"If they're hungry, let them eat grass or their own dung."
Minnesota's Sioux uprising of 1862 Reprint from Telelaget of America The Sioux Uprising of 1862 was primarily the result of the government's failure to honor the terms of the Treaty of Traverse de Sioux in 1851. The Indians gave up over 20 million acres of land, preserving for themselves a reservation of the land on each side of the Minnesota river, roughly from the Minnesota border to New Ulm. The government did not honor these terms, and a number of pioneer settlements began to sprang up on what legally was reservation land. The government promised yearly payments to the tribes for the land they gave up; the payments were often late and were gobbled up by the trading post owners who charged outrageous prices but offered credit to Indians during the year. In the summer of 1862, the payments were once again late and the Indians were starving. On August 4, 1862, representatives of the northern Sissetowan and Wahpeton Dakota bands met at the Upper Sioux Agenc