Linda Clemmons
From spring 1863 until 1866 over 200 Dakota men were held as prisoners at Camp McClellan in Davenport, Iowa, for their purported roles in the Dakota War of 1862.
Illinois State University’s Professor of History Linda Clemmons will deliver the Department of History Faculty Research Seminar on the subject at 3:30 p.m. Thursday, March 23, in Schroeder Hall, room 203. The talk, titled “‘The young folks [want] to go in and see the Indians’: Davenport Citizens and the Dakota Prisoners of War,” is free and open to the campus community.
Clemmons will explore the time when hundreds of citizens clamored to view the “savage” and “defeated” Native Americans. “The Dakota prisoners used the citizens’ fascination to fight for their rights and families from the confines of Camp McClellan,” she said.
Publishing extensively on Native American history, Clemmons was a nominee for the Judith Lee Ridge Prize from the Western Association of Women Historians, the Frank and Elizabeth D. Brewer Prize from the American Society for Church History, and the Jon Gjerde Prize from Midwestern History. She has also been honored with the 2015 University Teaching Award.
