Chapter II: Introduction

The churches owe a great debt of gratitude to their missionaries, first, for the noble work they do, and, second, for the inspiring narratives they write. There is no class of writings more quickening to piety at home than the sober narratives of these labors abroad. The faith and zeal, the wisdom and patience, the enterprise and courage, the self-sacrifice and Christian peace which they record, as well as the wonderful triumphs of grace and the simplicity of native piety which they make known, bring us nearer, perhaps, to the spirit and the scenes of Apostolic times than any other class of literature. How the churches could, or can ever, dispense with the reactionary influence from the Foreign Mission field, it is difficult to understand. Doubtless, however, when the harvest is all gathered, the Lord of the Harvest will, in his wisdom, know how to supply the lack.

Some narratives are valuable chiefly for their interest of style and manner, while the facts themselves are of minor account. Other narratives secure attention by the weight of their facts alone. The author of "Mary and I; Forty Years with the Sioux" has our thanks for giving us a story attractive alike from the present significance of its theme and from the frank and fresh simplicity of its method.

It is a timely contribution. Thank God, the attention of the whole nation is at length beginning to be turned in good earnest to the chronic wrongs inflicted on the Indian race, and is, though slowly and with difficulty, comprehending the fact, long known to the friends of missions, that these tribes, when properly approached, are singularly accessible and responsive to all the influences of Christianity and its resultant civilization. Slowest of all to apprehend this truth, though with honorable exceptions, are our military men. The officer who uttered that frightful maxim, "No good Indian but a dead Indian,"--if indeed it ever fell from his lips,--needs all the support of a brilliant and gallant career in defence of his country to save him from a judgment as merciless as his maxim. Such principles, let us believe, have had their day. They and their defenders are assuredly to be swept away by the rising tide of a better sentiment slowly and steadily pervading the country. The wrongs of the African have been, in part, redressed, and now comes the turn of the Indian. He must be permitted to have a home in fee-simple, a recognized citizenship, and complete protection under a settled system of law. The gospel will then do for him its thorough work, and show once more that God has made all nations of one blood. He is yet to have them. It is but a question of time. And the Indian tribes are doubtless not to fade away, but to be rescued from extinction by the gospel of Christ working in them and for them.

The reader who takes up this volume will not fail to read it through. He will easily believe that Anna Baird Riggs was "a model Christian woman,"--the mother who could bring up her boy in a log cabin where once the bear looked in at the door, or in the log school-house with its newspaper windows, "slab benches," and drunken teacher, and could train him for his work of faith and perseverance in that dreary and forbidding missionary region, and in what men thought that forlorn hope. And he will learn--unless he knew it already--that a lad who in early life hammered on the anvil can strike a strong and steady stroke for God and man.

The reader will also recognize in the "Mary" of this story, now gone to her rest, a worthy pupil of Mary Lyon and Miss Z. P. Grant. With her excellent education, culture, and character, how cheerfully she left her home in Massachusetts to enter almost alone on a field of labor which she knew perfectly to be most fraught with self-sacrifice, least attractive, not to say most repulsive, of them all. How hopefully she journeyed on thirteen days, from the shores of Lake Harriet, to plunge still farther into the wilderness of Lac-qui-parle. How happily she found a "home" for five years in the upper story of Dr. Williamson's log house, in a room eighteen feet by ten, occupied in due time by three children also. How quietly she glided into all the details and solved all the difficulties of that primitive life, bore with the often revolting habits of the aborigines, taught their boys English, and persevered and persisted till she had taught their women "the gospel of soap." How bravely she bore up in that terrible midnight flight from Hazelwood, and the long exhausting journey to St. Paul, through the pelting rains and wet swamp-grass, and with murderous savages upon the trail. But it was the chief test and glory of her character to have brought up a family of children, among all the surroundings of Indian life, as though amid the homes of civilization and refinement. All honor to such a woman, wife, and mother. Her children rise up and call her blessed. Forty-one years after her departure from the station at Lake Harriet, the present writer stood upon the pleasant shore where the tamarack mission houses had long disappeared, and felt that this was consecrated ground.

