Andrew Myrick

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Historic Lower Sioux Agency warehouse. Andrew Myrick is said to have been murdered here.
Little Crow, the leader of the attack on the Lower Sioux Agency

Andrew Myrick (born May 28, 1832 , † August 18, 1862 on the Lower Sioux Agency Reservation, now in Redwood County , Minnesota ) was an American trader and one of the initiators of the Sioux uprising of 1862.

Life

Andrew Myrick is considered a racist anti-hero in the history of the Indian Wars, despite the fact that he was married to a Sioux Indian woman named Wiyangewin and had two children by her. He refused to sell food on credit to starving Dakota Sioux Indians on August 17, 1862 . He is said to have made the infamous sentence: "In my opinion, you should eat grass or your own excrement when you are hungry". Maybe he was just an irascible person who didn't think before speaking. Other sources say his story did not unfold that way.

Andrew Myrick and his brother Nathan owned stores in Yellow Medicine Upper Sioux Agency and Lower Sioux Agency . The Lower Sioux Agency was established by the United States government in 1853 as the administrative center of the newly created Lower Sioux Reservation . Mdewakanton and Wahpekute Indians of the Dakota-Santee and Sioux populated the reservation, which was established after the Treaty of Mendota on August 5, 1851. In this contract, the Indians sold areas in southern Minnesota to the federal government for $ 1.4 million and withdrew to the reservation area. The funds were held in trust by the Bureau of Indian Affairs . The Indians decided to give up their nomadic life as hunters and become sedentary farmers. Furthermore, the contract consisted of obligations for the delivery of food and other equipment to the settling Indians. The Lower Sioux Agency was founded to manage the funds and set up schools.

The Indian reservation was further reduced in 1858 when Minnesota was admitted as a state to the United States. Their territory no longer offered enough space for the Indians to fend for themselves, leaving them completely dependent on government payments and white traders. Government payments, in turn, have always suffered badly from the corruption in the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

In 1861 the situation of the Indians worsened. A bad harvest forced them to buy food on credit from the vendors and go into debt. In 1862, payments by the US government were also delayed due to the war of civilization (Washington was unsure whether the annual payments should be made in gold or in the new greenbacks ).

Since July 1862 the merchant has stopped giving food on credit to the hungry residents of the reservation. On July 26th he wrote to his brothers: “I am at a loss and will not give any more loans… I hope to get a reaction from the Indian agents … They will be very hungry and the officials may give them money to buy food can". On August 15, 1862, the reservation residents asked Andrew Myrick to sell groceries on credit. The dealer refused. He is said to have said the famous, infamous sentence to the Indian agent Thomas J. Galbraith. Ironically, on August 16, 1862, the payments due to the Indians had arrived in Minnesota's capital, St. Paul, and on August 17, they were forwarded to Fort Ridgely . But the payments came too late.

On August 18, 1862, Indians, led by Chief Little Crow , stormed the Lower Sioux Agency. Myrick tried to escape by climbing through a window on the second floor of the agency's warehouse. He was later found dead with grass in his mouth. Nothing happened to his wife and two daughters.

Six weeks after the uprising ended, 392 Dakota were tried in military tribunals. In trials, some of which lasted only five minutes, 303 of them were sentenced to death for rape and murder, including the murder of Andrew Myrick. On December 26, 1862, 38 Dakota were publicly hanged in the largest mass execution in American history in Mankato .

Little is known about Myrick's life. He is said to have been an intelligent man, on the other hand very quick-tempered and irascible. The Dakota on the reservation called him Wacinco , which means hot head . It is not clear whether he really was a heartless racist and Indian hater or a businessman who got into financial difficulties due to the lack of payments by the American government and therefore refused to sell food to starving Indians.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Andrew had a Sioux wife, Wiyangewin, and two daughters. She was with him in the trading post when the warriors came, but they did not harm her or the children. But they pursued Andrew outside and killed him.
  2. ^ Richard H. Dillon: North American Indian Wars . Booksales, City 1920, p. 126.
  3. ↑ Andrew Myrick: "So far as I am concerned, if they are hungry let them eat grass or their own dung."
  4. ↑ Myricks Insult : "In Summerary, the evidence that has survived indicates that at least two weeks before the war Andrew Myrick did insult a group of eastern Dakota, telling them they might as well" eat grass, "or words to that effect. Folwell and other historians made the mistake of assuming that this discussion took place at the Lower Agency and provided the catalyst for the Mdewakanton to start the war. "
  5. ^ Alvin M. Josephy: The Civil War in the American West. Knopf, New York 1991, p. 107.
  6. ↑ I am at a loss and so doing have given out no credits since last Sunday and at present deem it best not to give away any more for a week or ten days hoping it will produce a reaction. They will get very hungry and possibly if the officials are not engaged in it they may change their sentiments and favor paying their credits ..
  7. ↑ But another side of his persona is emphasized by the Indians' name for him, Wacinco, which meant “hothead”.
personal data
SURNAME Myrick, Andrew
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American trader, trigger of a Sioux uprising
DATE OF BIRTH May 28, 1832
DATE OF DEATH August 18, 1862
Place of death Minnesota , United States