Monday, February 11, 2013

The First Concentration Camp Built for Native Americans

Part 16 in the series Are Native Americans Relevant?



In 1862 war broke out between a small group of Dakotas and European settlers in Minnesota.  Below Fort Snelling and Mankato, the U.S. federal government erected the first civilian internment camp for 1600 Dakotas.  The men were sent to Mankato and the women and children to Fort Snelling.  This technique was so successful it was used by British during the Boer War in Africa, the French in Algeria, the Germans in Europe, and the Russians in Siberia.  It was to be repeated continually in the American West where the U.S. government sent up additional similar camps to incarcerate and control Native Americans.  They would later be called reservations.


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