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.
The spring of 1870 brought with it a breaking-up of the Beloit home.
Some months before Mary's death, she had invited to our house an
invalid niece, the daughter of her older sister, Mrs. Lucretia Cooley.
A dear, good girl Mary Cooley was. She had during the war acted as
nurse, in the service of the Christian Commission. But her health
failed. It was hoped that a year in the West might build her up. After
her aunt had gone from us, Mary Cooley remained with us. But the
malady increased; and this spring her brother Allan came and took her
back to Massachusetts. And now, only a little while ago, we heard of
her release in California, whither the family had removed. The good
Lord had compassion upon her, and took her to a land where no one
says, "I am sick."
Then the house was rented. The household goods and household gods were
scattered, the major part being taken up into the Indian country. Anna
would spend the summer with friends in Beloit, and Cornelia, the
youngest, I took up to Minnesota, and left with Martha on the
frontier.
My plan was to put up two buildings, a dwelling-house and a
school-house, for the erection of which the committee at Boston had
appropriated $2800. That may seem quite an amount; but the materials
had to be transported from Minneapolis and the Red River of the North.
What I purchased at Minneapolis was carried by rail and steamboat one
hundred and fifty miles. There remained one hundred and thirty, over
which the lumber was hauled in wagons in the month of June, when the
roads were bad and the streams swimming. And so the cost was very
great,--dressed flooring coming up to $75 per 1000 feet, dressed
siding $65, shingles about $15 per 1000, and common lumber $60 a
thousand feet.
When the materials were on the ground, but little money was left for
their erection. But, with one carpenter and two or three young men to
assist, I pushed forward the work, and by the middle of September the
houses were up, and ready to be occupied, though in an unfinished
state.
During this time there were some things transpired which deserve to be
noticed.
Before commencing to build, I had received the written approval of the
agent. In regard to the locality we differed. He wished me to build in
the immediate vicinity of the agency, while I, for very good reasons,
selected a place nearly two miles away. But that, I think, could have
made no difference in his feeling toward the enterprise. However, soon
after I commenced, I was visited by Gabriel Renville, who was
recognized as the head man on the reservation. He did not forbid my
proceeding, but wanted to know whether I had authority to do so. I
replied that I had the approval of Agent Daniels, which I regarded as
sufficient. When I reported this to Mr. Daniels, he advised me to
write to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and obtain a permit,
which, he said, might save me trouble.
Accordingly, I wrote immediately to the Department of the Interior,
stating the life-long connection we had had with these Indians, and
the work we had done among them, and that now I was authorized by the
A. B. C. F. M. to erect mission buildings among them, and asking that
our plan be approved.
After three or four weeks, when I was in the very middle of my work of
building, there came an order from Washington that I should suspend
operations until they would settle the question to what religious
denomination that part of the field should be assigned. That subject
was then under advisement, they said.
Should I obey? If I did so, much additional expense would be incurred,
and my summer's work, as planned, would be a failure. Really no
question could be raised about it. The American Board had been doing
missionary work among those Indians for a third of a century, and no
other denomination or missionary board pretended to have any claim on
the field. It was unreasonable, under the circumstances, that we
should be asked to suspend, and thus suffer harm and loss. So I placed
my letter safely away and went on with my work. No human being there
knew that I had received such a command.
By the return mail I wrote to Secretary Treat, rehearsing the whole
case, and asking him, without delay, to write to the authorities at
Washington. I told him I had concluded to disregard the _taboo_, and
would not in consequence thereof drive a nail the less. When the
summer months were passed, and my houses were both up, I received a
letter from the commissioner commending my work, and telling me to go
forward.
In the latter end of August there came to me a letter, written in a
strange hand, saying that Anna was lying sick at Mr. Carr's, of
typhoid fever. The intention of the letter evidently was not to
greatly alarm me, but it conveyed the idea that she was very sick, and
the result was doubtful. Ten or twelve days had passed since it was
written. My affairs were not then in a condition to be left without
much damage, and so I determined to await the coming of another mail.
When I heard again, a week later, there was no decided change for the
better. So the letter read. But in the meantime this word had come to
me--"This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God." It
came to me like a revelation. I seemed to know it. It quieted my
alarm. All anxiety was not taken away, but my days passed in
comparatively quiet trust. About the middle of September I started
down with my own team, and, on reaching St. Peter and Mankato, I
received letters from Anna written with her own hand. She had come up
gradually, but a couple of months passed before she was strong.
Before I commenced building at Good Will, which was the name we gave
to our new station, the understanding was that Anna would be married
in the coming autumn, and she and her husband would take charge of the
mission work there. Anna seemed to have grown up into the idea that
her life-work was to be with the Dakotas. But it was otherwise
ordered. In the October following, when we all again met in Beloit,
she was married to H. E. Warner, who had lost an arm in the War of
the Rebellion, and they have since made their home in Iowa.
