from Ta-ning with the unpleasant news that 500 soldiers, who were in
sympathy with the Boxers, had entered the city. The inhabitants at
once urged the ladies to flee to a more distant village, and, taking up
their Bibles, the missionaries started off quickly, with a native
Christian for their guide. Rain fell heavily, and they arrived at
their destination, Tong-men, wet to the skin. Food was given them, and
in the afternoon they lay down and slept in a shed full of straw. The
natives were determined, however, that they should have a better place
in which to pass the night, and prepared a cave for them, spreading
clean mats on the brick beds. But, late in the afternoon, a Christian,
whom the missionaries had sent to Ta-ning to obtain information
concerning the movements of the soldiers, returned with the pleasing
news that there were none in the city, nor had any been there.
Thankful that the alarm had been a false one, the three missionaries,
one feeling somewhat unwell, trudged back to the Muh-ien, and refreshed
themselves with tea. Throughout the day, or rather from breakfast
until their return after dark, they had drunk nothing, tea, strange to
say, being an unknown luxury in the place where they had sought
temporary shelter.
On the following day soldiers did enter Ta-ning, but as an official
despatch arrived almost at the same time instructing the yamen to
protect foreigners, the three ladies decided not to remove from
Muh-ien. This proclamation, a copy of which was brought to the
missionaries, stated that all foreigners who remained quietly at their
stations would be unmolested, and was a great improvement on the
previous one, which ordered that foreigners were to be exterminated.
The arrival of the allied forces had of course made the Chinese deem it
advisable to withdraw the former proclamation.
Nothing occurred during the next two days to make the missionaries
think that they were in immediate danger of being massacred. They
spent the time in reading, sewing and talking to the sympathetic people
who called on them. But on the third day they received the sad
information that seven of their missionary friends had been murdered on
July 16.
'Oh, it is sad, sad,' May Nathan wrote in her diary, 'such valuable
lives; and who will be the next? Perhaps we shall, for why should we
be spared when, for my own part, I know that the lives of those who
have gone were so much more valuable than mine? I don't want to die,
and such a death; but if it comes, well, it will be for a little, and
after, no more sorrow--no pain. Day by day we are without knowledge of
what news may come! Darling mother, don't be anxious whatever news you
may hear of me. It will be useless in the eyes of the world to come
out here for a year, to be just getting on with the language and then
to be cut off. Many will say, 'Why did she go? Wasted life!'
Darling, _No_. Trust; God does His very best, and never makes
mistakes. There are promises in the Word that the Lord will save His
servants, and deliver them from the hands of evil men. Dear, it may be
the deliverances will come through death, and His hands will receive,
not the corruptible, but the incorruptible, glorified spirit.'
Early the following morning, just as they were about to begin
breakfast, a friendly Chinaman arrived, with the warning, that a party
of Boxers was coming up the mountains and searching everywhere on the
way for them. Instant departure was imperative, so, snatching up their
Bibles and a few biscuits, they hurried off higher up the mountains,
halting only for a few minutes among some native Christians, to deliver
three short prayers. Their Christian guide hurried them onward when
the last prayer was finished, and soon they were climbing up steep,
unfrequented sheep-paths. A ruined temple on the top of a mountain was
to be their hiding-place, and when they reached it, tired out, they lay
down on the ground with stones for their pillows.
How long they remained hiding in this mountain-top temple is unknown.
Nor, as the last entry in May Nathan's letter is dated July 23, do we
know the sufferings which they underwent during the next three weeks.
All that is certain is that, after wandering about the mountains, they
were captured by the Boxers on August 12, and dragged to a temple near
Lu-kia-yao, where, hungry and thirsty, they were compelled to spend the
night surrounded by a mob of fiends. At day-break they were brought
out and killed.
[1] _Last Letters and Further Records of Martyred Missionaries of the
China Inland Mission_. Edited by Marshall Broomhall. (Morgan and
Scott.)
