Mary and I: Forty Years with the Sioux

by Stephen Return Riggs

The field was evidently now open, and waiting for the sower of the precious seed of the Word. There was no audible cry of “Come over and help us,” nor was there in the case of Paul with the Macedonian. But there was the same unrest, the same agony, the same reaching out after a knowledge of God, now as then. We listened to it, and assuredly gathered that the Lord would have us work among the Teetons.

Thomas Lawrence was Mary’s second boy. He could hardly be reconciled with the idea that his mother should go away to the spirit land, while he was down in Mississippi teaching the freedmen. Now he had been two years in Chicago Theological Seminary, and was asking what he should do when the other year was finished. The Prudential Committee of the American Board were looking around for some one to send to the Upper Missouri. Thomas had been born and brought up, in good part, in the land of the Dakotas; but they deemed it only fair that he should now with a man’s eyes see the field, and with a man’s heart better understand the work before committing himself to it. And so, in his summer vacation of 1871, they said to him, “Go with your father to the land of the Teetons, and see whether you can find your life-work with them.”

We came to the land of the Teetons, and stopped for five or six weeks at Fort Sully, which was in the neighborhood of Cheyenne agency. There we found Chaplain G. D. Crocker, who had been much interested in our work among the Dakotas when stationed at Fort Wadsworth. We found also good and true Christian friends in Captain Irvine and his wife, and in the noble Mrs. General Stanley, the wife of the commandant of the post. In the mornings of our stay in the garrison, we often gathered buffalo berries—mashtinpoota, rabbit noses, as the Indians called them. During the day we talked with the Dakotas, and studied the Teeton dialect, and also the Assinaboine and the Ree. In our judgment, the time had fully come for us to commence evangelistic work in this part of the nation. Our friends at Sully thought so, and the prudential committee did not hesitate a moment. Indeed, they could not wait for Thomas to finish his seminary course, but sent him off in midwinter to Fort Sully. He was ordained by a council which met in Beloit.

The Indians of the Cheyenne agency, a portion of them, were distributed along down in the Missouri bottom in little villages and clusters of houses. In a village of this kind, a little below the fort, and on the opposite side of the river, T. L. Riggs erected his first house. It was a hewed log cabin, with two rooms below, one of which was a school-room. The garret was arranged for sleeping apartments. This was called Hope Station, so named by Captain Irvine’s little daughter, who about this time came into the Christian hope.

Of this new enterprise, Mrs. Gen. D. S. Stanley sent a very pleasant notice to the New York Evangelist. “Six years ago,” she says, “my lot was cast among the Sioux, or Dakota Indians, who inhabit the region bordering on the Missouri River, 500 miles above Sioux City, Iowa, and in the vicinity of Fort Sully, Dakota Territory. All this time it has been a matter of surprise to me that no Christian missionary was laboring among these heathens, while so many were sent to foreign lands. In reply to a suggestion to this effect, made to the American Board, it was stated that it is almost impossible to induce a competent person to undertake so difficult and dangerous a task.

“Meanwhile God was preparing the way. A boy had grown up among the Dakotas, speaking their language, understanding their customs, and identifying himself with their best interests. He was at this time in college preparing for the ministry, and last spring this young man, Rev. T. L. Riggs, son of the veteran missionary and Dakota scholar of that name, came to this place, and entered upon the work for which he seemed to be so peculiarly fitted. Almost unassisted, except by a brother, and some facilities for work afforded by the commandant of Fort Sully, he has erected two log buildings, and already schools are in operation on both sides of the river, attended by about sixty Indians, of various ages. Two native teachers were employed during the summer, and two are engaged for the winter. Mr. Riggs has surmounted great difficulties, inseparable from such efforts in remote and unsettled regions; but he is full of energy, and his heart is in the work.”

From the beginning, it has been the aim at this station to do the work of education very much by means of native teachers. The first summer, a young man from the Yankton agency, Toonwan-ojanjan by name, was employed, and also Louis Mazawakinyanna, from Sisseton. The next autumn, James Red Wing and his wife Martha, and Blue Feather (Suntoto), were brought up from the Santees. Red Wing’s wife taught the women in letters and the family arts, while the men taught the young men and children generally, and greatly aided in the religious teachings of the Sabbath. Afterward, Dowanmane, another Santee man, was employed in like manner. This was the commencement of educational and Christian work in this Teeton field.

At another point, some few miles below Hope Station, on the same side of the river, was another Dakota village, where Thomas immediately commenced holding a preaching service, and has kept up a school. It is one of his out stations, and called Chantier, from the name of the creek and bottom. While the opportunities for education and the new teaching were looked upon favorably, and gladly received by many, there were not wanting those who were savagely opposed. At different times, while Henry M. Riggs, who spent several years aiding in the erection of buildings and other general work, was present with Thomas at Hope Station, their house and tent were fired upon by Indians, and residence there seemed hardly safe.