Martha Taylor Riggs had been married to Wyllys K. Morris, in December,
1866. For a time they made their home in Mankato, Minn., and then
removed to a farm twenty miles from town. Life on the extreme frontier
they found filled with privations and hardships, and so were quite
willing to accept the new place; and before the winter set in they
were removed to Good Will. Robert, who had gone up after his mother's
death, and spent a year with Martha at Sterling, Minn., returned to
Beloit, and entered the preparatory department of the college.
Cornelia went with us to Good Will, and remained two years.
* * * * *
The home was again in Dakota land. We at once opened a school, which
has since been taught almost entirely by W. K. Morris.[6] The native
churches needed a good deal of attention. At Lac-qui-parle a number of
families had stopped and taken claims. There a church was organized of
about forty members, which for two or three years was in the charge of
Rev. John B. Renville. But about this time Mr. Renville removed to the
reservation, and from that time the Dakota settlement gradually
diminished, until all had removed, and the Lac-qui-parle church was
absorbed by those on the reserve.
[6] This school has been much enlarged since 1877.
Ascension, or _Iyakaptape_, so named from its having been from time
immemorial the place where the Coteau was ascended by the Dakotas on
their way westward, was the district in which a number of the Renville
families took claims. Daniel Renville, one of our licentiates, had
been preaching to the church gathered there. But it was understood
all along that John B. Renville was to be their pastor. And so it came
about, as he now transferred his home to that settlement.
In the spring of 1863, Mr. Renville had purchased a little house in
St. Anthony, where they made their home for several years, Mrs.
Renville teaching a school of white children for a part of the time.
Removing from there, they pre-empted a piece of land on Beaver Creek.
During these years they had in their family from four to six
half-breed or Dakota children, whom they taught English very
successfully, and for the most part maintained them out of their own
scanty means. While living in St. Anthony, Mr. Renville had translated
"Precept Upon Precept," which was printed in Boston, and became
thenceforth one of our Dakota school-books.
As Mr. Daniel Renville was now released from labor at Ascension, I
proposed his name to the Good Will church, and advised them to elect
him to be their religious teacher. But when the election took place
they all voted for me. I thanked them for the honor they did me, and
told them that it could not be. Our plan of missionary work was
changed. Henceforth the preaching and pastoral work were to be done
almost exclusively by men from among themselves. It was better for
them that it should be so, for only in that way would they learn to
support their own Gospel. We missionaries had never asked them to
contribute anything toward our support. It was manifestly incongruous
that we should do so. And yet they were so far advanced in the
knowledge of Christian duties that they ought to assume the burden of
contributing to the support of their own religious teachers. It would
be a means of grace to them. Moreover, a man who spoke the language
natively had great advantage over us, both in preaching and pastoral
work.
When I had made this speech to them, they went again into an election,
and chose Daniel Renville to be their pastor. He was soon afterward
ordained and installed by the Dakota Presbytery, and continued with
the Good Will church about six years. Previous to this time, the
original Dakota Presbytery had been divided into the _Mankato_ and
_Dakota_, the latter of which was again confined to the Dakota field,
as it had been when first formed in 1845.
At this time Solomon was the pastor of the Long Hollow church, and
Louis was stated supply at Fort Wadsworth, or Kettle Lakes, and Thomas
Good a licentiate preacher at Buffalo Lake. Some time after this the
Mayasan church was organized, and Louis called to take charge of it,
David Gray Cloud coming into his place at Fort Wadsworth.
The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church had set on foot their
Million Thank Offering effort, which was available for poor churches
in erecting houses of worship. By means of this outside help, the
Ascension church and the Long Hollow church, as well as the Homestead
Settlement church on the Big Sioux, were enabled to build houses--two
of them of logs. The building at Long Hollow continues to be occupied
by the church, while the other two houses have given place to larger
and better frame buildings.
In the spring of 1871 our Dakota church organizations were eight,
_viz._: The Pilgrim Church, at Santee, with 267 members, Rev. Artemas
Ehnamane and Rev. Titus Ichadooze pastors; The Flandreau or River Bend
church, on the Big Sioux, with 107 members, Joseph Iron-oldman pastor
elect; the Lac-qui-parle church, with 41 members, now without a
pastor; the Ascension church, on the Sisseton reservation, with 69
members, Rev. John B. Renville pastor; the Dry Wood Lake or Good Will
church, with 42 members, Rev. Daniel Renville pastor; the Long Hollow
church, with 80 members, Rev. Solomon Toonkan-shaecheya pastor; the
Kettle Lakes or Fort Wadsworth church, with 38 members, Rev. Louis
Mazawakinyanna stated supply; and the recently organized church at
Yankton agency, with 19 members, in charge of Rev. John P. Williamson.