MARY RIGGS AND THE SIOUX RISING
Of all the stories that have been written for young people none have
been more popular than those describing adventures among the Red
Indians of North America. Fenimore Cooper's books have delighted many
generations of readers; but on much of the ground where that author's
famous characters lived, hunted, fought and died, big towns have sprung
up, and the Indians, driven to live in reservations and to become,
practically, pensioners of the Government, have been shorn of nearly
all their greatness.
When the white man gained the ascendency in North America there came a
better opportunity for missionary work, and notable among those who
went to labour among the Indians was Mary Riggs, who, with her husband,
worked for thirty-two years among the Sioux--the Red Indians of Dakota.
She was born on November 10, 1813, at Hawley, Massachusetts, her father
being General Thomas Longley, who had fought in the war of 1812.
Evidently he was not a wealthy man, for Mary began her education at the
common town school, where she had for her schoolfellows the children of
some of the poorest inhabitants. Later, she attended better schools,
and at the age of sixteen became a teacher in one at Williamstown,
Massachusetts. Her salary was only one dollar a week, but she gave her
father the whole of her first quarter's earnings, as a slight return
for the money he had spent on her education. After a time she obtained
a better appointment at a school at Bethlehem, and while there she met
Stephen R. Riggs, a young man who was studying for the Presbyterian
ministry. They became engaged, and a few months later Stephen Riggs
told his future wife that he should like to become a missionary to the
Red Indians, among whom work had recently been started. She expressed
her willingness to accompany him, and, therefore, he at once offered
himself to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, by
whom he was accepted.
The young people were married on February 16, 1837, and about a
fortnight later began their long journey to the Far West. Travelling
was in those days, of course, very different from what it is now, and
the young missionaries had to go by stage _via_ New York, Philadelphia,
and across the mountains to Pittsburg until they came to the Ohio.
Snow, rain and mud made their journey by stage particularly unpleasant,
but rest and comfort came on the steamer which bore them down the river.
On June 1, 1837, they arrived at Fort Snelling, near where the
Minnesota joins the Mississippi. Here they remained until the
beginning of September, living in a log-house, and learning the Dakota
language with the help of a missionary who had been in the field for
three years. From Fort Snelling they departed on September 5, 1837,
for their destination Lac-qui-parle, travelling with two one-ox carts
and a double wagon. On September 18 they arrived at the station to
which they had been appointed, and received a hearty welcome from the
two missionaries who had settled there some time before at the earnest
request of a Lac-qui-parle trader. Lac-qui-parle was a small place, a
mere collection of buffalo-skin tents, in which lived some 400 Red
Indians. Mr. and Mrs. Riggs found a home in a log-house belonging to
one of the other missionaries. Only one room could be spared them, and
although it was but 10 feet wide and 18 feet long they made themselves
comfortable. Mr. Riggs wrote as follows in his account of their work
among the Sioux[1]: 'This room we made our home for five winters.
There were some hardships about such close quarters, but, all in all,
Mary and I never enjoyed five winters better than those spent in that
upper room. There our first three children were born. There we worked
in acquiring the language. There we received our Dakota visitors.
There I wrote, and re-wrote, my ever-growing dictionary. And there,
with what help I could obtain, I prepared for the printer the greater
portion of the New Testament in the Dakota language. It was a
consecrated room.'
When Mrs. Riggs and her husband took possession of their one-room home
they had much difficulty in making it comfortable, as they had been
unable to bring on their furniture and domestic utensils. One person,
however, lent them a kettle, another provided them with a pan, and bit
by bit they collected the most necessary articles.
In the East missionaries have never experienced a difficulty in
obtaining servants, but in Dakota neither male nor female Sioux would
enter the Riggs' service. Consequently Mrs. Riggs had to perform all
the household duties. They bought a cow, but neither of them knew how
to milk her. Both Mr. and Mrs. Rigg tried to perform the task, but not
until the cow had experienced considerable discomfort did Mrs. Riggs
become acquainted with the art. Washing clothes was a performance
which filled the Sioux women with wonder, for they were in the habit of
wearing their garments unwashed until they became too old to be worn
any longer. Very soon they adopted the white woman's custom, and,
becoming fond of standing over the washing-tub, they took to washing
Mrs. Riggs' clothes as well as their own. For doing so they were, of
course, paid.
