ALL RESPONSES |
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| Please click here to read "Here Were Hanged" by Betty Benner. |
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When the wrong people die,
everyone else comes across
random memories: scrawled,
drunken ramblings, childhood
traumas, imagined sights
a hot day, bare feet in sand,
heat from a woman, extended
hands; nearby, ivy rustles
on its vines
a naked leg wrapped around
a soft cocoon, all those words,
fears slowly rubbed away
as they disappear into the sound
of the overhead fan
Who are all these people leaving
their lives lying around
for all the wrong reasons;
for all the wrong people
to remember? |
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........Then grandaughter Kate asked another question: “Did war ever come to Minnesota?” She wasn’t going to let me off easy. So I told her about a Minnesota war.
When I was a child, I lived in Mankato, at the sharp bend of the Minnesota River, where it turns north toward the Twin Cities. The Minnesota River was at the center of a Minnesota War. I was four years old, in 1931, when I discovered on the riverbank a monument to this war, set in the concrete that surrounded the Standard Oil Station there in the center of town. The monument was a granite stone, about four by four feet. The inscription said, “Here were hanged 38 Sioux Indians, December 26, 1862.........”
......The pipe railing around the marker was as high as my head. I hung on it, spelling out the words to myself. Letters and words were important to me; if I really worked at it, I could get the gist of simple sentences.. “Here were hanged…” I read it over and over, tried to grasp the meaning. I knew what hanging was. I knew there was a rope with a knot that pulled tight and choked and no air could get through, and the breath and heart went out of you.......
.......I came to the monument often. And to the river..... There was much I didn’t understand. I learned more when fifth grade teacher Mrs. Sheldon took the class to the Sibley Park Museum to a scale model of the hanging place, the gallows. It was the size of a doll’s house…a square wooden scaffolding with 38 little pieces of string hanging down, each with a little loop on the end, tied with a slip knot. I worked one of those little knots up and down the string and thought about the words carved in granite at the Standard Oil Station.......
.....It wasn’t until much later that I began to hear other stories connected with the monument, stories of discrimination and broken promises. Slowly I began to understand the struggle to keep a way of life alive, and the eventual defeat of a people......
.......I think of the gallows whenever I cross the river on the superhighway bridge that connects Mankato to North Mankato, right where the hanging took place. At river’s edge, I enter a moment unencumbered by time or space. A white cloth drifts slowly to the surface. Beneath the water, bruised eyes stare upriver, asking hard questions into the current. The moment passes. On the other side of the bridge, on the way to sister Dorothy’s home, a green highway sign points to Lookout Drive......
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That night at Fort Yates
when Sitting Bull turned himself in,
a night of clubbing and shooting–
Sitting Bull lining up his sights
down the barrel of a gun,
ghost dance gun, ghost trigger, ghost
barrel, ghost bullets
killing four dog soldiers
paid to kill him, mortally
wounding two others–
when it was over
Sitting Bull lay in the dirt,
bleeding, what
happened is that
the one who betrayed him, the one
paid to ride into the fort as Standing Bear
rode out as Sam.
Sam retired like a white man
to a little house in Wakpala.
And I shall have some peace there,
for peace comes dropping slow...
Slow, as in sewn moccasins and carved peace pipes.
Sam hawked them on a blanket in town.
Dropping, like the grasshoppers that ate Sam’s
rows of potatoes and chewed his straw hat.
“One big fellow even bit me on the shoulder!”
When Sam laughed, his eyes crinkled.
His evenings were full of the blackbird’s wings. |
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It's always been a problem of how to kill as many people as possible in a short amount of time, using as few executioners for as little money as could be paid, with the least demand on resources.
Ax and sword require great skill, and a victim who has been disarmed. Tempered steel removes one head at a time, prolonging the honor of the slain and the triumph of the victors.
Fire cleanses the earth of unwanted foes, tribes and races. The screams, though dear to the vengeful, remain forever in memory.
Crucifixion, for lack of a properly configured tree, cleverly combines maximum discomfort with bold public display. A major step forward in the art of punitive torture, it's also an ideal symbol for the objectives of martyrdom.
