Mary and I: Forty Years with the Sioux. Stephen Return Riggs
it on that first day of June, 1837. On our landing we became the guests of Lieutenant Ogden and his excellent wife, who was the daughter of Major Loomis. To Mary and me, every thing was new and strange. We knew nothing of military life. But our sojourn of a few days was made pleasant and profitable by the Christian sympathy which met us there—the evidence of the Spirit’s presence, which, two years before, had culminated in the organization of a Christian church in the garrison, on the arrival of the first missionaries to the Dakotas.
The Falls of St. Anthony and the beautiful Minnehaha have now become historic, and Minnetonka has become a place of summer resort. But forty years ago it was only now and then that the eyes of a white man, and still more rarely the eyes of a white woman, looked upon the Falls of Curling Water;[2] and scarcely any one knew that the water in Little Falls Creek came from Minnetonka Lake. But nearer by were the beautiful lakes Calhoun and Harriet. On the first of these was the Dakota Village, of which Claudman and Drifter were then the chiefs; and on whose banks the brothers Pond had erected the first white man’s cabin; and on the north bank of the latter was a mission station of the American Board, commenced two years before by Rev. Jedediah D. Stevens.
[2] Minnehaha means “Curling Water,” not “Laughing Water,” as many suppose.
Here we were in daily contact with the Dakota men, women, and children. Here we began to listen to the strange sounds of the Dakota tongue; and here we made our first laughable efforts in speaking the language.
We were fortunate in meeting here Rev. Samuel W. Pond, the older of the brothers, who had come out from Connecticut three years previous, and, in advance of all others, had erected their missionary cabin on the margin of Lake Calhoun. Mr. Pond’s knowledge of Dakota was quite a help to us, who were just commencing to learn it. Before we left the States, it had been impressed upon us by Secretary David Greene that whether we were successful missionaries or not depended much on our acquiring a free use of the language. And the teaching of my own experience and observation is that if one fails to make a pretty good start the first year in its acquisition, it will be a rare thing if he ever masters the language. And so, obedient to our instructions, we made it our first work to get our ears opened to the strange sounds, and our tongues made cunning for their utterance. Oftentimes we laughed at our own blunders, as when I told Mary, one day, that pish was the Dakota for fish. A Dakota boy had been trying to speak the English word. Mr. Stevens had gathered, from various sources, a vocabulary of five or six hundred words. This formed the commencement of the growth of the Dakota Grammar and Dictionary which I published fifteen years afterward.
Mr. and Mrs. Stevens were from Central New York, and were engaged as early as 1827 in missionary labors on the Island of Mackinaw. In 1829, Mr. Stevens and Rev. Mr. Coe made a tour of exploration through the wilds of Northern Wisconsin, coming as far as Fort Snelling. For several years thereafter, Mr. Stevens was connected with the Stockbridge mission on Fox Lake; and in the summer of 1835 he had commenced this station at Lake Harriet. At the time of our arrival he had made things look quite civilized. He had built two houses of tamarack logs, the larger of which his own family occupied; the lower part of the other was used for the school and religious meetings. Half a dozen boarding scholars, chiefly half-breed girls, formed the nucleus of the school, which was taught by his niece, Miss Lucy C. Stevens, who was afterward married to Rev. Daniel Gavan, of the Swiss mission to the Dakotas.
As the mission family was already quite large enough for comfort, Mary and I, not wishing to add to any one’s burdens, undertook to make ourselves comfortable in a part of the school-building. Our stay there was to be only temporary, and hence it was only needful that we take care of ourselves, and give such occasional help in the way of English preaching and otherwise as we could. The Dakotas did not yet care to hear the gospel. The Messrs. Pond had succeeded in teaching one young man to read and write, and occasionally a few could be induced to come and listen to the good news. It was seed-sowing time. Many seeds fell by the wayside or on the hard path of sin. Most fell among thorns. But some found good ground, and, lying dormant a full quarter of a century, then sprang up and fruited in the prison at Mankato. Also of the girls in that first Dakota boarding-school quite a good proportion became Christian women and the mothers of Christian families.
But the mission at Lake Harriet was not to continue long. In less than two years from the time we were there, two Ojibwa young men avenged the killing of their father by waylaying and killing a prominent man of the Lake Calhoun Village. A thousand Ojibwas had just left Fort Snelling to return to their homes by way of Lake St. Croix and the Rum River. Both parties were followed by the Sioux, and terrible slaughter ensued. But the result of their splendid victory was that the Lake Calhoun people were afraid to live there any longer, and so they abandoned their village and plantings and settled on the banks of the Minnesota.
During our three months’ stay at Lake Harriet, every thing we saw and heard was fresh and interesting, and Mary could not help telling of them to her friends in Hawley. The grandfather was ninety years old, to whom she thus wrote:—
“Lake Harriet, June 22, 1837.
“We are now on missionary ground, and are surrounded by those dark people of whom we often talked at your fireside last winter. I doubt not you will still think and talk about them, and pray for them also. And surely your grandchildren will not be forgotten.
“We reached this station two weeks since, after enjoying Lieutenant Ogden’s hospitality a few days, and were kindly welcomed by Mr. Stevens’ family, with whom we remain until a house, now occupied by the school, can be prepared, so that we can live in a part of it. Then we shall feel still more at home, though I hope our rude habitation will remind us that we are pilgrims on our way to a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
“The situation of the mission houses is very beautiful—on a little eminence, just upon the shore of a lovely lake skirted with trees. About a mile north of us is Lake Calhoun, on the margin of which is an Indian village of about twenty lodges. Most of these are bark houses, some of which are twenty feet square, and others are tents, of skin or cloth. Several days since I walked over to the village, and called at the house of one of the chiefs. He was not at home, but his daughters smiled very good-naturedly upon us. We seated ourselves on a frame extending on three sides of the house, covered with skins, which was all the bed, sofa, and chairs they had.
“Since our visit at the village, two old chiefs have called upon us. One said, this was a very bad country—ours was a good country—we had left a good country, and come to live in his bad country, and he was glad. The other called on Sabbath evening, when Mr. Riggs was at the Fort, where he preaches occasionally. He inquired politely how I liked the country, and said it was bad. What could a courtier have said more?
“The Indians come here at all hours of the day without ceremony, sometimes dressed and painted very fantastically, and again with scarcely any clothing. One came in yesterday dressed in a coat, calico shirt, and cloth leggins, the only one I have seen with a coat, excepting two boys who were in the family when we came. The most singular ornament I have seen was a large striped snake, fastened among the painted hair, feathers, and ribbons of an Indian’s head-dress, in such a manner that it could coil round in front and dart out its snake head, or creep down upon the back at pleasure. During this the Indian sat perfectly at ease, apparently much pleased at the astonishment and fear manifested by some of the family.”
“June 26.
“Yesterday Mr. Riggs and myself commemorated a Saviour’s love for the first time on missionary ground. The season was one of precious interest, sitting down at Jesus’ table with a little band of brothers and sisters, one of whom was a Chippewa convert, who accompanied Mr. Ayer from Pokeguma. One of the Methodist missionaries, Mr. King, with a colored man, and the members of the church from the Fort and the mission, completed our band of fifteen. Two of these were received on this occasion. Several Sioux were present, and gazed on the strange scene before them. A medicine man, Howashta by name, was present, with a long pole in his hand, having his head decked