The missionaries who had preceded the Riggs at Lac-qui-parle had not
been very successful, if success be judged by the number of converts
made. The native Church consisted of seven people, but before the
Riggs had been there many months nine were added. Most of these were
women, and it was they, and not the men, who assisted in the building
of the first church at Lac-qui-parle.
When Mr. and Mrs. Riggs had worked for some time with success at
Lac-qui-parle they removed to a new station--Traverse des Sioux. But
four years later the news reached them that since their departure from
Lac-qui-parle there had been a sad falling back into heathenism among
the converts, and they hurried back to their old station. Backsliders
were reclaimed, and the missionary work carried on with increased
energy.
But the missionaries had much to contend with. The Indians were hard
pressed for food, and occasionally shot the mission cattle. Grog shops
had been opened in the neighbourhood, and many of the Sioux bought
drink when they should have purchased provisions. Excited by the
fire-water, the Indians were frequently riotous, and, although they
never assaulted the missionaries, it was clear that they might massacre
them. On one occasion Mrs. Riggs had a very unpleasant experience.
While her husband was away, twenty-six Sioux warriors paraded in front
of mission house and fired their guns in the air. Mrs. Riggs was
naturally somewhat frightened, until she found that they were not bent
on murder and scalping. They had been searching for some Chippewas,
but, having failed to find them, they fired their guns for practice.
Mr. and Mrs. Riggs continued their work with but few interruptions
until 1862, when the Sioux rising occurred. It began in this way. The
Sioux had assembled at Yellow Medicine to receive their annual
allowance from the Government official. While distributing the
allowance the official announced that the Great Father (President
Lincoln) was anxious to make them all very happy, and would therefore
give them, very shortly, a bonus. The Indians, having recently
suffered greatly from want of provisions, were delighted at the
prospect of an additional grant, and waited in the vicinity of the
agency for its arrival. When it arrived the Sioux found to their
dismay that it was a paltry gift of $2.50 a man. Their disgust and
anger were increased by the knowledge that during the time they had
been waiting for this insignificant present they could have earned from
$50 to $100 by hunting. Unintentionally, a Government servant added
fuel to the fire, and the Sioux, maddened, began their terrible
massacre of the scattered settlers.
The news of the rising was carried quickly to the Riggs by friendly
Indians, who urged them to hurry away as quickly as possible to a place
of safety. But the missionaries were not disposed to consider the
rising serious. The seizure of their horses and cows, and various
other unfriendly actions performed by the people among whom they had
lived for many years, soon, however, convinced them that it would be
wise to depart. So gathering together a few belongings the little band
of missionaries, some carrying children, crept away by night to an
island in the Minnesota River. But on the following day the friendly
Indians sent word to them that they were not safe on the island, and
urged further flight.
Acting on this advice, the Christians waded the river and started on a
tramp to the Hawk River, and on the way met other settlers, hurrying
like themselves, to escape from the infuriated Sioux. Joining forces
they proceeded on their journey, the women and children riding in two
open carts, and soon met a wounded man, whom they tenderly lifted into
one of the wagons. He was the sole survivor of a band of settlers
which had been attacked by the Sioux.
Keeping a sharp look-out for the Indians, the fugitives continued their
journey across the prairie. On the second night the rain fell heavily,
and as the women and children could obtain no shelter in the open carts
they crept under them. Wet and shivering, the fugitives found, when
daylight came, that they had scarcely any food. Wood was collected, a
fire built, and one of the animals killed and roasted.
A day later they were espied by an Indian, who fortunately proved to be
friendly. He advised the fugitives to hurry to Fort Ridgely, and
assured them that all the whites, with the exception of themselves, who
had not taken shelter in the fort had been killed. Acting on his
advice, they proceeded in the direction of the fort, but travelled very
cautiously, for there were signs that Indians were in the neighbourhood.
One of the fugitives crept into the fort, but the news he brought back
to his comrades in distress was not cheering; the fort was already
overcrowded with women and children, and there was a very small force
of soldiers to defend it. For five days they had been continually
attacked by the enemy, and unless reinforcements arrived quickly the
fort would probably be captured.
