"If the members of the court who try them think and feel as do a majority of those to whom I have spoke of the Dakotas and the editorial corps of Minnesota universally so far as I know, innocence will be no guarantee of safety."
Thomas Williamson, letter to Stephen Riggs during the trials of Dakota men after the war, October 25, 1862
Newspaper reports stoked fears and demands for retribution.
Accounts of battles, injuries and deaths, families torn apart, communities ravaged--these were the subjects that grabbed readers’ attention during and after the war. By reviewing the many eyewitness accounts and first-person narratives that were published, some factual and some exaggerated, it is easy to understand why panic swept the state.
Click on "Related Images" in the upper right of this page to read actual newspaper articles on the war.