The other partner in this firm of "Mary and I" needs no words of mine. He speaks here for himself, and his labors speak for him. His Dakota Dictionary and Bible are lasting monuments of his persevering toil, while eleven churches with a dozen native preachers and eight hundred members, and a flourishing Dakota Home Missionary Society, bear witness to the Christian work of himself and his few co-laborers. "Forty Years Among the Sioux," he writes. "Forty years in the Turkish Empire," was the story of Dr. Goodell. Fifty Years in Ceylon, was the life-work of Levi Spalding. What records are these of singleness of aim, of energy, of Christian work, and of harvests gathered and gathering for the Master. Would that such a holy ambition might be kindled in the hearts of many other young men as they read these pages. How invigorating the firm assurance: "During the years of my preparation there never came to me a doubt of the rightness of my decision. At the end of forty years' work I am abundantly satisfied with the way in which the Lord has led me." How many of those who embark in other lines of life and action can say the same?

And how signally was the spirit of the parents transmitted to the children. Almost a whole family in the mission work: six sons and daughters among the Dakotas, the seventh in China. I know not another instance so marked as this. And what a power for good to the Dakota race, past, present, and future, is gathered up in one undaunted, single-hearted family of Christian toilers. A part of this family it has been the writer's privilege to know, and of two of the sons he had the pleasure to be the teacher in the original tongues of the Word of God. And he deems it an additional pleasure and privilege thus to connect his name with theirs and their mission. For not alone the dusky Dakotas, but all the friends of the Indian tribes and lovers of the Missionary cause, are called on to honor the names of Pond, Williamson, and RIGGS. S. C. BARTLETT. DARTMOUTH COLLEGE.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.
PAGE

1837.--Our Parentage.--My Mother's Bear Story.--Mary's
Education.--Her First School Teaching.--School-houses and
Teachers in Ohio.--Learning the Catechism.--Ambitions.--The
Lord's Leading.--Mary's Teaching in Bethlehem.--Life Threads
Coming Together.--Licensure.--Our Decision as to Life
Work.--Going to New England.--The Hawley
Family.--Marriage.--Going West.--From Mary's Letters.--Mrs.
Isabella Burgess.--"Steamer Isabella."--At St. Louis.--The
Mississippi.--To the City of Lead.--Rev. Aratus Kent.--The Lord
Provides.--Mary's Descriptions.--Upper Mississippi.--Reaching
Fort Snelling 23

CHAPTER II.

1837.--First Knowledge of the Sioux.--Hennepin and Du
Luth.--Fort Snelling.--Lakes Harriet and Calhoun.--Three Months
at Lake Harriet.--Samuel W. Pond.--Learning the Language.--Mr.
Stevens.--Temporary Home.--That Station Soon Broken Up.--Mary's
Letters.--The Mission and People.--Native Customs.--Lord's
Supper.--"Good Voice."--Description of Our Home.--The
Garrison.--Seeing St. Anthony.--Ascent of the St.
Peters.--Mary's Letters.--Traverse des Sioux.--Prairie
Travelling.--Reaching Lac-qui-parle.--T. S. Williamson.--A
Sabbath Service.--Our Upper Room.--Experiences.--Church at
Lac-qui-parle.--Mr. Pond's Marriage.--Mary's Letters.--Feast 38

CHAPTER III.

1837-1839.--The Language.--Its Growth.--System of
Notation.--After Changes.--What We Had to Put into the
Language.--Teaching English and Teaching Dakota.--Mary's
Letter.--Fort Renville.--Translating the Bible.--The Gospels of
Mark and John.--"Good Bird" Born.--Dakota Names.--The Lessons We
Learned.--Dakota Washing.--Extracts from Letters.--Dakota
Tents.--A Marriage.--Visiting the Village.--Girls, Boys, and
Dogs.--G. H. Pond's Indian Hunt.--Three Families Killed.--The
Village Wail.--The Power of a Name.--Post-Office Far Away.--The
Coming of the Mail.--S. W. Pond Comes Up.--My Visit to
Snelling.--Lost my Horse.--Dr. Williamson Goes to Ohio.--The
Spirit's Presence.--Prayer.--Mary's Reports 58

CHAPTER IV.

1838-1840.--"Eagle Help."--His Power as War Prophet.--Makes
No-Flight Dance.--We Pray Against It.--Unsuccessful on the
War-Path.--Their Revenge.--Jean Nicollet and J. C.
Fremont.--Opposition to Schools.--Progress in Teaching.--Method
of Counting.--"Lake That Speaks."--Our Trip to Fort
Snelling.--Incidents of the Way.--The Changes There.--Our Return
Journey.--Birch-Bark Canoe.--Mary's Story.--"Le Grand
Canoe."--Baby Born on the Way.--Walking Ten Miles.--Advantages
of Travel.--My Visit to the Missouri River.--"Fort
Pierre."--Results 76

CHAPTER V.

