The annual run honoring the Dakota 38+2 began Thursday at Fort Snelling and will end Friday in Mankato, Minnesota.
On December 26th, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln approved a mass execution of 38 Dakota people following the U.S.-Dakota War; two additional Dakota men were executed later.
Daniel Bearshield, a Santee Sioux tribal member and Sioux City resident, has been participating in the run for the last 8 years. The first year he participated in the run, he said it was -26 degrees with a brutal windchill.
Bearshield said the weather doesn’t matter because it will not stop him and other runners from participating.
“As runners we acknowledge the hardships of our ancestors when they were led from Fort Snelling down to Mankato the day after Christmas where they were publicly executed,” he said.
Bearshield says the run continues to grow and that many people from various tribal nations participate.
For Bearshield, the run represents kinship, honor, celebration, and a renewed outlook to be a better Dakota relative.
He spends the run in prayer honoring the ancestors who sacrificed their lives so that future generations could live.
“They didn’t want the war,” he said, “they only wanted to feed their people.”
Bearshield said the run ends with runners meeting with the horseback riders, who ride to honor the Dakota 38+2. He said there is a sense of pride in completing the run.
At the end of the run, runners and riders talk about the history, read the names of the Dakota 38+2, and hold a prayer ceremony.
