On this date in 1854, a Dakota Indian named Uhazy was publicly hanged in a scene of “Total Depravity” at St. Paul, Minnesota — the first execution in the Minnesota Territory.
Uhazy (many other transliterations are possible) was convicted of the 1852 murder of a German woman near Shakopee. He then enjoyed the hospitality of St. Paul’s jail for two solid years while his appeals played out.
Even when juridical remedies proved unavailing, there was at least some public sentiment for his reprieve.
A large number of ladies (including the wife of the previous governor) applied to territorial Gov. William Gorman for clemency. Gorman refused it.
Besides, if he granted such a petition, Gorman replied, “others of his savage tribe might be tempted to hope for a like release, and commit a like offence; and the danger of such results would be far greater from Indians than from civilized man.”
“Civilized man’s” tense relationship with the “savage tribe” would in a few years spark a brief war and (in Mankato, Minn.) the largest mass execution in U.S. history.
Civilization had a different challenge on this occasion: the ribald street scenes that often accompanied public hangings.
St. Paul’s own Daily Minnesota Pioneer (Dec. 30, 1854) were far too genteel to report from the scene, a fact which of itself suggests the intelligentsia’s growing moral disgust for witnessing people witnessing executions.
As we had no inclination to witness the tragedy, we are unable to give the lovers of the dreadful a detail of the poor fellow’s suffering; but understand he met his fate with all that stoicism for which his race is noted.
Others were not so retiring. The scene they reported does not flatter; the mob was so large and unruly that when the sheriff set about erecting a scaffold that morning in a downtown square, he was obliged by Gov. Gorman to relocate it to St. Anthony Hill for public safety. (See this book.) Uhazy didn’t hang until 3 o’clock in the afternoon.
“Liquor was openly passed through the crowd, and the last moments of the poor Indian were disturbed by bacchanalian yells and cries,” one paper editorialized. “Remarks too heartless and depraved, in regard to the deceased, to come from men, were freely bandied. A half-drunken father could be seen holding in his arms a child eager to see well; giddy and senseless girls chatted with their attendants, and old women were seen vying with drunken ruffians for a place near the gallows.”
Capital punishment in general and the public spectacle of execution specifically long troubled the Minnesotan conscience. The Espy file credits Minnesota with just 28 executions in addition to that aforementioned Mankato mass-hanging; in 1889, the state moved all its exections behind prison walls and away from drunken ruffians. It hasn’t executed anybody at any venue since 1906.
On this day..
- 1661: Jacques Chausson, "Great Gods, where is your justice?" - 2019
- 1987: Five in South Yemen for the Events of '86 - 2018
- 1680: William Howard, Viscount Stafford - 2017
- 1594: Jean Châtel, lipstabber - 2016
- 1819: John Markham, abominable offence - 2015
- 1868: Thomas Jones, bad uncle - 2014
- 1934: Leonid Nikolaev, Kirov's assassin - 2012
- 1543: Andrei Shuisky, gone to the dogs - 2011
- 1479: Bernardo di Bandino Baroncelli, sketched by Leonardo da Vinci - 2010
- 2009: Akmal Shaikh, mentally ill drug mule - 2009
- 1903: Emily Swann and John Gallagher, the Wombwell murderers - 2008
- 1874: John Murphy - 2007