Mary and I: Forty Years with the Sioux

by Stephen Return Riggs

At both of these places we administered the Lord’s Supper, ordained Daniel Renville as a ruling elder, and licensed Peter Big-Fire and Simon Anawangmane to preach the Gospel. Neither of these men developed into preachers, but they have been useful as exhorters from that day to this. On the Fourth of July, we added Peter to our little company, and started across from Fort Wadsworth, which had only recently been established, to Crow Creek on the Missouri. From that point we passed down to the mouth of the Niobrara.

On this journey across the prairie we encountered many herds of buffalo. Sometimes they were far to one side of us, and we could pass by without molesting them. Once, on the first day from Wadsworth, we came suddenly upon a herd of a hundred or more, lying down. When we discovered them, they were only about half a mile in front of us. Peter said it was too good a chance not to be improved; he must shoot one. We gave him leave to try, and he crawled around over some low ground and killed a very fine cow. We could only take a little of the meat, leaving the rest to be devoured by prairie wolves. This episode in the day’s travel frightened our horses, delayed us somewhat, and made us late getting into camp at the “Buzzard’s Nest.” The result was that in the gloaming our horses all broke away, and gave us four hours of hunting for them the next morning. Then we had a long, hot ride, without water, over the burning prairie, to James River.

As I have said, the prisoners released from Davenport and their families from Crow Creek had met at Niobrara. This point had been selected for a town site, and a company had erected a large shell of a frame house intended for a hotel. Their plans had failed, and now the thought probably was to reimburse themselves out of the government.

We found the Indians living in tents, while the families of Mr. Williamson and Mr. Pond and others were accommodated with shelter in the big house. For their religious mass-meetings, they had erected a large booth, which served well in the dry weather of summer. Every day, morning and evening, they gathered there for prayer and praise, reading the Bible and telling what God had done for them. They had come too late to plant, and there was but little employment for them, and so the weeks we spent there were weeks of worship, given to the strengthening of the things that remain, and arranging for future educational and Christian work. The churches of the prison and the camp were consolidated, and we selected and licensed Artemas Ehnamane and Titus Ichadooze as probationers for the Gospel ministry. When we had remained as long as seemed desirable, Dr. Williamson and I left them, and came down to the Omaha Reserve, where we visited the new agency among the Winnebagoes and the Presbyterian Boarding-School among the Omahas. The latter was flourishing, but, having been conducted in English alone, its spiritual results were very unsatisfactory.

The multiplication of Dakota readers during the past few years gave a new impulse to our work of translating the Scriptures, and made larger demands for other books. This furnished a great amount of winter work for both Dr. Williamson and myself. In five years we added the Psalms, Ecclesiastes, the Song, and Isaiah, together with the other four books of Moses, to what he had printed in 1865.

The Wahpatons and Sissetons, who constituted the Scouts’ Camp on the western border of Minnesota, and who had done good service in protecting the white settlements from the roving, horse-stealing Sioux in the first months of 1867, sent a delegation to Washington to make a treaty, and obtain the guarantee of a home and government help. While that delegation was in Washington, I took occasion to spend a month or more in lobbying in the interests of Indian civilization. To me this kind of work was always distasteful and unsatisfactory, and this time I came home to be taken down with inflammatory rheumatism. I had planned for an early summer campaign in the Dakota country, but it was July before I could get courage enough to start. And then it was with a great deal of pain that I endured the stage ride between Omaha and Sioux City. There I was met by Dr. Williamson, in his little wagon, and together we proceeded up to the settlement in Nebraska.

Since we had been there in the previous summer, these people had drifted down on to Bazille Creek, where Mr. Williamson and Mr. Pond had erected shacks—that is, log houses with dirt roofs—and between the two had made a room for assembly. The two men we had licensed the summer previous were this season ordained and set over the native church, Mr. Williamson still retaining the oversight. At each visitation we endeavored to work the native church members up to a feeling of responsibility in the work of contributing to the support of their pastors, but it has been no easy undertaking.

This summer, with Robert Hopkins and Adam Paze for our companions in travel, the doctor and I crossed over directly from Niobrara to the head of the Coteau. Those Indians we now found considerably scattered on their new reservation. Some general lines began to appear in the settlement, and during this and our visit in the year following several church organizations were effected; and Solomon Toonkan-Shaecheya, Robert Hopkins, Louis Mazawakinyanna, and Daniel Renville were licensed to preach.

Louis was an elder in the prison and on the Niobrara, and of his own motion had gone over to Fort Wadsworth, and, finding a community of Sioux scouts connected with the garrison, commenced religious work among them. In this he was supported and encouraged by the chaplain, Rev. G. D. Crocker. This year our camp-meeting was held on the border of the Coteau as it looks down on Lake Traverse.