CHAPTER XIX.
1873-1874.—The American Board at Minneapolis.—The Nidus of the Dakota Mission.—Large Indian Delegation.—Ehnamane and Mazakootemane.—“Then and Now.”—The Woman’s Meeting.—Nina Foster Riggs and Lizzie Bishop—Miss Bishop’s Work and Early Death.—Manual Labor Boarding-School at Sisseton.—Building Dedicated.—M. N. Adams, Agent.—School Opened.—Mrs. Armor and Mrs. Morris.—“My Darling in God’s Garden.”—Visit to Fort Berthold.—Mandans, Rees, and Hidatsa.—Dr. W. Matthews’ Hidatsa Grammar.—Beliefs.—Missionary Interest in Berthold.—Down the Missouri.—Annual Meeting at Santee.—Normal School.—Dakotas Build a Church at Ascension.—Journey to the Ojibwas with E. P. Wheeler.—Leech Lake and Red Lake,—On the Gitche Gumme.—“The Stoneys.”—Visit to Odanah.—Hope for Ojibwas.
The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions was to hold its annual meeting in the autumn of 1873 in the city of Minneapolis. That was almost the identical spot where our mission had been commenced, nearly forty years before. And it was comparatively near to the centre of our present work. These were reasons why we should make a special effort to bring the Dakota mission, on this occasion, prominently before this great Christian gathering. Our churches on the Sisseton reservation were only a little more than 200 miles away. Taking advantage of the St. Paul & Pacific Railroad, it would only be a three-days journey. Accordingly, I applied to my friend Gen. Geo. L. Becker of St. Paul, who was then president of the road, to send me half-fares for a dozen Dakota men. He generously responded, and sent me up a free pass down for that number.
This made it possible for all the churches on the Sisseton reservation to be represented by pastors and elders. A. L. Riggs brought over a good delegation from the Santee, so that we had there seventeen of our most prominent men. The present missionaries and assistant missionaries of the Board, except Mr. and Mrs. Morris, were all there. Our brother John P. Williamson was engaged in church-building, and could not attend. But there were the Pond brothers and Dr. T. S. Williamson accepting with glad hearts the results of their labors commenced thirty-nine years before. And the presence of so large an Indian delegation added much to the popular interest of the occasion. So that the subject of Indian missions in general, and of the Dakota mission in particular, engaged the attention of this great meeting for about one-third of their time. Artemas Ehnamane, the pastor of Pilgrim Church at Santee, and Paul Mazakootemane, the hero of the outbreak of 1862, both made addresses before the Board, which were interpreted by A. L. Riggs.
In the Dakota Word Carrier, we were at this time publishing a series of “Sketches of the Dakota Mission,” which we gathered into a pamphlet and distributed to the thousands of Christian friends gathered there. Number twelve of these sketches is mainly a contrast between the commencement and the present state of our work among the Dakotas, from which I make the following extract:—
“THEN AND NOW.
“In the first days of July, 1839, a severe battle was fought between the Dakotas and Ojibwas. The Ojibwas had visited Fort Snelling during the last days of June, expecting to receive some payment for land sold. In this they were disappointed. The evening before they started for their homes—a part going up the Mississippi, and a part by the St. Croix—two young men were observed to go to the soldiers’ burying-ground, near the fort, and cry. Their father had been killed some years before by the Dakotas, and was buried there. The next morning they started for their homes; but these two young men, their people not knowing it, went out and hid themselves that night close by a path which wound around the shores of Lake Harriet. In the early morning following, a Dakota hunter walked along that path, followed by a boy. The man was shot down, and the boy escaped to tell the story.
“During their stay in the neighborhood of Fort Snelling, the Ojibwas had smoked and eaten with the Dakotas. That scalped man now lying by Lake Harriet was an evidence of violated faith. The Dakotas were eager to take advantage of the affront. The cry was for vengeance; and before the sun had set, two parties were on the war-path.
“The young man who had been killed was the son-in-law of Cloud-man, the chief of the Lake Calhoun village. Scarlet Bird was the brother-in-law of the chief. So Scarlet Bird was the leader of the war-party which came to where the city of Minneapolis is now built, and about the setting of the sun crossed over to the east side; and there, seating the warriors in a row on the sand, he distributed the beads and ribbons and other trinkets of the man who had been killed, and with them ‘prayed’ the whole party into committing the deeds of the next morning. The morning’s sun, as it arose, saw these same men smiting down the Ojibwas, just after they had left camp, in the region of Rum River. Scarlet Bird was among the slain on the Dakota side; and a son of his, whom he had goaded into the battle by calling him a woman, was left on the field. Many Ojibwa scalps were taken, and all through that autumn and into the following winter the scalp dance was danced nightly at every Dakota village on the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers, as far up as Lac-qui-parle.
“That was the condition of things then. Between then and now there is a contrast. Then only a small government saw-mill stood where now stand mammoth mills, running hundreds of saws. Then only a soldiers’ little dwelling stood where now are the palaces of merchant princes. Then only the war-whoop of the savage was heard where now, in this year of grace, 1873, a little more than a third of a century after, is heard the voice of praise and prayer in numerous Christian sanctuaries and a thousand Christian households. Then it was the gathering-place of the nude and painted war-party; now it is the gathering-place of the friends of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Then the dusky forms of the Dakotas flitted by in the gloaming, bent on deeds of blood; now the same race is here largely represented by pastors of native churches and teachers of the white man’s civilization and the religion of Christ. And the marvelous change that has passed over this country, converting it from the wild abode of savages into the beautiful land of Christian habitations, is only surpassed by the still more marvelous change that has been wrought upon those savages themselves. The greater part of the descendants of the Indians who once lived here are now in Christian families, and have been gathered into Christian churches, having their native pastors. Some, too, have gone beyond to the still wild portions of their own people, and are commencing there such a work as we commenced, nearly forty years ago, among their fathers here.
“But the work is now commenced among the Teetons of the Missouri, under circumstances vastly different from those which surrounded us in its beginning here. Then, with an unwritten language, imperfectly understood and spoken stammeringly by foreigners, the Gospel was proclaimed to unwilling listeners. Now, with the perfect knowledge of the language learned in the wigwam, a comparatively large company of native men and women are engaged in publishing it. Many ears are still unwilling to listen, and the hearts of the wild Indians are only a very little opened to the good news; but the contrast between the past and present is very great.”
While this meeting of the American Board was in progress, the ladies of the Woman’s Boards held a meeting, which was reported as full of interest. So many women publishers of the Word in all parts of the world were present that the enthusiasm and Christ-spirit rose very high. Nina Foster Riggs, who had just arrived from Fort Sully, the center of Dakota heathendom, announced her wish for a female companion in labor there. Several young women present said, “I will go.” From these, Miss Lizzie Bishop of Northfield, Minn., was afterward selected. Her health was not vigorous, but she and her friends thought it might become more so in the Missouri River climate. She at once proceeded with T. L. Riggs and wife to Hope Station. There I met her for the first time in the first of the June following. She impressed me as a singularly pure-minded and devoted young woman. Two Teeton boys in the family belonged to her especial charge. She said she found the Lord’s Prayer in Dakota too difficult of comprehension for their use, and desired me to make something more simple. I sat down and wrote a child’s prayer, of which this is a translation:—