Minnesota. Folwell William Watts
to be held in the summer of 1825 at Prairie du Chien. That convocation was held, with many spectacular incidents, and a variety of adjustments were consummated. In particular it was agreed between the Sioux and Chippeway nations that their lands should be separated by a line to be drawn and marked by the white man’s science. That line, when tardily staked out ten years later, started from a point in the Red River of the North near Georgetown, passed east of Fergus Falls and west of Alexandria, crossed the Mississippi between St. Cloud and Sauk Rapids, and went on in a general southeast direction to the St. Croix, which it struck not far from Marine. The savages paid little respect to this air line, but went on with their accustomed raids. Within a year there was a bloody encounter in sight of the agent’s office. A single example of these savage frays may be given to illustrate their recurrence in series.
In April, 1838, a party of Sioux hunting in the valley of the Chippeway River (of Minnesota) left a party of three lodges in camp near Benson, Swift County. Hole-in-the-day, the Chippeway chief from Gull River, with nine followers, came upon this camp, and professing himself peaceable was hospitably treated. In the night following he and his men rose silently, and upon a given signal shot eleven of the Sioux to death. One woman and a wounded boy escaped.
In August of the same year Hole-in-the-day, with a small party, was at Fort Snelling. His arrival becoming known to neighboring Sioux, two or three relatives of the victims of the April slaughter waylaid him near the Baker trading-house, and opened fire. Hole-in-the-day escaped, but the warrior with whom he had changed clothes was killed.
In June of the following year a large party of Chippeways from the upper Mississippi, from Mille Lacs and the St. Croix valley, assembled at Fort Snelling. For some days they were feasted and entertained by the resident Sioux, and agent Taliaferro got them started homewards. Two Chippeway warriors, related to the tribesmen killed by the Sioux the previous summer, remained behind, and went into hiding near the large Sioux village on Lake Calhoun. At daybreak, Nika (the badger), a warrior much respected, was shot in his tracks as he was going out to hunt, and the assassins made their escape. As the Sioux could easily surmise that they belonged to Hole-in-the-day’s band, they decided not to retaliate on it, because they would be watched for. Two war-parties were immediately formed, the one to follow the Mille Lacs band, the other that from the St. Croix. It was lawful to retaliate on any Chippeways. The Mille Lacs Indians were overtaken in their bivouacs on the Rum River at daylight on July 4. Waiting until the hunters had gone forward, the Sioux fired on the women, children, and old men, and harvested some seventy scalps, but they lost more warriors in the action than the Chippeways. The war-dance of the exulting Sioux went on for a month on the site of Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis. Little Crow and his Kaposia band gave their attention to the St. Croix Chippeways, who returned, as they had come, by canoe down the Mississippi and up the St. Croix. Little Crow marched overland and got into position at Stillwater, where he lay in ambush for the retreating foe, who he knew would bivouac on the low ground near the site of the Minnesota state prison. A daybreak assault killed twenty-five of the Chippeways, but they made so good a defense that the Sioux were glad to retire. The mortality in the so-called “battles” of Rum River and Stillwater was exceptionally great.
In the middle of the period now in view, a new influence, not heartily welcomed by the traders, came over the Minnesota Indians, – that of the missionaries, mostly Protestant. The first efforts at evangelization were made for the Chippeways and probably at the instance of Robert Stuart, the principal agent of the American Fur Company at Mackinaw, an ardent Scotch Presbyterian. In 1823 a boarding-school was opened at that place and flourished for some years. In 1830 a mission was opened at La Pointe, Wisconsin, on the spot occupied by the Jesuit fathers one hundred and fifty years before. From this place as a centre mission work was extended into Minnesota. In 1833 the Rev. W. T. Boutwell proceeded to Leech Lake, built a log cabin, and began work. The Rev. Frederick Ayer opened a school at Yellow Lake, on the Wisconsin side of the St. Croix, and the Rev. E. E. Ely began teaching at Sandy Lake. Three years later all of these were removed for more concentrated, coöperative effort to Lake Pokegama in Pine County. This mission was carried on with much promise for five years, when it was interrupted by a descent of a large war-party of Sioux led by Little Crow. Among the killed were two young girls, pupils of the mission school. The Chippeways abandoned the place for homes farther from the danger line, and this mission came to an end. The Chippeways had their revenge a year later (1842), when they came down to the near neighborhood of St. Paul and got in the so-called battle of Kaposia the scalps of thirteen Sioux warriors, two women, and a child.
