THE HISTORY AND OUTLOOK OF THE INDIAN WORK TRANSFERRED TO THE A. M. A.
PROF. ALFRED L. RIGGS.
Just fifty years ago two Congregational young men from Connecticut, the Messrs. Samuel and Gideon Pond, pressed on into the heart of the then unknown continent to see what they could do for the Indian. They landed at Fort Snelling, in what is now Minnesota, and began their volunteer mission among an Eastern branch of the Dakota or Sioux nation.
One year later the American Board sent out the Rev. Dr. Williamson on a tour of exploration, and the next year after that a mission was regularly established. The organized work gathered in the volunteers, and, moreover, according to the fashion of the times, Congregational relations disappeared and work was started on the Presbyterian basis.
For years it was a slow, hard lift against the weight of heathenism and pride of race. Nowhere is race pride stronger than among the Indians. As is often the case, those who have least to be proud of vaunt themselves the most. So, while the Indian has to acknowledge that the white man is possessor of gifts that class him with the gods (the Dakota name for white man being the same as that he applies to his gods), and thus for the sake of his mysterious power he fears him, yet personally he despises him as different from himself and effeminate.
And heathenism! Some would have us believe that it did not exist; that the Indian naturally was as good a Christian as need be. The courtesy of the Indian perhaps leads to this deceptive view. He will assent to everything you say rather than be so impolite as to contradict you. Then, too, his pantheism easily makes room for another god. So the white man’s god soon had his banner set up at their sacred rites together with the Stone god, the Day god, the Night god, the Thunder god, and the god of the North.
But when Christ claims the whole of their worship, and belief in him is seen to require the giving up of their other faiths, and the casting away of their charms and incantations, then the antagonism of the unregenerate heart breaks out here as everywhere. And the magicians and “medicine men” are stirred up to bitter and unremitting warfare as soon as they discover that their craft is in danger.
As if here were not enough obstacles to meet, there comes in the opposition begotten of the selfishness and dissoluteness of unprincipled white men. For years the fur trade was almost as much the enemy of missions as was the slave trade. The agents of this great enterprise were bound to keep the Indians hunters and trappers in order that their warehouses might be filled with furs. The fur trade also controlled the government, and even to-day its power is felt through laws made then for its benefit and that yet remain on the statute book. Hence in its day the fur trade was a foe to be dreaded, for it could exert its power in a thousand secret ways. It could break up schools, scare people away from religious meetings, and put a ban on the Christian teacher, if content to leave him alive.
After thirty years of patient labor the reward seemed about to come. Christianity was proving its power to disintegrate heathenism, break down prejudice and survive the enmity of unprincipled white men.
Then the outbreak and massacres of 1862 occurred, seemingly sweeping everything away. It was the death-struggle of heathenism, alarmed at the steady advance of Christianity. Other political causes and conditions merely made this outbreak possible. And yet what seemed annihilation was only multiplication and dissemination. Again was fulfilled the Scripture: “They that were scattered abroad went preaching the word.” And the conversion in the military prisons of hundreds as it were in a day, is one of the notable instances of the power of God’s spirit.
Twenty years ago the field of Christian missions among the Dakotas was confined to a small section of the nation then dwelling in a corner of Minnesota. But now the field extends over the great Missouri valley and on northward toward the Saskatchawan in the British Possessions.
The work whose beginnings we have noted, originally one under the American Board, has since been divided. In 1871, at the time of the general division of the missions of the American Board, that part of the Dakota Mission immediately under the charge of the venerable Dr. Williamson and his son, Rev. John P. Williamson, was transferred to the care of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions. But the larger portion remained with the other veteran of the mission, Rev. Stephen B. Riggs, under the care of the American Board. And now with the year 1883 another transfer is made to the American Missionary Association. But the five native churches, with a membership of 340, that had meanwhile grown up about Sisseton Agency are graduated from foreign missions into a home mission connection, and so naturally pass under the care of the Presbyterian Home Mission Board. It is not within the scope of this short article to speak of the work accomplished by the Episcopal Mission in the same field, which had its beginning about thirty years later than the original Dakota Mission, and in recent years has had very considerable success. Nor can we speak particularly of the portion of our great field lying across the British line, for though we have furnished the native laborers it is not organically connected with us. But as for the rest of the original mission, even though divided, it works as one. It has one General Conference, and in all its publications and matters of common concern acts as one mission still.
