Booknotes: Northern Slave, Black Dakota

New Arrival:

• Northern Slave, Black Dakota: The Life and Times of Joseph Godfrey by Walt Bachman (Univ of Neb Press, 2026).

This is a paperback reprint, the first edition being a hardcover released by a different publisher back in 2013.

From the description: "Born into slavery in free territory, Joseph Godfrey died widely reviled for his controversial role in the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862." Suffering abuse as a child slave in Minnesota, Godfrey ran away and successfully gained sanctuary among the Dakota living in the Lower Sioux Agency. Marriage to a Dakota woman further solidified his Dakota ties, which were subsequently put to the test during the 1862 Dakota uprising. "Pressured to join Dakota warriors in the war’s opening days, when the six-week conflict ended, he became the first of hundreds of men tried by a military court created by Commander Henry Sibley."

Walt Bachman's biography Northern Slave, Black Dakota: The Life and Times of Joseph Godfrey reevaluates enduring questions about Godfrey's life, including those related to his role in the Dakota War and subsequent military trials in which his witness testimony was significant. Among those questions are "How was he enslaved in a free state? Did he murder the frontier settlers for which the Dakota dubbed him Otakle (“Many Kills”)? Did he turn traitor to save his own life? Did Godfrey’s testimony send thirty-eight Dakota men, including his father-in-law, to the gallows?"

The author of several studies exploring slavery's connections to U.S. Army military posts and the White House in Washington, Bachman also applies his own trial lawyer background and perspective to Godfrey's case and the trials in general. His knowledge of period legal conventions and court proceedings deeply inform his reexamination of the Dakota trials. In the end, Bachman "argues that the 1862 war trials, which ended with the largest mass execution in U.S. history, were both more just and more unfair than we have ever understood."