Mary and I: Forty Years with the Sioux

by Stephen Return Riggs

By such words, the four thousand Upper Sioux were encouraged to expect great things. Accordingly, the Sissetons from Lake Traverse came down in the autumn, when the promised goods should have been there, but low water in the Minnesota and Mississippi delayed their arrival. The Indians waited, and had to be fed by Agent Galbraith. And when the goods came the deep snows had come also, and the season for hunting was past. Moreover, the great gift was only $10,000 worth of goods, or $2.50 apiece! While they had waited many of the men could have earned from $50 to $100 by hunting. It was a terrible mistake of the government at Washington. The result was that of the Upper Sioux the agent was obliged to feed more than a thousand persons all winter.

The Lower Sioux were suspicious of the matter, and refused to receive their ten thousand dollars’ worth of goods until they could know whence it came. By and by the Democrats in the country learned that the administration had determined on changing the money annuity into goods, and had actually commenced the operation, sending on the year before $20,000 of the $70,000 which would be due next summer. The knowledge of this planning of bad faith in the government greatly exasperated the annuity Indians, and was undoubtedly the primal cause which brought on the outbreak of the next summer. Men who were opposed to the Republican administration and the Southern war had now a grand opportunity to work upon the fears and the hopes of the Indians, and make them badly affected toward the government. And they seemed to have carried it a little too far, so that when the conflict came it was most disastrous for them.

As the summer of 1862 came on, the Washington government recognized their mistake, and sought to rectify it by replacing the $20,000 which had been taken from the money of the July payment. But to do this they were obliged to await a new appropriation, and this delayed the bringing on of the money full six weeks beyond the regular time of payment. If the money had been on hand the first of July, instead of reaching Fort Ridgely after the outbreak commenced, one can not say but that the Sioux war would have been prevented.

About the first of July, I returned from Ohio, whither I had been to attend the General Assembly in Cincinnati, and to bring home Martha Taylor, who had just completed the course at College Hill. After the fire at Oxford, she had accepted Rev. F. Y. Vail’s invitation to go to his institution near Cincinnati. There she remained until the end of the year. Then Isabella and Anna went on—the latter going to Mr. Vail’s seminary, and the former attending the senior class of the Western Female Seminary, under a special arrangement, before the seminary was rebuilt. So that now both the older girls had completed the course.

On our return this time, we had with us Marion Robertson, a young woman with a little Dakota blood, who had been spending some time in Ohio, and who was affianced to a Mr. Hunter, a government carpenter at the Lower Sioux agency. By arrangement Mr. Hunter met us in St. Paul, and I married them one evening, in the parlors of the Merchant’s Hotel. Six or seven weeks after this, Mr. Hunter was killed in the outbreak.

At that marriage in the hotel were present D. Wilson Moore and his bride from Fisslerville, New Jersey, near Philadelphia. Mr. Moore was of the firm of Moore Brothers (engaged extensively in glass-manufacturing), had just married a young bride, and they had come to Minnesota on their wedding trip. We had reached home only a few days before, when, to our surprise, Mr. Moore and his wife drove up to our mission. They had heard that the Indian payment was soon to be made, and so had come up; but, not finding accommodations at the agency, they came on to see if we would not take them in. We had a large family, but if they would be satisfied with our fare, and take care of themselves, Mary would do the best she could for them. This will account for the way in which Mrs. Moore lost all her silk dresses.

The whole four thousand Indians were now gathered at the Yellow Medicine. The Sissetons of Lake Traverse had hoed their corn and come down. It was the regular time for receiving their annuities, before the corn needed watching. But the annuity money had not come. The agent did not know when it would come. He had not sent for them and he could not feed them—he had barely enough provisions to keep them while the payment was being made. The truth was, he had used up the provisions on them in the previous winter. So he told them he would give them some flour and pork, and then they must go home and wait until he called them. They took the provisions, but about going home they could not see it in that way. It was a hundred miles up to their planting-place, and to trudge up there and back, with little or nothing to eat, and carry their tents and baggage and children on horse-back and on dog-back and on woman-back, was more than they cared to do. Besides, there was nothing for them to eat at home. They must go out on the buffalo hunt, and then they might miss their money. And so they preferred to stay, and beg and steal, or starve.

But stealing and begging furnished but a very scanty fare, and starving was not pleasant. The young men talked the matter over, and concluded that the flour and pork in the warehouse belonged to them, and there could not be much wrong in their taking it. And so one day they marched up to the storehouse with axes in hand, and battered down the door. They had commenced to carry out the flour when the lieutenant with ten soldiers turned the howitzer upon them. This led them to desist, for the Dakotas were unarmed. But they were greatly enraged, and threatened to bring their guns and kill the little squad of white soldiers. And what made this seem more likely, the Sioux tents were at once struck and the camp removed off several miles. Agent Galbraith sent up word that he wanted help. And when Mr. Moore and I drove down, he said, “If there is anything between the lids of the Bible that will meet this case, I wish you would use it.” I told him I thought there was; and advised him to call a council of the principal men and talk the thing over. Whereupon I went to the tent of Standing Buffalo, the head chief of the Sissetons, and arranged for a council that afternoon.

The chiefs and braves gathered. The young men who had broken the door down were there. The Indians argued that they were starving, and that the flour and pork in the warehouse had been purchased with their money. It was wrong to break in the door, but now they would authorize the agent to take of their money and repair the door. Whereupon the agent agreed to give them some provisions, and insisted on their going home, which they promised to do. The Sissetons left on the morrow, and so far as they were concerned the difficulty was over; for on reaching home they started on a buffalo hunt. Peace and quiet now reigned at the Yellow Medicine. Mr. Moore occupied himself in shooting pigeons, and we all became quite attached to Mrs. Moore and himself.