Struck By The Ree - Dakota War of 1862

Dakota War of 1862

In 1862, during the Dakota U.S. War in Minnesota, Struck by the Ree deployed his warriors to protect innocent white settlers from raiding Indians. In spite of this, his people were expelled from Minnesota after the uprising. In 1865, Struck by the Ree testified at hearings of the Doolittle Commission, which investigated fraud among Indian agents. He reported that agents routinely skimmed goods from stores purchased with Indian annuity money and that Native people were illegally forced to pay for food out of their treaty money, while the agents ate for free. Agents routinely padded their pockets with money that, under treaty agreement, was supposed to purchase supplies for Indians. Struck by the Ree also reported that frontier soldiers routinely coerced sexual favors from Native women. He said, "Before the soldiers came along, we had good health, but, the soldiers go to my women, and they want to sleep with them, and the women being hungry will sleep with them in order to get something to eat, and will get a bad disease, and then the women go to their husbands and give them the bad disease."