Lake of the Woods massacre

On June 6, 1736, a party of twenty one French explorers led by Jean Baptiste de La Vérendrye were massacred by Lakota and Dakota warriors on an island in Lake of the Woods. The massacre came about as a result of a recent French alliance with the Cree, who, under French protection, had been attacking Lakotas. The explorers had been en route to Fort Kaminstiquia on the northern shore of Lake Superior when the group of about one hundred warriors descended on and killed them in revenge for the French-sponsored Cree raids and French slave trading.