Spirit Lake Massacre

The Spirit Lake Massacre (March 8–12, 1857) was an attack by a Wahpekute band of Santee Sioux on scattered Iowa frontier settlements during a severe winter. Suffering a shortage of food, the renegade chief Inkpaduta (Scarlet Point) led 14 Sioux against the settlements near Okoboji and Spirit lakes in the northwestern territory of Iowa near the Minnesota border, in revenge of the murder of Inkpaduta's brother, Sidominadotah, and Sidominadotah's family by Henry Lott. The Sioux killed 35-40 settlers in their scattered holdings, took four young women captive, and headed north. The youngest captive, Abbie Gardner, was kept a few months before being ransomed in early summer. It was the last Native American attack on settlers in Iowa, but the events increased tensions between the Sioux and settlers in the Minnesota Territory. Nearly 30 years after the events, in 1885 Gardner-Sharp published her memoir, History of the Spirit Lake Massacre and Captivity of Miss Abbie Gardner, which was reprinted seven times in small editions. It was one of the last captivity narratives written of European Americans' being held by Native Americans. In 1891, Gardner-Sharp purchased the primitive family cabin and returned home. For the last 30 years of her life, she subsisted on the modest earnings from her book and souvenir sales. The town erected a historical monument to commemorate the attack. The State of Iowa now maintains the park and Abbie Gardner Sharp home site. Background Inkpaduta led a small band of Wahpekutes who had been expelled from the main band in dissension following the murder of a chief in 1840. (Other major bands of Sioux in the region were the Wahpeton and Sisseton.) Including some women and children, his band followed the game and lived by hunting, whose yield was decreasing under pressure of new settlement. They also received some annuities under the Traverse des Sioux and Mendota 1851 treaties but never received the rightful amount owed by the United States for lands the Sioux were forced to cede. By the terms of the Traverse des Sioux treaty, a reservation was set up along the Minnesota River, about 15 miles above Fort Ridgely. Promised improvements were not made on time and the federal government repeatedly failed to make adequate and timely annuity payments, even failing to authorize adequate budgets for the Department of Interior for this purpose.