A monument on Reconciliation Trail honors the Dakota, the settlers, and the Lakota in connection with the events at Slaughter Slough during the Dakota Conflict of 1862 and the later effort at reconciliation begun in 1987. The conflict began on August 18, 1862, with attacks on the Upper and Lower Sioux Agencies and other settlements and an ambush at the Redwood Ferry Crossing, and on August 20 a group of Dakota attacked the Lake Shetek settlement, where nine families totaling fifty-four people had settled. The Dakota had been pushed by the United States onto reservations after the 1851 treaties at Traverse des Sioux and Mendota, with promised annuities and cash failing to appear, and crop failures in 1862 added hunger to their hardships. At Lake Shetek, John Voight and Andreas Koch were killed immediately, thirty-four settlers gathered at the Wright cabin and accepted a guarantee of safety from a Dakota known as Pawn, then set out toward New Ulm in a single wagon. Within a few miles they encountered several Dakota, including Pawn, fled into the tall grass of what became known as Slaughter Slough, and more settlers were killed there and after leaving the slough. Eleven captives were taken north and west; a woman and a child escaped, an infant died, and two women and six children remained captive for three months. In November 1862, Charles "Major" Gaplin discovered the Shetek captives, and ten young Lakota men known as the Fool Soldiers set out from Fort Pierre, negotiated with the captors, and traded their horses, guns, and other personal effects to secure the captives' release, then carried the women and children back more than 100 miles to Fort Pierre on a long, cold journey. After the war, the Dakota were virtually exiled from Minnesota onto reservations in Dakota Territory, though some fled to Canada, some remained, and others later returned to Minnesota. In July 1987, descendants of some of the Dakota, white settlers, and Lakota returned to this site to begin a process of reconciliation.