Mary and I: Forty Years with the Sioux

by Stephen Return Riggs

“I have spoken of the drawbacks to entering the work, but the inducements must also be remembered. They are greater than the drawbacks. We know them also better than strangers can. If we have known more of the discouragements of the work, we also know more of its hopefulness. We know the real savage, but we now know and fully believe in his real humanity and salvability by the power of the cross. Now, too, when the work is entered, the very difficulties which barred the way grow less or disappear. We find the dreaded isolation to be more in appearance than reality. We here are in connection with the best thought and sympathy of the civilized world, whether it be in scholarship, statesmanship, or Christian society. And not unfrequently do we have the visits of friends and the honored representatives of the churches. One may be much more alone in Chicago or New York.

“The difficulties of the work in earlier years are also changing. We have a different standing before the people among whom we labor. We also have matured and tested our methods of operation, and can be generally confident of success. We have also an ever increasing force in the native agency which adds strength and hopefulness to the campaign. The people we come to conquer are themselves furnishing recruits for this war, so that we, the sons of the mission, stand among them as captains of the host, and our fathers are as generals.”

With such a growing-up, it would seem that he was attracted to the life-work of his father and mother. And yet our children will all bear witness that no special influence was ever used to draw them into the missionary work. Some ministers’ sons, I understand, have grown up under the burden of the thought that they were expected to be ministers. It was certainly my endeavor not to impose any such burden on my boys. But we certainly did desire—and our desire was not concealed—that all our children should develop into the most noble and useful lives, prepared to occupy any position to which they might be called. Accordingly, when a boy, while pursuing his education, has shown a disposition “to knock off,” I have used what influence I had to induce him to persevere. But, beyond this, it has been my desire that each one should, under the divine guidance, choose, as is their right to do, what shall be their line of work in life. At the same time, it is but just to myself, as well as to them, to say that it gives me great joy now, in my old age, to see so many of Mary’s children making the life-work of their father and mother their own.

This visit of Alfred to the Santee and Yankton agencies was made for the purpose of looking over the field, and forming an intelligent judgment as to whether the way was open and the time had come to commence some higher educational work among the Dakotas. The place for such an effort was evidently the Santee agency. And John P. Williamson, who had so long and so well carried on the mission work among the Santees, had for several years past been more and more attracted to the Yanktons, where there was an open door; and to the Yankton agency he had removed his family, in the early spring, before our visit. So the hand of God had shaped the work. It required only that we recognize his hand, and put ourselves in accord with the manifestations of his will. After a few weeks, Alfred returned to his people in Woodstock, and made his arrangements to close his labors there in the following winter, when he accepted an appointment from the American Board to take charge of its work at the Santee agency.

Our summer campaign now commenced. The Williamsons, father and son, with Titus, one of the Santee pastors, and myself, proceeded up the Missouri. We made a little stop, as we had done in former years, with the Sechangoos, or Brules, near Fort Thompson, preaching to them the Gospel of Christ. Some interest was apparent. At least, a superstitious reverence for the name that is above every name was manifest. “What is the name?” one asked. “I have forgotten it.” And we again told them of Jesus.

Our next point was the Cheyenne agency, near Fort Sully, a hundred miles above Fort Thompson, at Crow Creek. There we spent a week, and met the Indians in their council house. Our efforts were in the line of sowing seed, much of which fell by the way-side or on the stony places. And then we passed on another hundred miles, to the agency at the mouth of Grand River, where were gathered a large number of Yanktonais, as well as Teetons. This agency is now located farther up the river, and is called Standing Rock. Among these people we found some who desired instruction, but the more part did not want to hear. Our attempt to gather them to a Sabbath meeting seemed quite likely to fail. But there had been a thunder storm in the early morning, and out a few miles, on a hill-top, a prominent Dakota man was struck down by the lightning. He was brought into the agency, and before his burial, at the close of the day, we had a large company of men and women to listen to the divine words of Jesus, who is the Resurrection and the Life. It was an impressive occasion, and it was said by white men that many of those Indians listened that day for the first time to Christian song and Christian prayer. But that agency has since passed into the hands of the Catholics, and David, one of our native preachers, who visited there recently, was not permitted to remain.

At this point—Grand River—our company separated. John P. Williamson and Titus returned down the Missouri, and Dr. Williamson and I took a young man, Blue Bird by name, and crossed over to Fort Wadsworth. On Saturday we traveled up the Missouri about thirty miles, where we spent the Sabbath, and where we were joined by a Dakota man who was familiar with the country across to the James River, and who could find water for us in that “dry and thirsty land.” As we journeyed that Saturday afternoon, the day grew dark, the sun ceased to shine, our horses wanted to stop in the road. It was a weird, unnatural darkness—an eclipse of the sun. We stopped and watched its progress. For about five minutes the eclipse was annular—only a little rim of light gleamed forth. The moon seemed to have a cut in one side, appearing much like a thick cheese from which a very thin slice had been cut out. We all noted this singular appearance. The Dakotas on the Missouri represent that year by the symbol of a black sun with stars shining above it.

When we reached the Sisseton reservation, we held our usual camp-meeting again at Dry Wood Lake, regulating and confirming the churches, and receiving quite a number of additions, though not so many as in the year previous. The place for the Sisseton agency had been selected, some log buildings erected, and the agent, Dr. Jared W. Daniels, with his family, was on the ground. The time seemed to have come when, to secure the fruits of the harvest, some more permanent occupation should be made in the reservation. Mary was gone up higher. The boys, for whose sakes, mainly, we had made a home in Beloit, were no longer in college. Thomas had graduated, and spent a year in teaching freedmen in Mississippi, and was now in the Chicago Theological Seminary; while Henry had commenced to seek his fortune in other employment. Without apparent detriment, I could break up housekeeping in Beloit, and build at Sisseton. The plan was formed during this visit, and talked over with Dr. Williamson and Agent Daniels. God willing, and the Prudential Committee at Boston approving, it was to be carried into effect the next spring.

And so I returned to my home in Beloit, and went on to attend the meeting of the two General Assemblies at Pittsburg, where their union became an accomplished fact. At the close of this meeting, I spent a couple of weeks in visiting friends in Fayette County, Pa., and the old stone church of Dunlap’s Creek, which had been the church-home of my mother when as yet she was unmarried.