1840-1843.--Dakota Braves.--Simon Anawangmane.--Mary's
Letter.--Simon's Fall.--Maple Sugar.--Adobe Church.--Catharine's
Letter.--Another Letter of Mary's.--Left Hand's Case.--The Fifth
Winter.--Mary to Her Brother.--The Children's Morning
Ride.--Visit to Hawley and Ohio.--Dakota Printing.--New
Recruits.--Return.--Little Rapids.--Traverse des
Sioux.--Stealing Bread.--Forming a New
Station.--Begging.--Opposition.--Thomas L. Longley.--Meeting
Ojibwas.--Two Sioux Killed.--Mary's Hard Walk. 89

CHAPTER VI.

1843-1846.--Great Sorrow.--Thomas Drowned.--Mary's Letter.--The
Indians' Thoughts.--Old Gray-Leaf.--Oxen Killed.--Hard
Field.--Sleepy Eyes' Horse.--Indian in Prison.--The Lord Keeps
Us.--Simon's Shame.--Mary's Letter.--Robert Hopkins and
Agnes.--Le Bland.--White Man Ghost.--Bennett.--Sleepy Eyes'
Camp.--Drunken Indians.--Making Sugar.--Military
Company.--Dakota Prisoners.--Stealing Melons.--Preaching and
School.--A Canoe Voyage.--Red Wing. 104

CHAPTER VII.

1846-1851.--Returning to Lac-qui-parle.--Reasons
Therefor.--Mary's Story.--"Give Me My Old Seat, Mother."--At
Lac-qui-parle.--New Arrangements.--Better
Understanding.--Buffalo Plenty.--Mary's Story.--Little Samuel
Died.--Going on the Hunt.--Vision of Home.--Building
House.--Dakota Camp.--Soldier's Lodge.--Wakanmane's
Village.--Making a Presbytery.--New Recruits.--Meeting at
Kaposia.--Mary's Story.--Varied Trials.--Sabbath Worship.--"What
is to Die?"--New Stations.--Making a Treaty.--Mr. Hopkins
Drowned.--Personal Experience. 123

CHAPTER VIII.

1851-1854.--Grammar and Dictionary.--How It
Grew.--Publication.--Minnesota Historical Society.--Smithsonian
Institution.--Going East.--Mission Meeting at Traverse des
Sioux.--Mrs. Hopkins.--Death's Doings.--Changes in the Mode of
Writing Dakota.--Completed Book.--Growth of the Language.--In
Brooklyn and Philadelphia.--The Misses Spooner.--Changes in the
Mission.--The Ponds and Others Retire.--Dr. Williamson at
Pay-zhe-hoo-ta-ze.--Winter Storms.--Andrew Hunter.--Two
Families Left.--Children Learning Dakota.--Our House
Burned.--The Lord Provides 141

CHAPTER IX.

1854-1856.--Simon Anawangmane.--Rebuilding after the
Fire.--Visit of Secretary Treat.--Change of Plan.--Hazelwood
Station.--Circular Saw Mill.--Mission
Buildings.--Chapel.--Civilized Community.--Making
Citizens.--Boarding-School.--Educating our own
Children.--Financial Difficulties.--The Lord Provides.--A Great
Affliction.--Smith Burgess Williamson.--"Aunt Jane."--Bunyan's
Pilgrim in Dakota 153

CHAPTER X.

1857-1862.--Spirit Lake.--Massacres by Inkpadoota.--The
Captives.--Delivery of Mrs. Marble and Miss
Gardner.--Excitement.--Inkpadoota's Son Killed.--United States
Soldiers.--Major Sherman.--Indian Councils.--Great Scare.--Going
Away.--Indians Sent After Scarlet End.--Quiet
Restored.--Children at School.--Quarter-Century Meeting.--John
P. Williamson at Red Wood.--Dedication of Chapel 162

CHAPTER XI.

