In 1862, Wabasha had opposed the Dakota uprising from the start but had struggled to gain support. In the final weeks of the war, Wabasha — together with Wakute II and Taopi — sent messages to Colonel Henry Hastings Sibley voicing their opposition to Little Crow and offering their assistance to the U.S.[3] Wabasha's son-in-law, Hdainyanka, was one of the 38 Dakota men executed in Mankato, Minnesota on December 26, 1862.[4]
Around the time that Tatepsin became chief, the Kiyuksa band was twice as large as any other Mdewakanton band.[1]: 51 The Kiyuksa band migrated periodically between the mouth of the upper Iowa River and Lake Pepin, and hunted on both sides of the upper Mississippi River.[8][9]: 79–80
Wabasha had extensive kinship ties to "mixed-blood" traders and settlers in the area. In 1842, Chief Wabasha III presuaded Indian agent Amos Bruce to employ his relative, James Reed.[10]
Chief Wabasha signed the 1851[11] and 1858[12] treaties that ceded the southern half of what is now the state of Minnesota to the United States. These land sales began the removal of his band to the reservation on the Minnesota River.
^Anderson, Gary Clayton (1984). Kinsmen of Another Kind: Dakota–White Relations in the Upper Mississippi Valley, 1650–1862. Minnesota Historical Society Press. ISBN0-87351-353-3.
^Anderson, Gary Clayton (1984). Kinsmen of Another Kind: Dakota–White Relations in the Upper Mississippi Valley, 1650–1862. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press. p. 166. ISBN0-87351-353-3.
^ abCarley, Kenneth (1976). The Dakota War of 1862: Minnesota's Other Civil War. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society. pp. 11–12, 79. ISBN0-87351-392-4.
