Thus for more than a quarter of a century, the glorious work of
conquering the Sioux nation for Christ went on. It was pushed
vigorously at every mission station from Lac-qui-Parle to Red Wing and
from Kaposia to Hazelwood. Great progress was made in these years. And
such a work!
The workers were buried out of sight of their fellow-white men.
Lac-qui-Parle was more remote from Boston than Manilla is today.
It took Stephen R. Riggs three months to pass with his New England
bride from the green hills of her native state to Fort Snelling. It
was a further journey of thirteen days over a trackless trail,
through the wilderness, to their mission home on the shores of the
Lake-that-speaks. Even as late as 1843, it required a full month's
travel for the first bridal tour of Agnes Carson Johnson as Mrs.
Robert Hopkins from the plains of Ohio to the prairies of Minnesota.
It was no pleasure tour in Pullman palace cars, on palatial limited
trains, swiftly speeding over highly polished rails from the far east
to the Falls of St. Anthony, in those days. It was a weary, weary
pilgrimage of weeks by boat and stage, by private conveyance and
oft-times on foot. One can make a tour of Europe today with greater
ease and in less time than those isolated workers at Lac-qui-Parle
could revisit their old homes in Ohio and New England.
Within their reach was no smithy and no mill until they built one;
there was no post office within one hundred miles, and all supplies were
carried from Boston to New Orleans by sloops; then by steamboats almost
the whole length of the Mississippi; then the flatboat-men sweated and
swore as they poled them up the Minnesota to the nearest landing-place;
then they had to be hauled overland one hundred and twenty-five miles.
These trips were ever attended with heavy toil, often with great
suffering and sometimes with loss of life.
Small was the support received from the Board. The entire income of the
mission, including government aid to the schools, was less than one
thousand dollars a year. Upon this meager sum, three ordained
missionaries, two teachers and farmers, and six women, with eight or
ten children were maintained. This also, covered travelling expenses,
books and printing.
The rude and varied dialects of the different bands of the savage Sioux
had been reduced to a written language. This was truly a giant task. It
required men who were fine linguists, very studious, patient,
persistent, and capable of utilizing their knowledge under grave
difficulties. Such _were_ the Ponds, Dr. Williamson, Mr. Riggs and
Joseph Renville by whom the great task was accomplished. It took months
and years of patient, persistent, painstaking efforts; but it was
finally accomplished.
In 1852, the Dakota Dictionary and Grammar were published by the
Smithsonian Institute at its expense. The dictionary contained sixteen
thousand words and received the warm commendation of philologists
generally. The language itself is still growing and valuable additions
are being made to it year by year.
Within a few years, a revised and greatly enlarged edition should be,
and probably will be published for the benefit of the Sioux nation.
The Word of God too, had been translated into this wild, barbaric
tongue. This was in truth a mighty undertaking. It involved on the part
of the translators a knowledge of the French, Latin, Greek, Hebrew and
Sioux tongues and required many years of unremitting toil on the part
of those, who wrought out its accomplishment in their humble log cabins
on the shores of Lakes Calhoun and Lac-qui-Parle, and at Kaposia and
Traverse des Sioux, Yellow Medicine and Hazelwood.
But it, too, was completed and published in 1879, by the American Bible
Society. Hymn-books and textbooks had also been prepared and published
in the new language. Books like the Pilgrims Progress had been issued
in it--a literature for a great nation had been created. Comfortable
churches and mission homes had been erected at the various mission
stations. Out of the eight thousand Sioux Indians in Minnesota, more
than one hundred converts had been gathered into the church. The
faithful missionaries, who had toiled so long, with but little
encouragement, now looked forward hopefully into the future.
Apparently the time to favor their work had come. But suddenly all
their pleasant anticipations vanished--all their high hopes were
blasted.
It was August 17, 1862, a lovely Sabbath of the Lord. It was
sacramental Sabbath at Hazelwood. As their custom was, that
congregation of believers and Yellow Medicine came together to
commemorate their Lord's death. The house was well-filled and the
missionaries have ever remembered that Sabbath as one of precious
interest, for it was the last time they ever assembled in that
beautiful little chapel. A great trial of their faith and patience was
before them and they knew it not. But the loving Saviour knew that both
the missionaries and the native Christians required just such a rest
with Him before the terrible trials came upon them.
As the sun sank that day into the bosom of the prairies, a fearful
storm of fire and blood burst upon the defenseless settlers and
missionaries. Like the dread cyclone, it came, unheralded, and like
that much-to-be-dreaded monster of the prairies, it left desolation and
death in its pathway. The Sioux arose against the whites and in their
savage wrath swept the prairies of Western Minnesota as with a besom of
destruction. One thousand settlers perished and hundreds of happy homes
were made desolate. The churches, school-houses and homes of the
missionaries were laid in ashes. However, all the missionaries and
their households escaped safely out of this fiery furnace of barbaric
fury to St. Paul and Minneapolis. All else seemed lost beyond the
possibility of recovery.
In dismay, the missionaries fled from the wreck of their churches and
homes. There were forty persons in that band of fugitives, missionaries
and their friends, who spent a week of horrors--never-to-be-forgotten--in
their passage over the prairies to St. Paul and Minneapolis. By day
they were horrified by the marks of bloody cruelties along their
pathway--dead and mangled bodies, wrecked and abandoned homes. At
night, they were terrified by the flames of burning homes and fears of
the tomahawks and the scalping knives of their cruel foes. The nights
were full of fear and dread. Every voice was hushed except to give
necessary orders; every eye swept the hills and valleys around; every
ear was intensely strained to catch the faintest noise, in momentary
expectation of the unearthly war-whoop and of seeing dusky forms with
gleaming tomahawks uplifted. In the moonlight mirage of the prairies,
every taller clump of grass, every blacker hillock grew into a blood
thirsty Indian, just ready to leap upon them. But, by faith, they were
able to sing in holy confidence:
"God is our refuge and our strength;
In straits a present aid;
Therefore although the hills remove
We will not be afraid."
