On August 17, 1862, four young Dakota hunters returning from an unsuccessful hunt to their hungry families argued about stealing food from white settlers and dared one another over who was brave enough to shoot them. Sungigidan, Kaomdeiyeyedan, Nagiwicakte, and Pazoiyopa spoke with Acton postmaster and storekeeper Robinson Jones at his farm, followed him to a location about a quarter mile from the home of Howard Baker, and there shot and killed Baker, Viranus Webster, Jones, and Jones’s wife. Afterward, as they passed Jones’s home, they killed his daughter Clara D. Wilson, then fled 40 miles south to Rice Creek Village. After several council meetings, Dakota who wanted war with the United States convinced Taoyateduta, or Little Crow, to lead them into battle, beginning the U.S.–Dakota War of 1862, called the bloodiest chapter in Minnesota history. Although the war was sparked by the actions of a small band of teenage hunters, its causes ran much deeper: by 1862, European Americans were pouring onto Dakota ancestral lands, white leaders forced the Dakota onto reservations to seize millions of acres of farmland, the Dakota were expected to assimilate by farming instead of hunting, speaking English, cutting their hair, and wearing unfamiliar clothing, missionaries sought to replace Dakota beliefs with Christianity, and payments promised in the 1851 and 1858 treaties were illegally taken by traders or arrived late. With families torn between the past and a foreign, uncertain future, war seemed to some the only option, and the U.S.–Dakota War of 1862 launched 30 years of war between the United States and American Indians on the Northern Plains.