* * * * *
In the month of May of this year, the first number of the _Iapi Oaye_
appeared. It was a very modest little sheet of four pages, eight by
ten inches, and altogether in the Dakota language, with the motto,
"Taku washta okiya, taku shecha kepajin," which, being interpreted,
would read, "To help what is good, to oppose what is bad." Rev. John
P. Williamson, who had the sole charge of it for the first twelve
numbers, in his first Dakota editorial, thus accounts for its origin:
"For three years I have prepared a little tract at New Year, which Mr.
E. R. Pond printed, and I distributed gratuitously to all who could
read Dakota. And many persons liked it, and some said, 'If we had a
newspaper, we would pay for it.' I have trusted to the truth of this
saying, and so this winter have been preparing to print one. But I
have found many obstacles in the way, and have not gotten out the
first number until now." As it was to be the means of conveying the
thoughts and speech of one person to another, it was proper, he said,
to call it _Iapi Oaye_, or "Word Carrier." The subscription price was
placed at fifty cents a year. This was not increased after the paper
was doubled in size, as it was the first of January, 1873, at the
commencement of the second volume. When the change was made, I was
taken in as associate editor, and henceforth about one-third of the
letter-press was to be in the English language. By this means we could
communicate missionary intelligence to white people, and thus secure
their aid in supporting the paper, as well as extend the interest in
our work. And, as an attraction to the Dakotas, a full-page picture
has been generally added.
In starting the paper, the main object proposed was to stimulate
education among the Dakotas, so that we were not disappointed to find
that, in addition to all that came in from subscriptions, several
hundred dollars were required from the missionary funds to square up
the year. But we lived in hope, and do so still, that the time will
come when the enterprise will be self-supporting. It has proved itself
to be an exceedingly important assistant in our missionary work, which
we can not afford to let die.
* * * * *
With the homesteaders on the Big Sioux, on the 23d of June, 1871, we
held our first general conference of the Dakota churches.[7] From the
Sisseton Agency there went down John B. Renville, Daniel Renville, and
Solomon, of the pastors, with several elders and myself. Dr.
Williamson came up from St. Peter; and John P. Williamson, A. L.
Riggs, and Artemas Ehnamane, and others, came over from the Missouri
River. Year by year, from that time on, we have continued to hold
these meetings, and they have constantly increased in interest and
importance. On this first occasion, four or five days were spent, and
religious meetings held each day. The circumstances by which we were
surrounded intensified the interest. As yet there was no church or
school-house in which we could assemble, and our meetings were held
out-of-doors, or under a booth in connection with Mr. All Iron's
cabin.
[7] This was preliminary to the regularly organized conference
which met the next year.
This colony of more than one hundred church members had located near
the eastern line of Dakota Territory, in the beautiful and fertile
valley of the Big Sioux River. Their settlement lay along that stream
for twenty-five or thirty miles, its centre being about forty miles
above the thriving town of Sioux Falls.
The most of these men were in 1862 engaged in the Sioux outbreak in
Minnesota. For three years they were held in military prisons.
Meanwhile, their families and the remnants of their tribe had been
deported to the Missouri River; so that when they found themselves
together again, it was at Niobrara, Neb., or soon afterward at the
newly established Santee agency a few miles below.
What impulse stirred them up to break away from their own tribe, to
which they had but just returned, and try the hard work of making a
home among coldly disposed if not hostile whites? What made them leave
all their old traditional ties and relationships and go forth as
strangers and wanderers? It must be borne in mind that they left
behind them the food which the government issued weekly on the agency,
to seek a very precarious living by farming, for which they had
neither tools nor teams. They also gave up the advantage of the yearly
issue of clothing, and the prospect of such considerable gifts of
horses, oxen, cows, wagons, and ploughs, as were distributed
occasionally on the agency. More than this: those who had already
received such gifts from the United States Indian Civilization Fund
had to leave all behind, though they went out for the very purpose of
seeking a higher civilization. They went forth in the face, moreover,
of great opposition and derision from the chiefs of their tribe. The
United States Indian agent was also against them. Whence, then, did
they have the strength of purpose which enabled them to face all this
opposition, brave all these dangers?
The germs of this movement are only to be found in the resolves for a
new life made by these men when in prison! There all were nominally,
and the larger part were really, converted to Christ. All of them in
some sense experienced a conversion of thought and purpose. There they
agreed to abolish all the old tribal arrangements and customs. Old
things were to be done away, and all things were to become new. And as
they had been electing their church officers, so they would elect the
necessary civil officers.
