June 22, 2020 Grave Musings 2: Maple Lawn Cemetery and Chief Taopi

I’ve already written about my visit to Maple Lawn, (Grave Musings 1) but I wanted to go into a little more detail about Chief Taopi, who is buried there. The U.S.-Dakota War of 1862 is an event that touches several of the areas we’ve been to as we’ve hiked: New Ulm and Fort Ridgely, where raids were carried out, and Fort Snelling, where 1600 Dakota peoples were held on Pike Island after the conflict before being forcibly moved to camps in Nebraska and South Dakota. From an article that I read online: “The U.S.-Dakota War of 1862 lasted just five weeks, but it stands as a hideous stain in American history. The execution of 38 American Indians in Mankato following the war remains the largest mass execution carried out by the U.S. government.”

Taopi grew up near present-day South St. Paul and was a member of Chief Little Crow’s Mdewakanton band of Dakota. At some point, Taopi converted to Christianity and became close friends with two men who were key leaders in the city of Faribault: Alexander Faribault and Bishop Henry Whipple. I would love to know more details about how Chief Taopi came to Christ, but in reading his story, it is not hard to deduce that this conversion placed him in a unique and difficult position among the Dakota Indians during the Dakota Conflict of 1862. He was committed to finding a peaceful resolution and ended up defying his former chief, Chief Little Crow, in pursuit of it. The war brought division among the Dakota; Taopi and others formed the Dakota Peace Party. Suing for peace among a people who have been unfairly treated must have been a hard road to walk. In the end, Chief Taopi chose to try to save lives, even when that likely meant being seen as a traitor to his tribe. I cannot imagine the pressures that must have been on the man. To follow Christ, and Christ alone, brings a great cost. Taopi had seen the great injustice done to the Dakota people, as well as the folly of the killing raids committed by them. He chose the way of Christ and peace and suffered many losses as a result. I hope that he, like Paul, was able to say, “…I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ.”

I haven’t been back to Maple Lawn yet, but I did finish the two-page spread in my Cemetery Musings book. I’m still working out how best to use that book. I’ve discovered that you can’t erase things on watercolor paper. 😊