In August 1862 the Dakota or Eastern Sioux, frustrated at being
defrauded by the United States government and at losing their land and
livelihood, resorted to armed conflict against the white settlers of
southern Minnesota. Gary Clayton Anderson is the first historian to use
an ethnohistorical approach to explain why, after more than two
centuries of friendly interaction, the bonds of peace between the Dakota
and whites suddenly broke apart.
In Kinsmen of Another Kind, Anderson shows how the Dakota concept of
kinship affected the tribe's complex relationships with the whites. The
Dakota were obligated to help their relatives by any means possible.
Traders who were adopted or who married into the tribe gained from this
relationship--but had reciprocal responsibilities. After the 1820s, the
trade in furs declined, more whites moved into the territory, and the
Dakota became more economically dependent on the whites. When American
traders and officials failed to fulfill their obligations, many Dakotas
finally saw the whites as enemies to be driven from Minnesota.
This reprint edition of Anderson's work, first published in 1984,
provides a new understanding of a complicated period in Minnesota
history.