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By Hannah Yang

Participants in two new Dakota Rides arrived in Mankato’s Reconciliation Park Thursday after a journey of hundreds of miles on horseback.

It is a revival of the famous rides honoring the 38 Dakota men hanged in Mankato on Dec. 26, 1862 — the largest single-day mass execution in U.S. history.

Horses whinnied and galloped down Riverfront Drive as a crowd cheered on the riders.

The original Dakota 38+2 Wokiksuye rides ended two years ago. Lakota spiritual leader Jim Miller began the annual commemoration after having a dream of exiled Dakota people returning to Minnesota on horseback. In 2022 he announced his dream was fulfilled and the ride would end. Many of the original riders retired or passed away. Miller died on March 3, 2023, from cancer.

Still, some wanted the tradition to keep going.

LeAnne RedOwl, a direct descendant of one of the 38 executed men, says the Christmas season wasn’t the same without the rides.

“My kids are basically raised on this ride and so it was sad,” RedOwl said. “It was sad to think that my daughter or that their kids weren’t going to be able to be a part of this, so everybody’s pretty happy that it’s starting again.”

So came the birth of two new rides — the Makatoh Reconciliation and Healing Horse Ride from Lower Brule, S.D., led by Wilfred Keeble, and the Dakota Exiles ride from Santee, Neb., led by Jim Hallum. Some riders joined along the way.

Standing in the crowd, Miller’s nephew Todd Finney, whose Dakota name is Ta Can’te Was’te Yuha Omani (He Who Walks With His Good Heart), said the rides continue his late uncle’s legacy, uplifting the Dakota people and offering them hope.

“That’s what Uncle Jim’s dream was about, and that’s what all of this is about,” Finney said. “It’s coming from the home you were forced to have and returning to the home that God put you in. We were actually dispersed in a bunch of different directions, because we were so powerful that the U.S government was afraid of who we would become and what we could do if we stayed together.”

New communities were added to the ride route that haven’t been part of the original rides.  New Ulm was a pivotal location in the U.S.-Dakota War, and past rides avoided it.

This year Finney said things were different. The riders passed through the city and felt something changed.

“One of my nephews told me, ‘The entire city came out for us.’ It was amazing,” Finney said. “It was really that hospitable and eye-opening to see those things where everybody can see each other, that we’re all human beings, we’re just existing together and as we learn about each other, we find the similarities that tie us together.”

A group of runners also arrived in Mankato after starting out from Fort Snelling, receiving prayers and singing songs together.

Riders finished at Reconciliation Park — the site where the 38 Dakota men were executed in 1862 after the U.S.-Dakota War. President Abraham Lincoln signed the death warrants. Two more Dakota chiefs were hanged at Fort Snelling in 1865.

It’s a history that led to the exile of the Dakota people, expelling them from their Minnesota homeland. The law is still on the books.

RedOwl says these rides became a symbol of resilience and the next generation of Dakota is ready to take the reins.

“That makes you feel good when you see all the youth because that means that the rides are going to continue,” RedOwl said. “That they’re not going to die down and you know go away because the young ones will keep them going.”