Among the Sioux

with six native members, which in 1837, consisted of seven Dakotas, besides half-breeds and whites, and, within five years, had

s of Minnesota, the sweet call to the worship of the Savior of the human race. The services of the church were usually held in the native language. The hymns were sung to French tu

ake the effort. The school apparatus was primitive and mainly extemporized on the spot. Progress was slow; the attendance small and irregular, but in the course of three months, they were able to write to each other on birch bark. Those who learned to read and write the language properly, soon became i

polis

v. Stephen R. Riggs and Gideon H. Pond. One room was both church and school room for years. Under this roof the missionaries met frequ

more than one hundred Indian men were gathered. When urged to accept Christ and become members of this church, they replied

to the missionaries. They became very ugly, and began a series of petty yet bitter persecutions against the Christian Indians and the missionaries. The children were forbidden to attend school; the women who favored the church had their blankets cut to pieces

ut apparently alarmed at the influence of these modern harpies over himself and his people, he visited Fort Snelling and begged a missionary for his village. The United States agent stationed there forwarded this petition to Lac-qui-Parle with the suggestion that Dr. Williamson be transferred to Kaposia. The invitation was accepted by the doctor, so in November, 1846, he became a resident of Kaposia (now South St. Paul). To thi

ites. This took away from the Sioux their hunting-grounds, their cranberry marshes, their deer-parks and the graves of their ancestors. So the Dakotas of the Mississippi and lower Minnesota packe

e supply-teams were snowed in; the horses perished, the provisions were abandoned to the wolves and the drivers reached home in a half-frozen condition. But God cared for His servants. In this emergency, the Rev. M. N. Adams, of Lac-qui-Parle, performed a most heroic act. In mid-winter, with the thermometer many degrees below zero, he hauled flour and other provisions for the mi

cine and called Omehoo (Hazelwood). A comfortable mission home was erected. The native Christians removed from Lac-qui-Parle and re-established their homes at Hazelwood. A boarding school was soon opened at this point by Rev. M. N. Adams. A neat ch

With civilization came new wants-pantaloons and coats and hats. There was power also in oxen and wagons and brick-houses. The wh

power of Christian truth. So far as the inner life was changed, civilized habits became permanent; otherwise t

red the formation of

a-mane was the first president and served for two terms. This was an interesting experiment, in the series of efforts, by the missionaries, to change this tribe of nomads from their roving teepee life to that of permanent dwellers in fixed habitations. The rude shock of savage warfare, which soon after revolut

ks of weeping"-three dwarf oaks on a small knoll. In 1844, Robert Hopkins and his young bride joined the workers here. In 1851, July 4, Mr. Hopkins was suddenly swept away to death by the fatal waves of the Minnesota and his recovered body was laid to rest under the oaks where Thomas Longley had slept all alone for seven years. Thus the mission at Traverse des Sioux

eficent influences to both races for miles around. It developed into the white Presbyterian church of Oak Grove, which still stands as a monument to the many noble qualities of i

he Reverends J. F. Aiton and J. W. Hancock, and ano

ed Wing with twelve members. This wa

devoted his whole life to their temporal and spiritual uplift, thus vividly sketches missionary life among the Sioux in his boyhood days: "My first serious impression of life was that I was living under a great weight of something,

we felt no personal danger this incubus of savage life all around weighed on our hearts. Thus it was day and night. Even those hours of twilight, which br

izing that people was felt in everything. It was like garrison life in time of war. But this seriousness was not ascetical or moroseful. Far from it. Those missionary he

n R. Riggs,

s a Missionary