Dakota Chief Maza śa, or Red Iron, learned through experience that resisting the U.S. government brought little result; although he opposed the 1851 Treaty of Traverse des Sioux, he and other Dakota leaders ultimately signed it and sold most of their homeland. In 1854 he led his people to a small reservation on the Minnesota River and established a village near this spot, where families planted corn, children attended school, and he worked to protect his people and their way of life. When Dakota from other bands began war in August 1862, Maza śa did not support it because he did not want to risk the life his people had built there. As fighting spread, he declared on September 6 that he would remain. He and other Dakota also protected hundreds of captives taken during the war, and he turned away some of Taoyateduta's warriors when they tried to enter the village. After the fighting ended, his people helped hand the captives over to the U.S. military. Despite not joining the war, Maza śa and many other Dakota still suffered its consequences: he lost his home, and his family and other nonparticipants were removed to a concentration camp at Fort Snelling, while Dakota warriors who had not already left were arrested, tried, and convicted. Maza śa and his brother Akipa, assigned to accompany prisoners to South Bend near Mankato, helped care for the condemned men.