Imprisonment of Dakota Families

Imprisonment of Dakota Families. Wokiksuye/Remembrance. , Following the Battle of Wood Lake, 1,600 Dakota, mostly women and children, were forced to march from Camp Release to Fort Snelling. Rather than take up arms, many Dakota had protected white settlers and captives during the war. Arriving on November 13, 1862, the 1,600 were confined under guard in a fenced enclosure below the fort., In this concentration camp, the Dakota families enduring crowding, hunger, and disease over the winter of 1862–63. As many as 300 people died. Amid all this sickness, remembered one detainee, it seemed doubtful at night whether a person would be alive in the morning., Authorities exiled most of the survivors to the Crow Creek reservation in South Dakota in 1863, where hundreds more would die of starvation and neglect., [Captions:] , A concentration camp is a place where people are imprisoned not because they committed any crimes but simply because of who they are. For many the word summons images of World War II and the Holocaust. However, concentration camps have existed throughout history in many places around the world, including the United States., This image, likely taken in late 1862, shows the stockade below the fort that held Dakota noncombatants from November 1862 to March 1863.