Mazomani

Mazomani. . On this ridge is located the grave of Mazomani, a leader of the Wahpeton (Dwellers in the Leaves) Dakota, who died of injuries he received on September 23, 1862, at the battle of Wood Lake during the Dakota (Sioux) War.

Mazomani (Iron Walker) was among the Dakota leaders who went to Washington DC, in 1858 to negotiate a treaty selling half of the Minnesota River Valley reservation. Throughout the course of the tragic 1862 war, he tried repeatedly to make peace between the Dakota and whites and to protect those Dakota who had chosen to remain at peace from those who tried to force them to fight. According to Dakota oral traditions, he was wounded by white soldiers while carrying a flag of truce as he tried to enter their camp to arrange for the release of captives. His friends and followers carried him from the battlefield to a camp near here, where he died early the following morning after embracing his wife and his daughter and telling them, “I love you very much, but I am going to leave you now.”

Mazomani’s daughter, Mazaokiyewin (Woman who Talks to Iron), was among the many Dakota forced into exile at Crow Creek on the Missouri River following the 1862 war. She eventually returned to this region where she was known as Isabel Roberts and was a leading member of the Dakota community. Many of her descendants still live in the area today.