But when they came to their people they found the old Indian system in
full power, backed by the authority of the United States. Of the old
chiefs who ruled them in Minnesota, Little Crow and Little Six, the
leaders of the rebellion, were dead; but the others, who had been kept
out of active participation, not by their loyalty to the United
States, but by their jealousy of these leaders, had saved their necks
and were again in power. A few had been appointed to vacancies by the
United States agent, and the ring was complete. And our friends were
commanded at once to fall in under the old chiefs before they could
receive any rations. They must be Indians or starve! Nothing was to be
hoped for from within the tribe, nor from Washington. The Indian
principle was regnant there also. Nothing was left to them but to seek
some other land. One said: "I could not bear to have my children grow
up nothing but Indians"; so they all felt.
They made their hegira in March, 1869. In this region this is the
worst month in the year, but they had to take advantage of the absence
of their agent and the chiefs at Washington. Twenty-five families went
in this company. A few had ponies, but they mostly took their way on
foot, packing their goods and children, one hundred and thirty miles
over the Dakota prairies. About midway a fearful snow-storm burst upon
them. They lost their way, and one woman froze to death. The next
autumn fifteen other families joined them, and twenty more followed
the year after. Even one of the chiefs, finding the movement likely to
succeed, left his chieftainship and its emoluments to join them. He
thought it more to be a man than to be a chief.
Existence was a hard struggle for several years; for these Indians had
neither ploughs nor working teams. But they exchanged work with their
white neighbors, and so had a little "breaking" done. And in the fall
and early spring they went trapping, and by this means raised a little
money to pay entry fees on their lands and buy their clothes. On one
of these hunting expeditions, Iron Old Man, the acting pastor of their
church and a leader in the colony, was overtaken, while chasing elk,
by one of the Dakota "blizzards," and he and his companion in the hunt
perished in the snow-drifts.
Joseph Iron Old Man was not an old man, notwithstanding his name, but
a man in middle life. He had been a Hoonkayape or elder in the prison,
re-elected on the consolidation of the Pilgrim Church in Nebraska,
and thus elected to the same office a third time in the River Bend
Church on the Big Sioux. After this, when the church met to elect a
religious teacher, he was chosen almost unanimously. It was expected
that the Presbytery would have confirmed the action of the church at
this gathering in June. But this was not to be. On the seventh day of
April, when it was bright and warm, he and another Dakota man, as they
were out hunting, came upon half-a-dozen elk. They chased them first
on horseback, until their horses were jaded. Then, leaving the horses,
they kept up the pursuit on foot, in the meantime divesting themselves
of all superfluous clothing. In this condition, the storm came upon
them suddenly, when they were out in the open prairie between the Big
Sioux and the James River. Escape was impossible, and to live through
the storm and cold in their condition was equally impossible, even for
an Indian. Far and near their friends hunted, but did not find them
until the first day of May.
So the hopes and plans of the colony and the church were disappointed.
At our meeting, we expressed sorrow and sympathy, and endeavored to
lead the people to a higher trust in God. The young men might fail and
fall, but the command was still, "Hope thou in God." Before we left
them, they elected another leader--Williamson O. Rogers--Mr. All Iron.
* * * * *
The Dakota mission had been, from its commencement, under the American
Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. As Presbyterians, we had
been connected with the New School branch. But now the two schools had
been united. Many--nay, most--of the New School Assembly, who had
worked with the American Board, now thought it their duty to withdraw,
and connect themselves and their contributions with the Assembly's
Board of Foreign Missions. The ploughshare must be run through the
mission fields also. We in the Dakota mission were invited to transfer
our relations. The prudential committee at Boston left us to act out
our own sweet will. Dr. T. S. Williamson and Rev. John P. Williamson
elected to go over to the Presbyterian Board. For myself, I did not
care to do so. Although conscientiously a Presbyterian, I was not, and
am not, so much of one as to draw me away from the associations which
had been growing for a third of a century. Whether I reasoned rightly
or wrongly, I conceived that I had a character with the American Board
that I could not transfer; and I was too old to build up another
reputation. Besides, Alfred L. Riggs had now joined the mission, and
as a Congregational minister he could do no otherwise than retain his
connection with the A.B.C.F.M.
The case was a plain one. We divided. Some questions then came up as
to the field and the work. These were very soon amicably settled, on a
basis which, so far as I know, has continued to be satisfactory from
that day to this. The churches on the Sisseton reservation and at the
Santee were to continue in connection with the American Board; while
the Big Sioux and Yankton agency churches would be counted as under
the Presbyterian Board. Henceforth, in regard to common expenses of
Dakota publications, _they_ were to bear _one-third_, and _we
two-thirds_.