1861-1862.--Republican Administration.--Its Mistakes.--Changing
Annuities.--Results.--Returning from General Assembly.--A
Marriage in St. Paul.--D. Wilson Moore and Wife.--Delayed
Payment.--Difficulty with the Sissetons.--Peace
Again.--Recruiting for the Southern War.--Seventeenth of August,
1862.--The Outbreak.--Remembering Christ's Death.--Massacres
Commenced.--Capt. Marsh's Company.--Our Flight.--Reasons
Therefor.--Escape to an Island.--Final Leaving.--A Wounded
Man.--Traveling on the Prairie.--Wet Night.--Taking a
Picture.--Change of Plan.--Night Travel.--Going Around Fort
Ridgely.--Night Scares.--Safe Passage.--Four Men Killed.--The
Lord Leads Us.--Sabbath.--Reaching the Settlements.--Mary at St.
Anthony 171

CHAPTER XII.

1862.--General Sibley's Expedition.--I Go as Chaplain.--At Fort
Ridgely.--The Burial Party.--Birch Coolie Defeat.--Simon and
Lorenzo Bring in Captives.--March to Yellow Medicine.--Battle of
Wood Lake.--Indians Flee.--Camp Release.--A Hundred Captives
Rescued.--Amos W. Huggins Killed.--We Send for His Wife and
Children.--Spirit Walker Has Protected Them.--Martha's Letter
188

CHAPTER XIII.

1862-1863.--Military Commission.--Excited Community.--Dakotas
Condemned.--Moving Camp.--The Campaign Closed.--Findings Sent to
the President.--Reaching My Home in St. Anthony.--Distributing
Alms on the Frontier.--Recalled to Mankato.--The
Executions.--Thirty-eight Hanged.--Difficulty of Avoiding
Mistakes.--Round Wind.--Confessions.--The Next Sabbath's
Service.--Dr. Williamson's Work.--Learning to Read.--The
Spiritual Awakening.--The Way It Came.--Mr. Pond Invited
Up.--Baptisms in the Prison.--The Lord's Supper.--The Camp at
Snelling.--A Like Work of Grace.--John P. Williamson.--Scenes in
the Garret.--One Hundred Adults Baptized.--Marvelous in Our Eyes
206

CHAPTER XIV.

1863-1866.--The Dakota Prisoners Taken to Davenport.--Camp
McClellan.--Their Treatment.--Great Mortality.--Education in
Prison.--Worship.--Church Matters.--The Camp at Snelling Removed
to Crow Creek.--John P. Williamson's Story.--Many Die.--Scouts'
Camp.--Visits to Them.--Family Threads.--Revising the New
Testament.--Educating Our Children.--Removal to Beloit.--Family
Matters.--Little Six and Medicine Bottle.--With the Prisoners at
Davenport 220

CHAPTER XV.

1866-1869.--Prisoners Meet their Families at the Niobrara.--Our
Summer's Visitation.--At the Scouts' Camp.--Crossing the
Prairie.--Killing Buffalo.--At Niobrara.--Religious
Meetings.--Licensing Natives.--Visiting the Omahas.--Scripture
Translating.--Sisseton Treaty at Washington.--Second Visit to
the Santees.--Artemas and Titus Ordained.--Crossing to the Head
of the Coteau.--Organizing Churches and Licensing
Dakotas.--Solomon, Robert, Louis, Daniel.--On Horseback in
1868.--Visit to the Santees, Yanktons, and Brules.--Gathering at
Dry Wood.--Solomon Ordained.--Writing "Takoo Wakan."--Mary's
Sickness.--Grand Hymns.--Going through the Valley of the
Shadow.--Death! 230

CHAPTER XVI.

1869-1870.--Home Desolate.--At the General Assembly.--Summer
Campaign.--A. L. Riggs.--His Story of Early Life.--Inside View
of Missions.--Why Missionaries' Children Become
Missionaries.--No Constraint Laid on Them.--A. L. Riggs Visits
the Missouri Sioux.--Up the River.--The Brules.--Cheyenne and
Grand River.--Starting for Fort Wadsworth.--Sun
Eclipsed.--Sisseton Reserve.--Deciding to Build There.--In the
Autumn Assembly.--My Mother's Home.--Winter Visit to
Santee.--Julia La Framboise 244

CHAPTER XVII.