The statistics of the Dakota Mission, as thus defined, show 7 stations, 6 ordained missionaries, 26 assistant missionaries, 13 churches, 12 native pastors and preachers, 9 native teachers, and 847 church members, contributing during the past year $779.83 for their own missions among the heathen Indians, and $1,080.58 for pastoral support and church expenses.
Of this there now passes directly to the care of the American Missionary Association 5 stations, with also an interest in the Native Missionary field at Devil’s Lake, 4 ordained missionaries, 21 assistant missionaries, 2 churches, Pilgrim Church at Santee and Shiloh Church at the Sully Station, with 8 native preachers, 5 native teachers, and a church membership of 194.
As has been noticed, the organization of the work from the first has been on the Presbyterian model, and thus the fruits of the mission have mostly gone into the Presbyterian connection. The church at the Fort Sully Station was an exception. It was organized as a Congregational church. Nevertheless, this Presbyterian cast, this whole native force, is to be considered as one, and will be used by whichever denomination is ready to prosecute the work most vigorously, for the denominationalism of these churches is not of a radical type, as is instanced by the recent change of ecclesiastical relations on the part of the Pilgrim Church at Santee. This is the original mother church, but in order to come into closer and more sympathetic relations with the churches that support the Santee Training School, it voted cheerfully and almost unanimously to leave Presbytery and become Congregational. Indeed this is not hard for them to do, for Indians are naturally very democratic.
In the work that may now be done for this people, Santee Normal Training School must be an important factor. It has vital relation to all these native churches, and it has a name among the heathen communities. Its growth has been slow, for it has taken time and work to instil the idea of a higher education into the minds of the people. Henceforth its growth might be rapid. It now has one hundred and one pupils in attendance, with seventeen instructors, including those in charge of the industrial and boarding departments. This winter a number of pupils have been turned away for lack of room. If accommodations could be provided, the number of pupils might soon be doubled.
While giving great attention to industrial training, it affords unparalleled advantages for that training which is needed to make teachers suited to Indian schools.
The school is the basis of evangelizing the Indian. There will be no large audiences to preach to, except on exceptional occasions, until the school has gathered a company of disciples. Certain persons not understanding the nature of missionary work, or unable to take more than a superficial view, have recently represented our schools as of low grade, and unnecessary to real missionary work. But this is contradicted by the grand progress of the work.
We have spoken of five mission stations as now passing under the care of the A. M. A. But of these Standing Rock is hardly opened, and Berthold and Sully stations are sadly in need of reinforcements. And there are the large Indian Agencies of Spotted Tail’s and Red Cloud’s tribes, numbering about 7,000 each, which we ought to occupy. Then there is the Crow country in Montana, next door to our Berthold Mission. We should have at once six ordained missionaries and their wives, with as many more assistant missionaries, all picked men. This would enable us to manage a yet larger number of native missionary teachers working along with them.
SISSETON GIRLS, WITH TEACHER.
The tribes speaking the Dakota language are the most numerous of any Indian people upon the continent. They are now universally open to Christianity and Christian civilization. They now look to Christian people for their future. Within the last ten or twelve years the whole temper of their mind has changed. The noted chief, Sitting Bull, is an illustration. Only a few years ago he hated the very wind that blew from the direction of the white man’s country. When the wind blew from the east he would send out the town crier to say, “Get you all into your teepees. This is bad air from the white man’s country.” But when it blew from the north his crier would proclaim, “Come out and breathe the healthy air.” And once when a woman of the tribe brought home a “rooster” from a distant trading post to enliven the tedium of her labor, Sitting Bull heard it crow and instantly dispatched his chief soldier to “soldier kill” the woman, that is, cut up her tent and kill her horses, for the crime of having that white man’s bird in the sacred precincts of a Dakota camp. But now the same Sitting Bull is petitioning for Christian teachers, and land, and domestic animals, and undoubtedly would also welcome “the-bird-that-crows-in-the-morning.”