On the day after Christmas 1862, the United States hanged 38 Dakota men in Mankato, Minnesota and drove a people out of the state. The heroic story of their brave struggle to survive is told by the Dakota themselves in DAKOTA EXILE - a sequel to the critically acclaimed KTCA documentary, THE DAKOTA CONFLICT.

The 1862 hangings represented the largest mass execution in U.S. history and marked the end of the Dakota Conflict - what non-Indians called "The Sioux Uprising" - as well as the beginning of a long journey into exile for the Eastern Dakota Nation. Narrated by rock-and-roll legend Robbie Robertson, DAKOTA EXILE traces the paths of Dakota prisoners and refugees. Through the words of Dakota Elders and tribal historians, DAKOTA EXILE tells of the struggle to remain Dakota in the face of government efforts to destroy their language and culture.

"We didn't have a reservation any more. They threw it open for the whiteman," recounts Alvina Alberts, whose grandfather fled Minnesota as a four-year old boy. "We were oppressed people. But we can say that we have survived."

In the aftermath of the Dakota Conflict, more than 6,000 Dakota survived by escaping westward, while more than 1,700 were imprisoned at Fort Snelling. The prisoners were eventually transported by steamship and railroad boxcar to the Crow Creek Reservation in the Dakotah Territory, where many died from exposure and starvation. The free Dakota were left scattered across the plains, as their lands were confiscated by the federal government and sold to benefit the white victims of the conflict. To this day, the Dakota have received little or no compensation for their lands.

But more than land was taken. "The plan was for the government to say, 'Look, let's take the language away,' so they'll lose their spirit," explains Mike Hotaine of the Sioux Valley Dakota Nation, Manitoba, recounting how Dakota children were forced to attend schools run by whites. There, Native American students were forbidden to speak their own language.

Dakota spiritual beliefs were also targeted for extermination, as white missionaries sought and obtained conversions to Christianity, making bonfires of sacred medicine bundles. By the 1880s, the federal government had banned traditional native religious observances and dances. But they were continued in secret. "I remember my mother said when she was little, they would have a PowWow or 'Wacipi', and cover up all the windows with blankets, so no light could go out," recalls Darlene Renville Pipeboy. "That's the only way they could have it."

It was not until 1934 that the Bureau of Indian Affairs finally recognized that the eradication of native languages was not necessary for the education of Native American children, and the official suppression of native culture, language and ceremonies was abandoned. But much damage already had been done. Traditional Native American religious practices were not protected by law until 1978.

More than any single event in our state's history, the Dakota Conflict defined racial relations between Native American and non-Indian peoples in Minnesota," says DAKOTA EXILE producer Kristian Berg. "Once the Dakota were exiled, Minnesotans heard little of their fate. This is the first time a television documentary has gathered and presented stories of Dakota people and their disparate paths after the war."

DAKOTA EXILE is a KTCA production. Producer/writer: Kristian Berg; Additional Writing: Darren Renville; Director of Photography: Robert Hutchings; Associate Producer: Steve Spencer.

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