Gunpowder, instant death from a distance. What one cannon or a row of marksmen can do. The efficiency of a firing squad, the impersonal precision of a trigger. Ready, aim, fire.
The Guillotine is graceful, merciful and quick. A shame, though, that so many had to wait in line for so long. An audience, full of cake, wine and liberty, could only imagine the sting of a razor on the neck.
Gallows take full advantage of the weakness of human anatomy. Used to hang the occasional witch or Jew, ropes are supplemented by levers, bolts and ingenious mechanical linkages. Especially useful for the termination of indigenous populations.
Machine guns revolutionize slaughter. Perfect for putting down the patriotic, drafted, shamed sacrifices to industrial overpopulation. Mass production, fulfilling the needs of supply and demand.
Gas works well. It fills lungs, coats skin and burns unprotected eyes. Suffocation or toxicity work equally well. On the battlefield, it forces troops to wear cumbersome gear, but its effect on individuals locked in enclosed rooms is highly economical.
There are also bombers, dropping big bombs and napalm. Cruise missiles, devoted servants, destroy targets with no remorse. Entire cities are laid waste with nuclear chain reactions. We're now capable of destroying everyone on earth, which should make everyone happy.
Biological weapons, though, may prove to be the most effective in eliminating entire populations. We'll cover that next time. :) |
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It was a lynching, really
A mob, some rope, more than a little racism and fear
is all you need to turn a hanging to a lynching, according to the OED
Only these boys had a piece of paper to add to their rage
signed by Lincoln, who would free slaves, maybe even with the same pen,
just six days later, and made it legal to call their lynching
a hanging |
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Lincoln's pardons could not save them all.
They were hung to swing like slaughtered pigs,
noble enemies made and conquered.
Their bodies were dug up that night
and sold to medical schools,
as was the custom of the day.
Many more common criminals
found redemption in the halls of science.
These victims, enemies in life,
would be no different in death.
They could be more human, perhaps,
in death, their shellacked skeletons hanging in
Dr. Mayo's office, sunlight and dust on
their dusky bones, while Mayo's children learned
anatomy from the curve of a Dakota thigh.
As well that as a saint or president, for all that.
Later, when we were civilized, and found
time for remorse, we would send the bones home
to rest on the Lakota plains, under Lakota sky,
so we could forget they were ever here.
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What to say to the image
let alone the story and the history.
Here in the new year we reflect back
upon our deeds and misdeeds
upon that which defines and builds
the core we take with us.
On that day, truth and bravery
hung heavy in the winter air. |
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When I was a little girl, my dad showed me two brass buttons from a Union soldier's uniform, and a grainy photograph of a man wearing that uniform. It was my great-great grandfather, John Serfling.
In February of 1862, he and a group of other young men from Fillmore County traveled 130 miles from their home near Harmony, Minnesota, to Fort Snelling to enlist in Minnesota's Fifth Regiment, Company B. A preacher's son, in his early 20's, he was rebelling against his father and intent on beating the rebels. He didn't realize that the first year of his military career as a Private would be spent fighting what was then called "the Indian wars." He also didn't realize that many of his childhood friends who joined up with him would die the following August.
In July of 1862, he was sent south to Fort Ridgely, where the Dakota Sioux conflict would take place a few weeks later. When his regiment was involved in a bloody battle that took place in and around a river, it became obvious that many of the soldiers were dead or dying. Though he could not swim, John hid under an overhang in neck-deep water, and survived. Many of his regiment died that day. Less than a week later, the remnants of his regiment fought to defend Fort Ridgely, and after the Conflict, his company escorted the surviving Dakota Sioux to Fort Snelling, where they were kept in what amounted to a concentration camp on Pike Island. In all, 1600 Native Americans were held there, and over 300 died of disease because of the poor living conditions.
