"He was captured by hostile Santee Sioux during the Minnesota Massacre, joined Sibley's forces in fighting the Sioux for control of neighboring Dakota." -South Dakota State Historical Society (1977)
"Drawing on a diary he kept during the war, he composed several accounts of the war including the classic 'In Captivity.'" - Through Dakota Eyes (2010)
"A leader of Indian scouts, who won fame by a night ride of 120 miles to give warning of a Sioux Indian rising." - Centennial of the Territory of Minnesota Exhibition 1949
"Gained renown for his actions as a scout following the United-States Dakota War of 1862." - South Dakota History (2012)
The stories of those pioneers who have survived captivity among tribes during hostile outbreaks along frontier settlements are full of harrowing interest. Of particular interest is that told by Samuel Jerome Brown in his 1897 narrative, "In Captivity: the experience, privations and dangers of Samuel J. Brown and others, while prisoners of the Hostile Sioux."
In August 1862, the Sioux of the Minnesota plains went on the warpath against white pioneers in the Dakota War or Sioux Outbreak of 1862. Captured by the Sioux during the uprising, Samuel Brown (1844-1925), the 17-year-old son of a noted frontiersman and Indian Agent for the Dakotas and a mixed-blood Sioux woman, kept an diary of his harrowing story of survival and later adventures as an Indian scout. As a scout, he would become known as "The Paul Revere of the West" for an epic 150 mile-ride in blizzard conditions.
In describing the appearance of one of his captors, Brown writes:
"This fiend in human shape, this man Cut Nose, presented a most forbidding, horrifying spectacle. With his bloody thumb he had besmeared his naked body; with his blackened face and long, bushy- hair, like a Zulu's, and a half nose (one of his nostrils was missing), he was by far the ugliest-looking and most repulsive specimen of humanity I had ever seen."
In describing one harrowing encounter in which his scalp was demanded, Samuel Brown writes:
"About midnight someone came to see Little Crow. He told the chief that it was rumored about camp that a white man and some strangers were in the house; that the warriors were, very angry about it, and he wanted to know if there was any foundation to the rumor. When told that there was and that we were Sisseton mixed bloods and his friends, the man got very angry and insisted that we should all be killed at once...."
Samuel Brown was among the numerous mixed-blood and noncombatant Dakota taken captive by their warring cousins during the conflict. Later after that war he joined the Minnesota militia as a scout while Western Dakota continued to resist U.S. expansion.
He earned regional fame as the "Paul Revere of the West" or the "Prairie Paul Revere" for riding 150 miles on the night of April 19–20, 1866, first to warn others of an expected Native American attack and—when the threat proved false—back through a spring blizzard to intercept his request for reinforcements from the U.S. Army.
Sam Brown was just 21 when he made his epic ride, covering 150 miles in 15 hours in horrific conditions. He was never able to walk again, and spent the rest of his life dependent on a wheelchair. Brown also wrote that the ride "deranged my eyes, dimmed my eyesight, paralyzed my muscular powers, deprived me of the use of my legs, and of all natural power of motion, and permanently impaired my general health."
Sam Brown Memorial State Wayside, a historical park in Browns Valley, Minnesota, was established in 1929 to honor Samuel Brown for his heroic ride.