1870-1871.--Beloit Home Broken Up.--Building on the Sisseton
Reserve.--Difficulties and Cost.--Correspondence with
Washington.--Order to Suspend Work.--Disregarding the
Taboo.--Anna Sick at Beloit.--Assurance.--Martha Goes in Anna's
Place.--The Dakota Churches.--Lac-qui-parle, Ascension.--John
B. Renville.--Daniel Renville.--Houses of Worship.--Eight
Churches.--The "Word Carrier."--Annual Meeting on the Big
Sioux.--Homestead Colony.--How it Came about.--Joseph Iron Old
Man.--Perished in a Snow Storm.--The Dakota Mission
Divides.--Reasons Therefor 256

CHAPTER XVIII.

1870-1873.--A. L. Riggs Builds at Santee.--The Santee High
School.--Visit to Fort Sully.--Change of Agents at
Sisseton.--Second Marriage.--Annual Meeting at Good Will.--Grand
Gathering.--New Treaty Made at Sisseton.--Nina Foster
Riggs.--Our Trip to Fort Sully.--An Incident by the Way.--Stop
at Santee.--Pastor Ehnamane.--His Deer Hunt.--Annual Meeting in
1873.--Rev. S. J. Humphrey's Visit.--Mr. Humphrey's
Sketch.--Where They Come From.--Morning Call.--Visiting the
Teepees.--The Religious Gathering.--The Moderator.--Questions
Discussed.--The _Personnel_.--Putting up a Tent.--Sabbath
Service.--Mission Reunion. 270

CHAPTER XIX.

1873-1874.--The American Board at Minneapolis.--The _Nidus_ of
the Dakota Mission.--Large Indian Delegation.--Ehnamane and
Mazakootemane.--"Then and Now."--The Woman's Meeting.--Nina
Foster Riggs and Lizzie Bishop.--Miss Bishop's Work and Early
Death.--Manual Labor Boarding-School at Sisseton.--Building
Dedicated.--M. N. Adams, Agent.--School Opened.--Mrs. Armor and
Mrs. Morris.--"My Darling in God's Garden."--Visit to Fort
Berthold.--Mandans, Rees, and Hidatsa.--Dr. W. Matthews' Hidatsa
Grammar.--Beliefs.--Missionary Interest in Berthold.--Down the
Missouri.--Annual Meeting at Santee.--Normal School.--Dakotas
Build a Church at Ascension.--Journey to the Ojibwas with E. P.
Wheeler.--Leech Lake and Red Lake.--On the Gitche Gumme.--"The
Stoneys."--Visit to Odanah.--Hope for Ojibwas 288

CHAPTER XX.

1875-1876.--Annual Meeting of 1875.--Homestead Settlement on the
Big Sioux.--Interest of the Conference.--_Iapi Oaye._--Inception
of Native Missionary Work.--Theological Class.--The Dakota
Home.--Charles L. Hall Ordained.--Dr. Magoun of Iowa.--Mr. and
Mrs. Hall Sent to Berthold by the American Board.--The _Word
Carrier's_ Good Words to Them.--The Conference of 1876.--In J.
B. Renville's Church.--Coming to the Meeting from Sully.--Miss
Whipple's Story.--"Dakota Missionary Society."--Miss Collins'
Story.--Impressions of the Meeting 308

CHAPTER XXI.

1871-1877.--The Wilder Sioux.--Gradual Openings.--Thomas
Lawrence.--Visit to the Land of the Teetons.--Fort Sully.--Hope
Station.--Mrs. General Stanley in the _Evangelist_.--Work by
Native Teachers.--Thomas Married to Nina Foster.--Nina's First
Visit to Sully.--Attending the Conference and American
Board.--Miss Collins and Miss Whipple.--Bogue Station.--The
Mission Surroundings.--Chapel Built.--Mission Work.--Church
Organized.--Sioux War of 1876.--Community
Excited.--Schools.--"Waiting for a Boat."--Miss Whipple Dies at
Chicago.--Mrs. Nina Riggs' Tribute.--The Conference of 1877 at
Sully.--Questions Discussed.--Grand Impressions 325

APPENDIX.

MONOGRAPHS.

MRS. NINA FOSTER RIGGS 345

REV. GIDEON H. POND 361

SOLOMON 374

DR. T. S. WILLIAMSON 382

A MEMORIAL 399

THE FAMILY REUNION 408

MARY AND I.

FORTY YEARS WITH THE SIOUX.