The missions to the Sioux were begun in the spring of 1834 by two young laymen from Connecticut, who appeared at Fort Snelling without credentials from any synod or conference, but with abundant faith and zeal. They were brothers, Samuel William and Godwin Hollister Pond, then twenty-six and twenty-four years of age respectively. Although they had entered the Indian country without leave or license, they secured at once the confidence of Agent Taliaferro and Major Bliss, commander of Fort Snelling. With their own hands they built a log cabin on the east shore of Lake Calhoun, on the edge of Cloudman’s village. That chief selected the site. Established in this “comfortable home,” they devoted themselves to learning the Dakota language. Within a few weeks they adapted the Roman letters to that language with such skill that the “Pond alphabet” has with slight modification been ever since used in writing and printing it. A Dakota child can begin to read as soon as it has “learned its letters.” The zealous brothers made the first collections for the dictionary, later enlarged by others, prepared a spelling-book, and formulated a rude grammar. Mr. Sibley, who came in the fall of the same year, became a warm friend of the Ponds.
The next missionary effort was by appointees of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, best known by the short title “American Board.” These were the Rev. Thomas S. Williamson, missionary and physician; the Rev. Jedediah D. Stevens, missionary; Alexander Huggins, farmer; their wives, and two lady teachers. These arrived at Fort Snelling in May, 1835. Mr. Stevens, who had made a tour of exploration in the country six years before, at once established himself on the northwest margin of Lake Harriet, now in the city of Minneapolis. He built two considerable log houses near the site of the street railroad station, in one of which he opened a school. The nucleus was a number of half-breed daughters of traders and military men, some of whom became highly respected Minnesota women. This school, however, was not the first in Minnesota, if the collection of Indian boys and men gathered by Major Taliaferro on the east bank of Lake Calhoun in 1829, and put to learning the art and mystery of agriculture, may be called a school. Philander Prescott was the teacher, and his pupils numbered twelve; the next year he had one hundred and twenty-five “different scholars.” Within a few days after the arrival of these missionaries a Presbyterian church was organized at Fort Snelling, June 11, the first in Minnesota, with the Rev. Mr. Stevens in charge.
The American Fur Company had an important stockaded post on Lac qui Parle in Chippeway County. The trader there was Joseph Renville, who had been captain in the British frontier service in the War of 1812. He had married a woman of the Sioux by Christian rite, and had a large family growing up. Although Catholic by birth and education, he invited Dr. Williamson to come and establish his mission near him, so that his children might be taught. The mission at Lac qui Parle was thus promptly opened. Dr. Williamson has recorded that this school, begun in his house in July, was the first in Minnesota outside of Fort Snelling. It was continued for many years by his sister, Miss Jane Williamson, who perhaps rendered more lasting service than any of the noble band to which she belonged. After some two years’ study of the Dakota language Dr. Williamson set about what became his life work, the translation of the Holy Scriptures into that tongue. The Rev. Stephen Return Riggs joined the Lac qui Parle mission in 1837, after having studied the Dakota under Samuel Pond. He soon became expert, prepared text-books for the schools, and later edited the Dakota dictionary and grammar, to which all the Sioux missionaries contributed. Mission work begun in 1837 at Kaposia (now South St. Paul) by Methodist preachers, and at Red Wing in 1839 by Swiss Presbyterian evangelists, however praiseworthy for intention, was too early abandoned to have permanent results. Equally transient was the ministration of the Catholic father Ravoux, at Lac qui Parle and Chaska, in 1842. The missions of the American Board to the Minnesota Sioux were maintained until that nation was removed to the Missouri in 1863. The results were sufficient to encourage persistence, in hope of future success, but the great body of the Indians was not