# Little Crow *Dakota chief (c. 1810 – 1863), signatory of the 1851 Treaty of Mendota and leader in the Dakota War of 1862* Little Crow III (Dakota: Thaóyate Dúta, also written Taoyateduta; c. 1810 – July 3, 1863) was a [[Wahpekute]] [[Dakota]] chief. In 1862 he headed one faction of the Dakota in a war against the United States that lasted five weeks.[^1] On August 5, 1851, at [[Pilot Knob]] in [[Mendota]], he was among the Dakota signers of the [[Treaty of Mendota]]. U.S. commissioners [[Luke Lea]] and [[Alexander Ramsey]] signed for the United States.[^2] The treaty's obligations ran in two directions. The Mdewakanton and Wahpekute bands ceded "all their right, title and claim to any lands whatever" in the Territory of Minnesota and the State of Iowa.[^3] In return the United States was to pay US$1,410,000, most of it held in trust and paid out as annuities.[^4] The Minnesota Historical Society records that the treaty's promises "did not come to pass."[^5] In August 1862, with many Dakota starving, Little Crow told the federal Indian agent that the Dakota were owed money with which to buy food.[^6] After Little Crow was killed in 1863, the Minnesota [[Legislature]] awarded $500 to [[Nathan Lamson]], one of the two men who shot him. The [[Minnesota Historical Society]] later acquired his scalp, in 1868, and his skull, in 1896.[^7] ## Who Little Crow was born at Kaposia, a Wahpekute village on the east side of the [[Mississippi River]] that was also known as Little Crow's village.[^8] His birth year is uncertain. His gravestone gives 1818, while historian Gary Clayton Anderson places it in 1810, citing mission school records and Little Crow's service with the Dakota contingent the United States enlisted in the Black Hawk War of 1832.[^8] At least two earlier chiefs carried the name Little Crow: his grandfather Cetanwakanmani and his father Wakinyantanka (Big Thunder). The origin of the European name is not settled.[^8] Big Thunder was mortally wounded in October 1845 when a gun went off in his cart. Before he died, he named one of Taoyateduta's younger half-brothers as his successor.[^9] Taoyateduta took the chieftainship in 1846 after a violent contest with his half-brothers.[^1] Twenty-seven years later, [[Henry Hastings Sibley]] said he had seen Big Thunder speak to Taoyateduta at the deathbed. Historian Return Ira Holcombe, who gathered eyewitness testimony that included members of the family, wrote that Sibley's account conflicted with every other account of the death.[^9] As chief, Little Crow worked with Indian agent Amos Bruce, who organized temperance pledges at Kaposia, and he took the pledge himself. He also invited the missionary physician Thomas Smith Williamson to Kaposia, where Williamson founded a church and a Dakota school.[^10] ## What Under the treaty signed at Pilot Knob on August 5, 1851, Little Crow, [[Wabasha]] and about eighty other [[Mdewakanton]] and Wahpekute leaders signed for the bands.[^2] By its text the bands gave up "all their lands and all their right, title and claim to any lands whatever, in the Territory of Minnesota, or in the State of Iowa."[^3] The bands were to move to a reservation along the [[Minnesota River]]. When the [[United States Senate]] ratified the treaty, it deleted Article 3, the article that had set that land aside. Under threat of forcible removal to Dakota Territory, the bands then negotiated again and were given land on only one side of the river.[^4] In 1858 Little Crow led the Mdewakanton-Wahpekute delegation to Washington, D.C. There, according to the Wikipedia account, the leaders were pressured into a further cession of the northern half of their remaining Minnesota River land.[^4] In the spring of 1862 he lost the election for tribal speaker to Traveling Hail. Wikipedia attributes the loss to distrust over his part in the 1858 treaty and his refusal to support the farming program.[^4] ## When On August 4, 1862, a crowd of Dakota broke into the food warehouse at the Upper Sioux Agency. At a council the next day with Indian agent Thomas J. Galbraith, Little Crow said the Dakota were owed money to buy food. He proposed that Galbraith "make some arrangement" for the traders to extend credit, and he warned that "When men are hungry, they help themselves."[^6] Captain John S. Marsh then told Galbraith to open the warehouse.[^6] On August 17, 1862, four young Dakota hunters killed five civilians, two of them women, near Acton. Cut Nose, Little Six ([[Shakopee]] III) and Red Middle Voice, who favored war, then sought out Little Crow to lead it.[^6] He first tried to talk them out of it, then agreed to lead them.[^1] The war that followed brought the killing of hundreds of settlers and the capture of nearly 300 hostages, almost all of them women.[^1] Many Dakota opposed Little Crow, particularly farmers and Christian converts. In September Sibley turned down his offers to negotiate until the hostages were freed. Sibley's volunteer army defeated Little Crow's forces at the Battle of [[Wood Lake]] on September 23, 1862.[^1] Little Crow kept his followers from killing the hostages or attacking other Dakota, and then left for the northern plains.[^1] On the evening of July 3, 1863, he was picking raspberries with his son Wowinape in Minnesota when Nathan Lamson and Lamson's son Chauncey shot him.[^7] A search party scalped the body and dragged it along Hutchinson's main street. The body was then thrown into a slaughterhouse pit and later decapitated.