America's Disgraceful History Of Military "Trials"

America's Disgraceful History Of Military "Trials":

"In 1851 the Santee Sioux Indians in Minnesota sold twenty-four million acres of land to the federal government for $1.4 million. By August of 1862 thousands of white settlers continued to pour into the Indian lands even though none of the money had been paid to the Santee Sioux. There was a crop failure that year, and the Indians were starving. The Lincoln administration refused to pay them the money they were owed, breaking yet another Indian treaty, and the starving Sioux revolted.

A short 'war' ensued, with Lincoln putting one of his favorite generals, General John Pope, in charge of federal forces in Minnesota. Pope announced that 'It is my purpose to utterly exterminate the Sioux . . . . They are to be treated as maniacs or wild beasts, and by no means as people with whom treaties or compromise can be made.' (Similar statements were being made at the time by General William Tecumseh Sherman, who said that to all Southern secessionists, 'why, death is mercy').

The Santee Sioux were overwhelmed by the federal army by October of 1862, at which time General Pope held hundreds of Indian men, women, and children who were considered to be prisoners of war. The men were all herded into forts where military 'trials' were held, each of which lasted about ten minutes according to David A. Nichols in Lincoln and the Indians."..................