Rev. Stephen R. Riggs, D.D., LL. D., missionary to the American Indians for forty years, died at the age of 71, at Beloit, Wis., in August. Like Livingstone, in early life, he was desirous of becoming a missionary to China, but yielded to what he considered the overrulings of Providence, and in 1837, with his wife, went into the far Northwest among the Sioux. He reduced their language to writing, compiled a dictionary and translated the Holy Scriptures and hymns. Ten well-ordered churches and many out-stations were established in the region of his operations, reaching beyond the British line.
As an author, he did good service. His book, “Mary and I—Forty Years with the Sioux,” has magnified the significance of Indian missions. Another book, “Gospel Among the Dakotas,” portrays vividly scenes of pioneer life. His memorial of Dr. Williamson is a tribute worthy of the man and his successful efforts in behalf of the Indians. Four of his children have labored among the Sioux, and one of his daughters has entered upon work across the Pacific. Rev. Alfred L. Riggs, principal of our school at Santee, and Thomas L. Riggs, of Fort Sally, and Mrs. Martha Riggs Morris, at the Sisseton agency, are carrying on the work so happily inaugurated by their father. His life was one of incessant missionary toil, in which for years he had been aided by his children, and to whom he bequeathed its continuance, and in the midst of whom he passed from earth to his reward on high.
OUR INDIAN WORK.
Never was there a more favorable time for enlargement on our part. The new impulse to the general cause by General Grant’s peace policy, augmented by the success of the schools at Hampton and Carlisle, will be still more accelerated by the schools soon to be completed by the Government at Chilloco, Indian Territory; Lawrence, Kansas; and Genoa, Neb. When these are finished and filled, the Indian schools throughout the country will accommodate 10,250 pupils of the 40,000 school population of the Indians at the present time. Sec. Teller may be too sanguine in the expectation that with adequate means the Indian problem will not be heard of in the next generation, but never before could such a prediction come so near being true. At all events, the nation and the Government are fully aroused, and it becomes the American Missionary Association to bestir itself to do its part. This Association has now the responsibility of doing the Indian work for the Congregational churches, the American Board having transferred to it the whole of its Indian missions. A delegation of the Executive Committee of the Association, consisting of Rev. W. H. Ward, D.D., Rev. Addison P. Foster, Charles L. Mead, Esq., and the Secretary, made recently a thorough inspection of all the schools and missions with very favorable impressions, a report of which follows.
Enlargement is imperatively needed in three directions, in addition to the $20,000 for the current work:
1. At the old and well-established mission at the Santee Agency, Nebraska, Rev. A. L. Riggs thus details the immediate wants of that station: additional industrial accommodations; extension of carpenter shop, $250; blacksmith shop, with five forges, $750; outfit of tools for the same, $150; general dining hall for 200 boarders, with laundry rooms, $5,000; outfit for the same, including heating arrangements, kitchen ranges, laundry apparatus, $1,500; making in all $7,650. Boarding-school house for girls at Oahe, Fort Sully, $2,500.
2. New mission stations and schools among the Indians now unsupplied. Three station buildings for native teachers on the Cheyenne River, $1,000; missionary’s house at Cherry Creek, Cheyenne River, $1,500; mission among the Crows, $2,000.
We invite the friends of Indian progress to select from the items above given in both fields of enlargement the specific object for completing which they will aid us in whole or in part.