It would be tempting to characterize these two books about the Dakota uprising of 1862 in Minnesota as the white side of the story versus the Native side, but it wouldn’t be quite accurate.

True, “Through Dakota Eyes” gives 36 written or oral accounts of the Dakota view of the proceedings, and “The Dakota War of 1862: Minnesota’s Other Civil War,” is quite specific on the settler and Army details of the conflict, and much less so on the Dakota side. It refers to the Indians more often than not as “Sioux,” which is what the white people called them. It refers to the “battle” of Wounded Knee in 1890, instead of the massacre. And it characterizes the touchstone incident that sparked the rebellion as proceeding from a few Indians’ egging each other on to shoot white people, whereas the other book attributes this to an insulting provocation from the white men.

Even so, “The Dakota War of 1862” does take some trouble to give the Native participants their due, especially in refuting the settlers’ stories of widespread mutilations of victims by the Dakota. It also reports settler mutilation of Indians and the U.S. Army’s depredations against innocent Dakota.

The books agree that the real cause of the uprising, a nasty piece of business that left 500 or so settlers and soldiers dead but that proved a total disaster for the Dakota, was broken treaty promises that left the Indians in desperate want. Sensing an opportunity with many of the state’s soldiers having gone south to fight the Confederacy, Dakota under Little Crow attacked settlers, towns and forts with a short-lived ferocity, causing many frontier counties in Minnesota to be temporarily depopulated.

The Indian offensive proved doomed to failure, especially when attacks against the town of New Ulm and Fort Ridgely in August of 1862 were repulsed. From then it was just a matter of time before Minnesota could bring up its militias and regular U.S. Army troops in sufficient numbers to quell the uprising. The Army scattered Little Crow’s braves at the Battle of Wood Lake in September, by which time many of the Dakota were beginning to see the war was futile.

The Indians who surrendered, however, probably should have joined Little Crow and his men, who fled as far away as Canada to escape the wrath of the settlers and the Army. What waited for some of them was one of the best-known episodes of frontier justice, the mass executions at Mankato, personally ordered by President Abraham Lincoln.

Carley’s book reveals some less well-known details of the Mankato hangings, such as the fact that more than 300 Dakota were originally sentenced to death, whereas in the event 38 were executed (40 if you count Shakopee (the younger) and Medicine Bottle, kidnapped from Canada and executed later on).

It also reveals some atrocious behavior on the white side, such as the mutilation of Little Crow’s body after he was killed, or the Army “battle” of Whitestone Hill the next year in North Dakota as it hunted for Dakota involved in the uprising. This glorious victory sounds a lot more like a massacre of Indian women and children than a fair fight.

For the Dakota who lived in Minnesota, and even more unfairly for the neighboring Winnebago who never revolted, the aftermath of the uprising was a cruel and total removal to places like the Santee reservation in Nebraska and Sisseton in South Dakota.

Carley’s book is well-written, thoroughly engaging, and well-illustrated by photos, drawings and maps of the participants and locales of the uprising.

“Through Dakota Eyes” is a necessary bookend to “The Dakota War of 1862,” filling in the all-too-often neglected Indian side of things. (How many times have you heard there were no survivors of the Battle of Little Big Horn? There were thousands of survivors.) Both of these books are newer versions, having first been published in 1988 and 1961, respectively.

“Through Dakota Eyes” is a valuable historical document, including dozens of written or oral versions by Dakota or “half breeds” who lived through the uprising. An initial reading shows that many of these Indians understood very well the causes and implications of the uprising.

That includes Little Crow, whose remarks to a “soldier’s council” urging war should be considered a classic of Indian literature. Written down based on the recollection of Little Crow’s son, who was present, Little Crow was clear-eyed and totally sanguine about the likely outcome of this course of action, calling his warriors fools acting under the influence of alcohol.

“Count your fingers all day long and white men with guns in their hands will come faster than you can count,” Little Crow told the council.

“You will die like the rabbits when the hungry wolves hunt them in the Hard Moon,” he predicted.

Yet he felt obligated to lead his men, ending his speech with the prophetic “Ta-o-ya-te-du-ta (Little Crow’s Dakota name) is not a coward: He will die with you.”