[^7] Wowinape was captured near Devil's Lake, Dakota Territory, on July 28, 1863, and reported his father's death. Officials exhumed the body on August 16.[^7] ## Where The treaty was signed at Pilot Knob in Mendota, inside present-day Dakota County.[^2] Little Crow was shot nearly 12 miles from Hutchinson, Minnesota.[^7] In 1971 his grandson had his remains reburied at the First Presbyterian Church and Cemetery in Flandreau, South Dakota. The church and cemetery were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2017.[^11] Hutchinson put up a bronze statue of Little Crow above the Crow River in 1937 and replaced it with a new statue in 1982.[^11] ## How much The treaty promised the bands US$1,410,000, most of it to be held in trust and paid as annuities.[^4] The project's at-issue record states the terms as $1,410,000 with interest, to be applied to implements, provisions, education and annuities, and records that the payments were not delivered as promised.[^5] In 1864 the Legislature voted Nathan Lamson $500 for "rendering great service to the State."[^7] Chauncey Lamson received a $75 bounty for the scalp. The Wikipedia account notes that he took it on the same day the Adjutant General declared a bounty on Dakota warriors, July 4, 1863.[^7] ## In the at-issue record The project's at-issue record has two entries on the Treaty of Mendota. The first records the 1851 signing inside present-day Dakota County and states that every land title in the county descends from that instrument.[^2] The second sets the promised $1,410,000 beside the record that it was not paid as promised. It quotes Little Crow as saying that the government "can't get it till our children was dieing with hunger."[^5] The Minnesota Historical Society's own account states that the treaty's promises "did not come to pass."[^5] The same institution acquired Little Crow's scalp in 1868 and his skull in 1896.[^7] The record shows the cession carried out and the payment not delivered as promised. The cited sources do not establish why the payments were not made. The project anchors the two entries to presidential actions published by the White House in May 2026 and March 2025.[^12][^13] ## Notes [^1]: Wikipedia contributors, *Little Crow* (revision 1379948923, retrieved 2026-10-27), lead section, CC BY-SA 4.0 — dates of life; chieftainship in 1846; 1862 war, hostages, opposition, Sibley messages, Battle of Wood Lake, flight. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Crow [^2]: Minnesota Historical Society, *Treaty of Mendota* (n.d.) — signed August 5, 1851 at Pilot Knob; commissioners Luke Lea and Alexander Ramsey; Little Crow, Wabasha and roughly eighty other Mdewakanton and Wahpekute signers. https://www.mnhs.org/usdakotawar/stories/history/treaty-mendota [^3]: Minnesota Historical Society, *Treaty of Mendota* (n.d.) — the cession language of the treaty text. https://www.mnhs.org/usdakotawar/stories/history/treaty-mendota [^4]: Wikipedia contributors, *Little Crow* (revision 1379948923, retrieved 2026-10-27), "Treaty negotiations" — US$1,410,000 in trust and annuities; Senate removal of Article 3; 1858 delegation; 1862 speaker election. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Crow [^5]: Minnesota Historical Society, *Treaty of Mendota* (n.d.) — record that the treaty promises "did not come to pass"; payment terms and Little Crow's statement as carried in the project's at-issue record. https://www.mnhs.org/usdakotawar/stories/history/treaty-mendota [^6]: Wikipedia contributors, *Little Crow* (revision 1379948923, retrieved 2026-10-27), "Dakota War of 1862" — August 4–5, 1862 warehouse break-in and council; August 17, 1862 killings near Acton. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Crow [^7]: Wikipedia contributors, *Little Crow* (revision 1379948923, retrieved 2026-10-27), "Death" — July 3, 1863 shooting; treatment of the body; Wowinape's capture; Legislature's $500 award; $75 bounty; Minnesota Historical Society acquisitions of 1868 and 1896. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Crow [^8]: Wikipedia contributors, *Little Crow* (revision 1379948923, retrieved 2026-10-27), "Early life" — Kaposia; birth-year evidence; earlier chiefs named Little Crow. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Crow [^9]: Wikipedia contributors, *Little Crow* (revision 1379948923, retrieved 2026-10-27), "Fight for chieftainship" — Big Thunder's death in 1845; naming of successor; Sibley's claim and Holcombe's finding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Crow [^10]: Wikipedia contributors, *Little Crow* (revision 1379948923, retrieved 2026-10-27), "Early years as chief" — temperance pledges with agent Amos Bruce; Williamson's church and school at Kaposia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Crow [^11]: Wikipedia contributors, *Little Crow* (revision 1379948923, retrieved 2026-10-27), "Legacy" — 1971 reburial at Flandreau; 2017 National Register listing; Hutchinson statues of 1937 and 1982. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Crow [^12]: The White House, presidential action (May 2026) — anchor document for the project's at-issue entry on the 1851 signing. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/05/restoring-integrity-to-americas-financial-system/ [^13]: The White House, presidential action (March 2025) — anchor document for the project's at-issue entry on the treaty payments. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/protecting-americas-bank-account-against-fraud-waste-and-abuse/