John spent two more years in the regiment, fighting civil war battles. He almost died, not from wounds, but from cholera. A victim of PTSD, he suffered from disabling headaches (most likely migraines) and severe digestive problems until his death in 1901. He was unable to work for much of his life after the war, which affected his relationships with his family and necessitated much medical care through an earlier incarnation of the Veteran's Hospital. I once asked for a copy of his records from Fort Snelling, and it was over 200 pages long -- much of it medical records and correspondence in which he is trying to prove he is a disabled veteran, and entitled to a pension.
My great-grandmother Laura and her sister, Agnes were still children when their father died. Their mother, Sara, found herself penniless and having to fight to receive the pension she was due as a Civil War widow with eight children to support.
My relatives never romanticized or glorified John Serfling's experiences as a soldier. I always viewed his story as more tragic than anything -- a cautionary tale -- in a military conflict, everyone loses. Everyone in the story suffers because of war and fighting -- even the children and descendants, for many years afterwards.
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It has been many days, one morning
since you left. The days have moved in inches
but so much has happened.
The one of many who wanted to bury hatred
in the framework of laws got caught
happily in the arms of someone else's man.
Yet another Father abused the rights of his "sons"
while military thugs beat women speaking their minds.
It has been centuries, many lifetimes
the land taken here and everywhere
the voices blown out of sight;
the ones who carve their histories in the stars
fighting the ones who write them on paper
as if a good single rain couldn't erase all
of that distorted truth from existence.
It matters little what book is quoted. Words
live with living beings. Living ...
it is too obvious of a random act to avoid a fall
that far from our humanity [sometimes]
but why insist in repeating the past?
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The land was good land and wild
And grew upon it all things needed
To make a human strong and to have length of days
And so we blessed the plants and the seeds
And prayed to our ancestors
The deer wandered in the forest
The fish leapt with silver scales
And we had enough
And in sacred beauty we walked
And in blood beauty we killed to eat
And in sky beauty we drank from the waters
Of the river, the River of Cloudy-sky Water,
And feasted around our fires
And then the traders came, the forked people
They took without honoring the taking
And gave us hunger in exchange for land
The land that can belong only to itself
To those who thought otherwise
will come a day of reckoning
But this day of the hanging
Keened with a bad wind
The bodies of our hanging brothers
Scourged us with rage
Flayed us with grief
And we wept upon the sky-colored waters
Our tears are not dried nor have we forgotten
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My town
why did he choose my town
I can imagine what I might have been wearing that cold day
I can imagine the 1860's life for an immigrant's great-grandson
I would have been in the crowd
I would have been cheering on Lincoln's order
I would have judged with hatred born of greed and self-preservation
a way of life not understood and not wanted
a wealth for the taking
the prospect irresistible
Invaded, threatened and outnumbered
their failed defense leads to a gallows by the river
thirty-eight times over in a town of their naming
white noises fill their silences drifting through the streets
~ for Andrew Myrick, Lower Sioux Agency, killed
~ for Ce-tan' Hun-ka' (Elder Hawk), hung
~ and for all the other war victims ~
010212 |
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Our names were smeared, we
were thirty-eight and gashed our necks,
broken and hanged
no gravestones for us, lurching
to greet the True Man, shouting
for Him to ‘Go Away’
Such violence upon ourselves;
such fear tossed to us
Starting tomorrow, we limp
toward our new cliff
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they rejoiced the blocks insulated from
soup broth & room
That Spring you didn’t normally
Pray or kiss Trudy
Kittled last night on the table.
So YOU were broke and hadn’t ever tried mending?
get down on your knees and sleep deep down in the snow!
go ahead throw up somehorns and sing
down down on beyond, a dancing twig on the lawn
... dared to try jump the river like deer?
justice- go try that old house listed leaning
as the grass underneath stone,
a start over On looking sideways,
They are there still.
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(Mankato, 1862-2012)
Couldn’t the savages
just go along
with god’s plan for
a better, righteous America?
Couldn’t they just die off?
Submissively
(like the Jews and Gypsies of Hitler’s Europe)?
And what will the aging Boomers do
when backtracked promises leave them
to die in squalor, hunger
and impotent rage?
From genocide
the Ascendants sink yet lower --
patricide and matricide
on a generation-wide scale
Telling us what no map
dares to chart –
the sharpest bend
Lies
deep within
the heart of man.