The Riggs and their fellow fugitives decided, therefore, to hurry on to
some other place, fully aware of the danger they were running in
travelling through a neighbourhood which abounded with the
scalp-seeking Indians. One of Mary Riggs' daughters wrote of this
period in their flight: 'Every voice was hushed, except to give
necessary orders; every eye swept the hills and valleys around; every
ear was intensely strained for the faintest sound, expecting
momentarily to hear the unearthly war-whoop, and see dusky forms with
gleaming tomahawks uplifted.'
[Illustration: EVERY EAR WAS STRAINED ... EXPECTING MOMENTARILY TO HEAR
THE UNEARTHLY WAR-HOOP.]
Hour after hour the tired and footsore fugitives trudged on without
being discovered. Then four of their number, believing the danger was
passed, bade adieu to the remainder of the party and proceeded in a
different direction; but before they had gone far they were killed by
the Indians. The Riggs and their party heard the fatal shots, but the
tragedy was hidden from their sight by the bush. Fortunately, the
proximity of the larger party of fugitives was not discovered by the
Sioux; and at last, after a long, weary journey, the Riggs and their
friends arrived at the town of Henderson, where their appearance
occasioned considerable surprise, as their names had been included in
the list of massacred.
Over a thousand settlers were killed during the rising, and there were
many people who escaped death, but never recovered completely from the
horrors of that terrible time. Mary Riggs returned with her husband to
the work among the Sioux; but her health grew slowly worse, and when,
in March, 1869, an ordinary cold developed into pneumonia she had not
the strength to battle against it. She died on March 22, 1869, in
Beloit, Wisconsin, worn out with her thirty-two years' work in the
mission-field.
[1] _Mary and I; Forty Years with the Sioux_. By Stephen R. Riggs.
Philadelphia, 1887.
III
BRAVE DEEDS OF WOMEN IN WAR-TIME
MARY SEACOLE, THE SOLDIERS' FRIEND
Florence Nightingales's noble work among the sick and wounded in the
Crimean War is known to everyone; but very few people are aware that
there was another woman, working apart from Miss Nightingale, who
performed deeds of bravery and humanity in the same campaign which
entitle her to a high place in any list of brave and good women. Sir
William Russell, the famous war correspondent of the _Times_, wrote, in
1858, of Mary Seacole: 'I have witnessed her devotion and her courage;
I have already borne testimony to her services to all who needed them.
She is the first who has redeemed the name of 'sutler' from the
suspicion of worthlessness, mercenary business and plunder; and I trust
that England will not forget one who nursed her sick, who sought out
her wounded to aid and succour them, and who performed the last offices
for some other illustrious dead.' England seems to have forgotten her,
but it is hoped that this account of her life may help to remove the
reproach.
Mary Seacole was born at Kingston, Jamaica, her father being a
Scotchman and her mother a native. The latter kept a boarding-house
which was patronised chiefly by naval and military officers stationed
at Kingston, but she was also widely known in the West Indies as a
"doctoress." Officers, their wives and children were her chief
patients, and she is reputed to have healed many troublesome complaints
with medicines made from the plants which she herself gathered. Mary
inherited her mother's tastes, and when quite a child decided to become
a "doctoress." She bandaged her dolls in the way she had seen her
mother bandage patients, and on growing older she doctored any stray
dogs and cats who could be prevailed upon to swallow the medicine she
had made. After a time she became anxious to try her skill upon human
beings, but as no one would consent to take her medicine, she drank it
herself, happily without any serious effects.
When Mary Seacole (as she afterwards became) was about twelve years of
age her mother began to allow her to assist in waiting upon the invalid
officers staying at the boarding-house, and whilst thus engaged she was
able to obtain a knowledge of nursing which was of the greatest value
in after years. While still a girl she paid a visit to England, and
remained there, with some relatives, for some months. She visited
England again a few years later, and saw that there was a good opening
in London for West Indian commodities. Therefore, on her return, she
exported guava jelly, pickles and various preserves, and being anxious
to add to the variety of her wares, she visited the Bahamas, Hayti and
Cuba, to inspect the productions of those places.
