by SCHS Volunteer, Charles Pederson
The name Shakopee has a fascinating place in Scott County history. The city known today by that name was originally incorporated in 1851 by Thomas Holmes, a trader at the site of the present-day city. Holmes named it for the local leader of the Dakota people living at the site. But the history of the name goes much deeper than that.
Dakota people have lived in the area of present-day Shakopee for millennia. By the 1800s, Europeans traveling through the area, including French mapmaker Joseph Nicollet, mentioned the Dakota and their leader, Shakopee. Nicollet referred to the “village of the Six” during his travels in the area during the late 1830s. The name Shakopee has appeared in numerous phonetic variations, among them Shakpe, Zhaagobe, and Jack-O-Pa. Although the spelling differs according to the chronicler, historians agree that the term was not a single person’s name but rather a title passed from father to son.
The First and Second Shakopees
The original Shakopee acquired his title in the early 1800s when his wife gave birth to sextuplets. In the Dakota language, “Shakopee” means “the six.” The original Shakopee died at Fort Snelling around 1830. After the first Shakopee’s death, his son became the second Shakopee and led the people until 1860.
Shakopee the Third
The best-known of the Shakopee leaders was the third of that title. Eotaka, at age 54, took leadership of his people in 1860, after his father died. Eotaka’s title was slightly altered: “Shakpedan,” which means “Little Six.”
Several years after the so-called U.S.–Dakota War, which had raged along the Minnesota River valley from August to December 1862, Shakopee and another Dakota leader, Medicine Bottle, were arrested near the Canadian border for their alleged role in the conflict. Transported to and held at Fort Snelling, the two men were tried and executed by hanging on November 11, 1865. Shortly before the hangings, the Saint Paul Pioneer Press, though not sorry about the men’s death, stated that “it would have been more creditable if some tangible evidence of their guilt had been obtained. . . . No white man, tried by a jury of his peers, would be executed upon the testimony thus produced.”
Eotaka was the last Dakota leader to be called Shakpe. His name, of course, is commemorated at the Little Six Casino in Prior Lake and in the name of the city of Shakopee.