FREE ESSAY ON OVER THE EARTH I COME: THE SOUIX UPRISING OR 1862

OVER THE EARTH I COME: THE SOUIX UPRISING OR 1862

I will admit that I am not much for reading. I will also admit after reading the first
chapter in this book that I felt sick to my stomach, literally. That I feared reading
the rest of the book knowing that this really happened and that people could
actually do this to one another. Although the book disgusted me after the first
chapter that I didn't want to read it anymore it also made me not want to put it
down. It could have been the way the writer described everything made it all so
vivid and clear or maybe it was the fact that it was so gruesome and real that I had
to read it. Whatever the truth may be I thought it was a very good book.
Up until this class I hadn't even heard of the Uprising. In my impression
part of the book was the side of the Indians while part of it was the side of the
'white man's' view. It told of how it started, where it began, when it ended and
how it ended. 
I feel as if the Indians had been changing their ways throughout the war. In
the beginning they were killing anyone and everyone but, to a point, by the end of
the war they were only killing the white males and were holding the women and
children captive so to speak. 
Although I don't think the Indians needed to be hung for their crimes they
should've been arrested and brought into jail. The white men needed to also take
responsibility for their actions. It takes two people to start a fight no matter what it
is about. Yes, it wasn't all of the white men who held back their annuity payment,
but it was those men who insisted that they change their ways.
The book was a well-researched and insightful narrative of the bloody
uprising and the events which preceded it. It is another sad chapter in the history
of the American West . All the shocking events took place during one week in
August of 1862, in response to being tricked and betrayed by broken treaties,
cheated continually by traders, and brought to the edge of starvation by delays in
dispensing the government's annuity payments, the Santee Sioux had finally had
enough. The Sioux left hundreds of settlers dead and turning forty thousand into
refugees. From killings to burnings they did it all. 
The high point was reached over hens' eggs when warriors mocked
as cowards after refusing to steal the eggs shot the hens' owner, his wife, and
friends in cold blood. Faced with certain reprisals from whites, the most respected
Sioux leader, Little Crow, sided with his war chiefs and the rampage began in
earnest. Hundreds of isolated settlers in the area died, with only occasional
prisoners taken, while massive attacks took place against the nearby Army garrison
and the prosperous town of New Ulm. Even with superior numbers, these assaults
failed, however, leaving many warriors dead and the rest disheartened. The Army
quickly rounded up all the Sioux to be found, sentencing hundreds to death in
military court without allowing them a defense. President Lincoln reduced the
number of condemned to 38, who were duly hung. On December 26, 1862, those
38 Sioux Indians were executed for their part in uprisings.