And the God, in whom they trusted, fulfilled his promises to them and
brought them all, in safety, to the Twin Cities. And as they passed the
boundary line of safety, every heart joined in the glad-song of praise
and thanksgiving, which went up to heaven. "Jehovah has triumphed, His
people are free," seemed to ring through the air.
Little Crow, the chieftain of the Kaposia Band was the acknowledged
leader of the Indian forces in this uprising. He was forty years of
age, possessed of considerable military ability; wise in council and
brave on the field of battle. He had wrought, in secret, with his
fellow-tribesmen, until he had succeeded in the formation of the
greatest combination of the Indians against the whites since the days
of Tecumseh and the Prophet in the Ohio country, fifty years before. He
had under his control a large force of Indian warriors armed with
Winchesters; and on the morning of the battle, he mustered on the hills
around New Ulm, the largest body of Indian cavalry ever gathered
together in America.
[Illustration: MINNEHAHA FALLS.]
[Illustration: PERILS BY THE HEATHEN
Missionaries fleeing from Indian massacre in 1862.
Thursday morning of that terrible week, after an all-night's rain,
found them all cold, wet through and utterly destitute of cooked food
and fuel. That noon they came to a clump of trees and camped down on
the wet prairies for the rest of the day. They killed a stray cow and
made some bread out of flour, salt and water. An artist, one of the
company, took the pictures here given.]
The whites arose in their might and, under the leadership of that
gallant general, Henry H. Sibley, gave battle to their savage foes.
Then followed weeks of fierce and bloody warfare. It was no child's
play. On the one side were arrayed the fierce warriors of the Sioux
nation, fighting for their ancestral homes, their ancient hunting
grounds, their deer-parks and the graves of their ancestors. "We
_must_ drive the white man east of the Mississippi," was the
declaration of Little Crow, and he added the savage boast; "We will
establish our winter-quarters in St. Paul and Minneapolis." Over
against them, were the brave pioneers of Minnesota, battling for the
existence of their beloved state, for their homes, and for the lives
and honor of their wives and daughters. The thrilling history of the
siege of New Ulm, of the battle of Birch Coullie, of Fort Ridgely and
Fort Abercrombie, and of other scenes of conflict is written in the
mingled blood of the white man, and of the red man on the beautiful
plains of western Minnesota. The inevitable result ensued. The Sioux
were defeated, large numbers were slain in battle or captured, and in
despair, the others fled to the then uninhabited regions beyond the Red
River of the North. Many of these found refuge under the British flag
in Prince Rupert's Land (now Manitoba).
One of the redeeming features in this terrible tragedy of '62, was the
unflinching loyalty of the Christian Sioux to the cause of peace. They
stood firmly together against the war-party and for the whites. They
abandoned their homes and pitched their teepees closely together. This
became the rallying point for all who were opposed to the outbreak.
They called it Camp Hope, which was changed after the flight of Little
Crow's savage band to Camp Lookout. Two days later, when General
Sibley's victorious troops arrived, it was named Camp Release. Then it
was that the captives, more than three hundred in number were released,
chiefly through the efforts of the Christianized Indians.
In 1902, at the celebration of the fortieth anniversary of the battle
of New Ulm, by invitation of the citizens, a band of Sioux Indians
pitched their teepees in the public square and participated in the
exercises of the occasion. This was a striking illustration of the
amity now existing between the two races upon the very ground, where
their immediate ancestors so eagerly sought each other's life-blood, in
the recent past. Here on the morn of battle, on the surrounding hills,
in the long ago, Little Crow had marshalled his fierce warriors, who
rushed eagerly in savage glee, again and again, to the determined
assault, only to be driven back, by the brave Anglo-Saxon defenders.
Tablets, scattered here and there over the plains, in the valley of the
Minnesota River, tell the story of the Sioux nation, in the new
Northwest.
John Baptiste Renville, a licentiate of the Presbyterian church, and
who later was a famous preacher of great power among his own people,
remained inside of the Indian lines, and was a powerful factor in
causing the counter revolution which hastened the overthrow of the
rebellion, and the deliverance of the white captives. Elder Peter Big
Fire turned the war party from the trail of the fleeing missionaries
and their friends, thus saving two-score lives. One Indian alone, John
Other-Day, saved the lives of sixty-two whites. One elder of the
church, Simon Anakwangnanne, restored a captive white woman and three
children. And still another, Paul Mintakutemanne, rescued a white woman
and several children and a whole family of half-breeds. These truly
"good Indians" saved the lives of more than their own number of
whites,--probably two hundred souls in all.
In token of her appreciation of these invaluable services, Minnesota
has caused a monument to be erected in honor of these real braves, on
the very plains, then swept by the Sioux with fire and blood, in their
savage wrath.
It is located on the battlefield of Birch Coullie, near Morton in
Renville County. The cenotaph is built entirely of native stone of
different varieties. It rises to the height of fifty-eight feet above
the beautiful prairies by which it is surrounded. It bears this
appropriate inscription
HUMANITY.
Erected A.D. 1899, by the Minnesota Valley Historical Society
to commemorate the brave, faithful and humane conduct of the
loyal Indians who saved the lives of white people and were true
to their obligations throughout the Sioux war in Minnesota in
1862, and especially to honor the services of those here named:
Other Day--Ampatutoricna.
Paul--Mintakutemanne.
Lorenzo Lawrence--Towanctaton.
Simon--Anakwangnanne.
Mary Crooks--Mankahta Heita-win.