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“Dark is a way and light is a place”
- Dylan Thomas
That way is darkness
up the cloudy river
we sometimes navigate
nonetheless...
We are more than human
being part of a tribe, a country
and we inherit its remorse
which is our land concession -
to walk in a place that was once another place
over the dark ground where thirty eight
swung on air
while the slaughtered settlers, newfound to their grave
rafted down a different river.
It is always that way
no matter what daylight we choose
the misspent youth of our great grandfathers
the ghost that lights the river wood
its traders and the traitors
where Little Crow could not find the path...
Lincoln, in doubt, saved all he could.
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propaganda is dangerous
yesterday and today
stereo types
lies kill
who are the wounded
do their ghosts
walk these streets
did the wrong ones hang
did reciprocity curtail
history serves it's lessons
let us learn
and put the past behind us |
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I am memory.
The soul snatched from life,
the feather gone too
soon to wind.
I had fire in my heart.
I fought back.
I knew what was right.
History is full
of unheard voices
like mine,
taken from this world
too early.
Don’t think it’s any
different nowadays.
At any moment
hatred could alight,
uprising occur.
There will always be
victims and bullies,
those with power
and those with none.
Always will be
jealousy and anger.
A Cain and an Abel.
Unsuspecting lambs.
Collateral damage.
I have watched a long time.
People will want
what they can’t have,
take what isn’t theirs,
maim or kill
because of difference:
color, race, religion,
sexual preference,
or really cool tennis shoes.
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| now that Britt's off in the North Woods for one week, out of electronic touch and all, we could think about hi-jacking the page -- pick your own prompt and dare to write whatever you want. . . . . jus' sayin'. |
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Your readership small and smallerer.
What is the intent of neo-paper-publications?
A twenty-score of stretched necks learning
What?! Do you love me?
Even here on the desert plains
Of a Northern altitude,
The quiet of throats cut
By the rope of establishment.
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“No one I know will be imprisoned, indefinitely.
Please Jane, I have Lynam blood, I come from a long line of…”
she hesitated here, word choice being important to her but
American English, limiting. “Of professional classed matrons”
“My great-granny, my granny’s great-great-granny, my mother, shoot, even me, we all have had a keen eye for good men, men on the professional poor side of life but good men with sound connections. And Lees, nee Lynam, nee, Hartford, nee Garner women, we always land on our fashionably soled feet.”
At this she grew pensive, her feet rolled tightly under her, her eyes wondering to the photos of her daughter which lined their cheap but well-loved family piano.
“Rather, as I scroll through all the Facebook natter, the cute photos of childhood mishaps,
the comments regarding pleasant outings and warm cups of coffee, I feel a chill.
I see this NDAA debacle, as an indication..
It seems that we, Middle Class Matrons, are on the path of something.. something sinister….
And we will go a-killing,
First we chose non-whites,
Then we attack the very poor and the very ugly,
Then we disappear the intellectuals,
We argue against supporting the mentally challenged,
..And finally we imagine each other as The Other.”
And at this Allyse was down-hearted. Her eye’s lost their sparkle.
“I am not afraid of imprisonment, but I am truly afraid that one day I will see the photo of my fully grown baby, in her ball-gown, chatting up her girlfriends ,she in the foreground, and in the background,
our next great mass execution event”
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The drums rum tum, Rum tum tum. The flour sack drops of a million heads—two million eyes. The snap of neck or choke until dead.
There is a crowd to watch it all. Sunday Night Movie. There is a crowd to watch it all—back then and now—you and me. Twist the strange fruit
of history—loll in circles like their tongues, slowing, spent. The last shake of a leg, a twitch. Do not cut them down just yet. |
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My father told me
it was about this time
a great aunt, or great, great aunt,
living in Wisconsin
alone
(With children)
was scared by the arrival
at the unarmed home
of Indian men
who only came
for food,
leaving without harm,
but fear.
Perhaps they wanted the white women
and children to be afraid.
Perhaps they returning fear felt in their home.
White men, at war with each other,
unaware, in the South.
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