On returning from her travels among the islands she settled down again
to nurse her mother's invalid boarders, and before long married one of
them, a Mr. Seacole. Her married life was, however, short for Mr.
Seacole died a few months after the wedding. A little later her mother
passed away, and Mary Seacole was left without relatives in Jamaica.
She continued to manage the boarding-house; but her generosity to the
poor was so unlimited that when she had a bad season she was without
money to support herself. However, she struggled on until her
boarding-house was once more filled with well-paying invalids. But in
1843 she had a very serious loss; her house was burnt in a fire which
destroyed a large portion of Kingston. The boarding-house was,
however, rebuilt, and prosperity returned. Many a white man asked her
to become his wife, but she refused every offer, and devoted all her
spare time to the task of adding to her store of medical knowledge.
Several naval and military surgeons, surprised to find that her
knowledge of medical matters was, for a woman, great, assisted her with
her studies.
In 1850 cholera broke out in Jamaica, and raged for a greater portion
of the year, and a doctor who was living at Mary Seacole's house gave
her many valuable hints concerning the treatment of cholera cases.
Before long the knowledge thus obtained proved to be the means of
saving many lives.
Shortly after the cholera had ceased to rage in Jamaica Mary Seacole
proceeded on a visit to her brother, who owned a large, prosperous
store at Cruces in California. On arriving there, she found the place
crowded with a mixed mob of gold-diggers and speculators, some
proceeding to the gold-fields, others returning. The men returning
were drinking, gambling and "treating" those who were bound for the
gold-fields. It was a degrading sight, and Mary Seacole wished that
she had not left Jamaica. There was nowhere for her to sleep, wash or
change her travel-stained clothes, for every room in her brother's
house was engaged by the homeward-bound gold-diggers. Until they
departed she had to manage to exist without a bed.
These parties of miners arrived at Cruces weekly, and the scenes of
dissipation were the same on each occasion.
Quarrels which ended in the death of one of the combatants were
frequent and little noticed, but the very sudden death of a Spaniard
who resided at Cruces caused great excitement. He had dined with Mary
Seacole's brother, and on returning home was taken ill and suddenly
died. Suspicion fell upon Mary Seacole's brother, and it was said
openly that he had poisoned the man. Mary Seacole, indignant at the
accusation brought against her brother, went to see the body, and knew
at once that the man had died from cholera. No one believed her, but
the following morning a friend of the dead man was taken ill with the
same disorder, and the people who had scoffed at her became
terror-stricken.
There was no doctor at Cruces, and Mary Seacole set herself to battle
single-handed with the plague. Fortunately, she never travelled
without her medicine-chest, and taking from it the remedies which had
been used in Jamaica with great success she hurried to the sick man's
bedside, and by her promptitude was able, under God, to save his life.
Two more men were stricken down and successfully treated, and Mary
Seacole was beginning to hope that the plague would not spread, when a
score of cases broke out in one day. The people were now helpless from
terror, and Mary Seacole was the only person who did not lose her
presence of mind. Day and night she was attending patients, and for
days she never had more than a hour's rest at a time. Whenever a
person was stricken, the demand was for 'the yellow woman from
Jamaica,' and it was never made in vain.
When the cholera had been raging for some days, Mary Seacole despatched
a messenger to bring a medical man to the place; but the Spaniard who
arrived in response to the summons was horror-stricken at the terrible
scenes, and incapable of rendering any assistance. Mary Seacole was
compelled, therefore, to continue her noble work unaided.
One evening she had just settled down to a brief rest when a mule-owner
came and implored her to come at once to his kraal, as several of his
men had been attacked with cholera. Now Mary Seacole had been visiting
patients throughout the day and the previous night, but without the
slightest hesitation she went out into the rain and made her way to the
sick muleteers, whom she found in a veritable plague-spot. Men and
mules were all in one room, and the stench was so great that a feeling
of sickness came over her as she stood at the door. But with an effort
she overcame the feeling, and entering flung open the windows, doors
and shutters. Then, as the much-needed fresh air poured in, she looked
around.