Mary and I: Forty Years with the Sioux

by Stephen Return Riggs

Mary and the children were comfortably housed. Mrs. Sophronia McKee, the wife of the Presbyterian clergyman, had been a fellow-townswoman and special friend of Mary in their younger years. This was a guarantee of help in this time of need. They found friends. Donations of little things to help them commence housekeeping came in from interested hearts. Friends farther away sent boxes of clothing and in some cases money; so that after more than two months I found them in comfortable circumstances.

All along the line of the frontier, where the Sioux raids had been made, were many families who had returned to desolated homes. Many persons all over the country took a deep interest in this class of sufferers, and money contributions were made for their relief. The Friends in Indiana and elsewhere had placed their contributions in the hands of Friend W. W. Wales of St. Anthony. Here was a service in which I could engage, and find relief from the strain of the campaign and the condemnations. Accordingly, I undertook to hunt up needy families in the neighborhood of Glencoe and Hutchinson, and to dispense a few hundred dollars of this benevolent fund. One day, as I was traveling in my one-horse buggy over the snow between Glencoe and Hutchinson, I was overtaken by a messenger from General Sibley, asking me to report to Colonel Miller, who was in command of the prison at Mankato, to be present and give assistance at the time of the executions.

As a matter of duty, I obeyed. From my youth up, it had been a determination of mine never to go to see a fellow-being hanged. No curiosity could have taken me. Rather would I have gone the other way. But, if I could be of service to Indian or white man, in preventing mistakes and furthering the ends of justice and righteousness, my own feelings should be held in abeyance and made to work in the line of duty.

On receiving the papers transmitted from the military commission, President Lincoln had placed them in the hands of impartial men, with instructions to report the cases which, according to the testimony, were convicted of participation in individual murders or in violating white women. Acting under these instructions, thirty-nine cases were reported, and these were ordered by the President to be executed. But among so many it was a matter of much difficulty to identify all the cases. Among the condemned there were several persons of the same name—three or four Chaskays, two or three Washechoons. In the findings of the commission they were all numbered, and the order for the executions was given in accordance with these numbers. But no one could remember which number attached to which person. The only certain way of avoiding mistakes was by examining closely the individual charges. To Joseph R. Brown, who better than any other man knew all these condemned men,—and he did not recognize all perfectly,—was mainly committed the work of selecting those who were named to be executed. Extraordinary care was meant to be used; but after it was all over, when we came to compare their own stories and confessions, made a day or two before their death, with the papers of condemnation, the conviction was forced upon us that two mistakes had occurred.

The separation was effected on Monday morning, the men to be executed being taken from the log jail, in which all were confined, to an adjoining stone building, where they were additionally secured by being chained to the floor. Colonel Miller then informed them of the order of the President that they should be hanged on the Thursday following, and they were advised to prepare themselves for that event. They were at liberty to select such spiritual counsel as they desired. Dr. Williamson was there as a Protestant minister, and Father Ravaux of St. Paul as a Catholic priest. They were advised not to select me, as I was acting interpreter for the government. More than three-fourths of the whole number selected Mr. Ravaux. This was accounted for by the fact that one of the Campbells, a half-breed and a Roman Catholic, was of the number. Some days before this, Dr. Williamson had baptized Round Wind, who was reprieved by an order from the President, which came only a day or so before the executions, reducing the number to thirty-eight.

Of this man Round Wind it is sufficient to say that he was condemned on the testimony of a German boy, who affirmed that he was the man who killed his mother. But it was afterward shown, by abundance of testimony, that Round Wind was not there.

As the time of their death approached, they manifested a desire, each one, to say some things to their Dakota friends, and also to the white people. I acceded to their request, and spent a whole day with them, writing down such things as they wished to say. Many of them, the most of them, took occasion to affirm their innocence of the charges laid against them of killing individuals. But they admitted, and said of their own accord, that so many white people had been killed by the Dakotas that public and general justice required the death of some in return. This admission was in the line of their education. Perhaps it is not too much to call it an instinct of humanity.

The executions took place. Arrangements were made by which thirty-eight Dakota men were suspended in mid-air by the cutting of one rope. The other prisoners, through crevices in the walls of their log prison-house, saw them hanged. And they were deeply affected by it, albeit they did not show their feelings as white men would have done under like circumstances.

At the close of the week, Dr. Williamson, finding himself quite worn out with abundant labors, returned to St. Peter to rest in his family. The Sabbath morning came. The night before, a fresh snow had fallen nearly a foot deep. Colonel Miller thought it was only humane to let the prisoners go out into the yard on that day, to breathe the fresh air. And so it was we gathered in the middle of that enclosure, and all that company of chained men stood while we sang hymns and prayed and talked of God’s plan of saving men from death. To say that they listened with attention and interest would not convey the whole truth. Evidently, their fears were thoroughly aroused, and they were eager to find out some way by which the death they apprehended could be averted. This was their attitude. It was a good time to talk to them of sin—to tell them of their sins. It was a good time to unfold to them God’s plan of saving from sin—to tell them God’s own son, Jesus Christ our Lord, died to save them from their sins, if they would only believe. A marvelous work of grace was already commencing in the prison.

The next day after the Sabbath I left Mankato, and returned to my family in St. Anthony, where I spent the remaining part of the winter, partly in preparing school-books, for which there arose a sudden demand, and all we had on hands were destroyed in the outbreak; and partly in helping on the spiritual and educational work in the camp at Fort Snelling. But Dr. Williamson, living as he did in St. Peter, gave his time during the winter to teaching and preaching to the men in the prison. Immediately on their reaching Mankato, he and his sister came up to visit them, and were glad to find them ready to listen.