakefield was accused afterwards of being too soft on the Indians, because often in her account she repeatedly asks the reader to understand that she and her children survived only because Chaska and other Indians hid and protected her from those who wanted to kill her or "worse". She says she often spoke in deceit to protect herself and her children, talking as if she sided with the Indians. Her intent was to "gain their friendship so as to save my life, I hoping that God would pardon me for any deceit used in such a way. I little thought every word would be remembered and told to my injury." (83) So she is writing this account partly to explain herself to those Whites she feels have misjudged her.

Chaska saved her from being taken as a wife of another Indian named Hapa (who had been with Chaska when the Wakefields were captured and who seemed intent on either killing her or keeping her for himself) by claiming Sarah as his own wife. This was a deception, according to Wakefield, because Chaska did not actually have relations with her. The claim of her belonging to Chaska got around the camp, and while that saved her "from a fate worse than death" it apparently came to be accepted as true by Whites after her release. "I did not consider the consequences outside of the Indian camp, for I had my doubts all the while of my getting away. I supposed if I was ever so fortunate as to get back I could explain all, never once thinking people would consider me a liar, as many call me. Mine is a sad case, after all I have passed through, to receive now so many reproaches from those that I thought would pity me." (85)

Wakefield would say anything to save her life and that of her children. She went to far as to offer to help kill all the Whites held captive if only her own life were spared. This, we might suppose, was said unprompted. She does not tell us that this proposal came first from the Indians. "Many unthinking captives, hearing me make such remarks, have since published it to the world, causing people to believe I really meant all I said." (87) Later she says "every word and action has been remembered and turned against me to my disadvantage." (95) At one point, she claimed falsely to be part Indian on her mother's side, saying her grandmother was full-blooded Indian. (102)

"All the time I was with the Indians the women seemed to be envious of me, saying that the Indians thought more of me than any other female." (124)

In Wakefield's view, "our own people, not the Indians were to blame" for the war. (100) "I know the Indians have butched the whites, and I wish every guilty one punished: but I cannot blame them as many do, for I am sure they had a cause, and very strong reasons for being revenged upon some persons who have been living off their lands and money, while they were starving. If these Indians had commenced this outbreak out of pure wickedness, I would feel as many do - that they ought to be exterminated; but it is not so; they took the only way they knew of getting restitution and we all want that when we are wronged." (109)

Sarah Wakefield and her children had been taken captive before she'd heard any details of the Indian's brutal rampage. She doesn't tell us if she talked with other captives about the killings. She listened to boasting by a half-breed of killing a mother and her three children, violating one girl before beating them all to death with a club. (123) The only murder Wakefield talks about having witnessed herself was that of George Gleason at the time of her capture.

"I cannot feel as many persons do, for I lost no friends, and I was kindly treated by all but Hapa. I feel very sorry for those that have suffered at their hands in any manner. I do not know of but two females that were abused by the Indians. I often asked the prisoners when we met, for we were hearing all kinds of reports, but they all said they were well treated, that I saw. It is true that there were many persons there that I never saw until I was brought into Sibley's camp, for the Indian camp was so large it was like a city, and a person was in danger of losing themselves unless there was something particular that would indicate the locality of the tepee. Many kept small white flags and such things flying, to notify members of the family where their homes were." (117)

Chaska and Hapa were the two who captured the Wakefields. Chaska had treated her kindly throughout her captivity and protected her and her children. At the time of the captive's release, there was an inquiry to establish crimes and Chaska was charged with complicity in the murder of George Gleason even though Wakefield testified that only Hapa had done the killing. (116) Chaska was hung at Mankato, his name seeming to be on Lincoln's list, but according to Wakefield the wrong man was hung: "The Indian name Chaskadon, that the President ordered to be hanged, killed a pregnant woman and cut out her child, and they hung Chaska who was only convicted of being present when Mr. Gleason was killed." (121)

"It has caused me to feel very unkindly towards my own people, particularly those in command at Mankato. There have been all kinds of reports in circulatioin repecting Chaska and myself, but I care not for them. I know that I did what was right, that my feelings were only those of gratitude toward my preserver. I should have done the same for the blackest negro that Africa ever produced; I loved not the man, but his kindly acts." (123)

Her account of rejoining with her husband is odd. She sees him for the first time after six fearful weeks of being a prisoner of the Sioux and writes only: "There was my husband I had mourned as dead, now living - coming toward me. I was happy then, and felt that I would have died then willingly, and said, "Thy will not mine be done," for I knew my children had a protector now." (121) After those lines, the next paragraphs are about Chaska and his mistaken hanging. She says nothing more about her husband until one long paragraph, the third paragraph from the end of her book, where she tells us how he escaped from Indians on the day she and her children left in the wagon with George Gleason.

In the introduction we learn that in 1874, Doctor John Wakefield "was found dead in his home, most likely of an overdose of drugs." (28) Sarah and John had had a third child, Julia, in 1866, and a fourth, John, in 1868. Their eldest, James, died in 1897, Sarah dying two years later. Of the other three children, the years of their deaths are not given. (46-47)
______________

June Namias, the editor of this edition of Sarah Wakefield's book, wrote a 45 page introduction. I purposely read this introduction only after reading Wakefield's account and after writing the above review (aside from the last two paragraphs, which I added later). Namias mischaracterizes Wakefield's account, I believe, because Namias wants the book to presage modern political sensitivities. I see the book as Sarah Wakefield's self-defense against charges of collaboration and adultery, and, just as importantly for her, to elaborate upon her testimony to Chaska's goodness and innocence of any crime. They are both innocent, and both have been falsely judged. She wrote the book to set the record straight, not principally to defend tribal rights to "ancestral lands" or to argue for "a common humanity across racial and cultural boundaries" as Namias claims. (8) See also Wakefield's remarks on "half-breeds", of which she says: "I would not trust myself with one of them. There is too much art and duplicity in them." (124)

Namias even claims that the accusations of adultery against Wakefield were thought up by "men of the regiment" in reaction to her testifying "in front of [the] all-white, all-male commision", telling them that Chaska had saved her life and the life of her children. (4) Wakefield herself in her book explains how the miscontrual of her involvement with Chaska arose. It was because she herself, with Chaska's urging, claimed to be his wife in order to save herself from being taken by Hapa. The other women captives and probably also the Indian men taken prisoner no doubt spoke to the soldiers about the relationship, as they understood it, between Chaska and Sarah Wakefield. Namias, however, wants to play gender and racial politics.

Personal narratives are a great way to learn history. In 1863, one year after the Sioux War, Sarah Wakefield published a small pamphlet. She described her captivity by the Dakota Indians, their world and that of the Indian-white conflict. The editor's introduction is essential reading, providing early Minnesota history and thoughtful dialogue why Sarah wrote about this six-week ordeal. Sarah was the only person (out of about 100 people) to testify on behalf of the Dakota people and her captor, Chaska. She openly blamed the U.S. government for the Dakota uprising.
June Namias offers several reasons why Sarah felt compelled to write her story. Sarah says it was for her children's sake, but other reasons seem more likely. After reading Sarah's narrative, all given reasons seem plausible. Readers will be surprised or even appalled at some of Sarah's actions and words, but as Ms. Namias points out, "War is some basic kind of hell. Nothing is fair in war." Whatever her writing motives or what you may think of Sarah after reading this, one thing is certain. Sarah Wakefield and her captors believed in fairness, reconciliation and reciprocity. This is a tragic history lesson we can all learn from.