Wowinape, meaning Place of Refuge, was a survivor of the Dakota War of 1862 and the son of Taoyateduta, known to whites as Little Crow, spokesman and leader of the Dakota in that tragic war. In July 1863 he was with his father when he was killed. Wowinape fled to Dakota Territory but was captured, tried, and sentenced to hang. Reprieved and held in a prison camp, he became literate in the Dakota language, converted to Christianity, and took the name Thomas Wakeman. Pardoned in 1866, he went to the Santee Reservation and later homesteaded with other Dakota at the bend of the Big Sioux River in Dakota Territory. Thomas Wakeman married Judith Minnetonka in January 1874. He farmed and carried the U.S. mail. Impressed by the Y.M.C.A., he worked with friends to found the first Indian chapter at Flandreau, Dakota Territory, on April 27, 1879. Ill with tuberculosis, he returned to boyhood scenes and died at Redwood Falls, Minnesota, on January 13, 1886. In his lifetime, he made a path between the Dakota Indian and Euroamerican worlds.