# Nathan Lamson *Payee of a $500 bounty for killing Taoyateduta, recorded in Minnesota's 1863 bounty payments.* Nathan Lamson was paid $500 for killing Taoyateduta. The payment is recorded in the [[Minnesota Historical Society]]'s account of the bounties paid after the U.S.–Dakota War.[^1] The same account dates a $200 bounty rate to September 22, 1863.[^1] The payment was made under a series of State orders. [[General Orders No. 41]], dated July 4, 1863, was issued by Adjutant General Oscar Malmros at the direction of [[governor|Governor]] [[Alexander Ramsey]]. It paid scouts $1.50 a day plus $25 per [[Dakota]] scalp. The money came from the State's [[Military Contingency Fund]] by executive order, not by legislative appropriation. Later orders raised the bounty to $75 and then to $200.[^2] The record documents the payee, the amount, and what the payment was for. It does not establish the circumstances of the killing beyond that payment entry.[^1] ## Who Lamson is named as the recipient of the $500 payment for killing Taoyateduta.[^1] The pack carries no other documented role for him. ## How much The payment to Lamson was $500.[^1] The project's at-issue record states that four other bounty payments are documented in the archival record, totaling $325, and that the $500 payment to Lamson was a fifth, separate payment.[^1] The bounty rate rose from $25 per scalp under General Orders No. 41 to $75 and then $200.[^2] The $200 rate is dated September 22, 1863.[^1] ## In the at-issue record The project's at-issue record sets the bounty ledger beside the State's later accounts of its own record-keeping. It notes that the State kept ledger entries precise enough to name each recipient, each amount, and each date. In its words, the State was "capable of exact accounting when the subject was a bounty."[^1] The record pairs this entry with the federal executive action *Protecting America's Bank Account Against Fraud, Waste, and Abuse* (March 2025) as its anchor.[^3] ## In the Minnesota record ### Who - Nathan Lamson received $500 for killing Taoyateduta.[^1] ### When - The orders establishing the bounties began with General Orders No. 41 on July 4, 1863. The $200 rate is dated September 22, 1863.[^2][^1] ## Notes [^1]: Minnesota Historical Society, *Bounties* (undated) — the $500 payment to Nathan Lamson; the $200 rate dated Sept. 22, 1863. https://www.mnhs.org/usdakotawar/stories/history/aftermath/bounties [^2]: Minnesota Historical Society, *Bounties* (undated) — the State's bounty orders: General Orders No. 41 (July 4, 1863), the $25, $75 and $200 rates, and funding from the Military Contingency Fund (pack source for these details: validated Ramsey dossier §VI). https://www.mnhs.org/usdakotawar/stories/history/aftermath/bounties [^3]: The White House, *Protecting America's Bank Account Against Fraud, Waste, and Abuse* (March 2025) — the federal executive action that the at-issue record uses as its anchor for this pair. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/protecting-americas-bank-account-against-fraud-waste-and-abuse/