# Crow Creek *Crow Creek is a place to which Dakota survivors of the confinement at Fort Snelling were removed in May 1863.* Crow Creek is the place to which [[Dakota]] survivors held at [[Fort Snelling]] were removed in May 1863.[^1] The Minnesota Historical Society's MNopedia entry on Fort Snelling at [[Bdote]] during the Civil War and U.S.-Dakota War years uses the term "concentration camp" for the site where they were held. The entry defines that term as "a place where people are confined, often in poor conditions, without regard to legal norms of arrest."[^1] The project's at-issue record places the removal beside the 1863 Act that, it states, authorized it. It also states that the Act was never repealed.[^2] The pack does not carry the Act's text, its statute citation, or any repeal record. The Act's continuing status therefore rests on the project's dossier alone.[^2] ## Where - The confinement that preceded the removal was on the river bottom below Fort Snelling.[^1] - According to the at-issue record, survivors were taken by steamboat down the Mississippi and up the Missouri to reservations that included Crow Creek.[^2] - The at-issue record quotes the historical record's description of Crow Creek as "a dry, barren place that was unsuitable for farming."[^2] ## When - The confinement below the fort was established on November 7, 1862.[^1] - MNopedia dates the removal of survivors to Crow Creek to May 1863. The at-issue record gives the date as spring 1863.[^1][^2] ## How many - About 1,600 Dakota and mixed-race non-combatants were confined at the site. Most were women, children and the elderly.[^1] - An estimated 130 to 300 people died there. The causes were mumps, measles and pneumonia, and assaults by soldiers and civilians.[^1] ## In the at-issue record Item AI-Dakota-095 appears in section VII, *The Founding Instruments — Still on the Books*, of the project's Dakota founding-instruments dossier. It pairs two facts. The first is that the 1863 removal to Crow Creek was carried out. The second is that, as the item states, the 1863 Act that authorized the removal was never repealed.[^2] The item rests on one source of the historical-record kind, from mnhs.org.[^2] The record shows that the removal took place. The pack does not establish which Act is meant or what its present status is. ## Notes [^1]: Minnesota Historical Society, *MNopedia: Fort Snelling at Bdote: Civil and U.S.-Dakota Wars, 1861–1866* (undated) — establishes the term "concentration camp" and its definition, the November 7, 1862 establishment on the river bottom below the fort, the roughly 1,600 persons confined, the 130 to 300 estimated deaths and their causes, and the May 1863 removal to Crow Creek. https://www.mnhs.org/mnopedia/search/index/place/fort-snelling-civil-and-us-dakota-wars-1861-1866 [^2]: Project at-issue record, *Dakota Founding Instruments* (2026-09-02), row AI-Dakota-095, section VII — states the spring 1863 steamboat route, quotes the historical record's description of Crow Creek, and states that the 1863 Act was never repealed. The row cites a single mnhs.org historical-record source; the corresponding Minnesota Historical Society page in the pack is cited here. https://www.mnhs.org/usdakotawar/stories/history/aftermath/forced-marches-imprisonment