1840-1843.—Dakota Braves.—Simon Anawangmane.—Mary’s Letter.—Simon’s Fall.—Maple Sugar.—Adobe Church.—Catharine’s Letter.—Another Letter of Mary’s.—Left Hand’s Case.—The Fifth Winter.—Mary to Her Brother.—The Children’s Morning Ride.—Visit to Hawley and Ohio.—Dakota Printing.—New Recruits.—Return.—Little Rapids.—Traverse des Sioux.—Stealing Bread.—Forming a New Station.—Begging.—Opposition.—Thomas L. Longley.—Meeting Ojibwas.—Two Sioux Killed.—Mary’s Hard Walk.
Among the encouraging events of 1840 and 1841 was the conversion of Simon Anawangmane. He was the first full-blood Dakota man to come out on the side of the new religion. Mr. Renville and his sons had joined the church, but the rest were women. It came to be a taunt that the men used when we talked with them and asked them to receive the gospel, “Your church is made up of women”; and, “If you had gotten us in first, it would have amounted to something, but now there are only women. Who would follow after women?” Thus the proud Dakota braves turned away.
But God’s truth has sharp arrows in it, and the Holy Spirit knows how to use them in piercing even Dakota hearts.
Anawangmane (walks galloping on) was at this time not far from thirty years old. He was not a bright scholar—rather dull and slow in learning to read. But he had a very strong will-power and did not know what fear was. He had been a very dare-devil on the war-path. The Dakotas had a curious custom of being under law and above law. It was always competent for a Dakota soldier to punish another man for a misdemeanor, if the other man did not rank above him in savage prowess. As for example: If a Dakota man had braved an Ojibwa with a loaded gun pointed at him, and had gone up and killed him, he ranked above all men who had not done a like brave deed. And if no one in the community had done such an act of bravery, then this man could not be punished for any thing, according to Dakota custom.
Under date of Feb. 24, 1841, Mary writes:—“Last Sabbath was Isabella’s birthday. She has been a healthy child, for which we have cause of gratitude. But this was not our only, or principal, cause of joy on last Sabbath. Five adults received the baptismal rite preparatory to the celebration of the Lord’s Supper on next Sabbath. One of them was a man, the first in the nation—a full-blooded Sioux, that has desired to renounce all for Christ. May God enable him to adorn his profession. His future life will doubtless exert a powerful influence either for or against Christ’s cause here. Three years since he was examined by the church session, but then he acknowledged that the 6th and 7th commandments were too broad in their restrictions for him. Now he professes a desire and determination to keep them also. His wife, whom he is willing to marry, with her child, and three children by two other wives he has had, stood with him, and at the same time received the seal of the new covenant. As they all wished English names, we gave ‘Hetta’ to a white, gray-eyed orphan girl who was baptized, on account of her grandmother.”
This young man, Anawangmane, had reached that enviable position of being above Dakota law. He had not only attained to the “first three,” but he was the chief. And so when he came out on the side of the Lord and Christianity, there was a propriety in calling him Simon when he was baptized. He was ordinarily a quiet man—a man of deeds and not of words. But once in a while he would get roused up, and his eyes would flash, and his words and gestures were powerful. Simon immediately put on white man’s clothes, and made and planted a field of corn and potatoes adjoining the mission field. No Dakota brave dared to cut up his tent or kill his dog or break his gun; but this did not prevent the boys, and women too, from pointing the finger at him, and saying, “There goes the man who has made himself a woman.” Simon seemed to care for it no more than the bull-dog does for the barking of a puppy. He apparently brushed it all aside as if it was only a straw. So far as any sign from him, one looking on would be tempted to think that he regarded it as glory. But it did not beget pride. He did indeed become stronger thereby.
And yet, as time rolled by, it was seen, by the unfolding of the divine plan, that Simon could not be built up into the best and noblest character without suffering. Naturally, he was the man who would grow into self-sufficiency. There were weak points in his character which he perhaps knew not of. It was several years after this when Simon visited us at the Traverse, and made our hearts glad by his presence and help. But alas! he came there to stumble and fall! “You are a brave man—no man so brave as you are,” said the Indians at the Traverse to him. And some of them were distantly related to him. While they praised and flattered him, they asked him to drink whiskey with them. Surely he was man enough for that. How many times he refused Simon never told. But at last he yielded, and then the very energy of his character carried him to great excess in drinking “spirit water.”
“Until this, the seasons for sugar-making have been very unfavorable since we have resided here. But this spring the Indian women have been unusually successful, and several of them have brought us a little maple sugar, which, after melting and straining, was excellent, and forcibly reminded us of home sugar. However, it does not always need purifying, as some are much more cleanly than others, here as well as in civilized lands. Sugar is a luxury for which these poor women are willing to toil hard, and often with but small recompense. Their camps are frequently two or three miles from their lodges. If they move to the latter, they must also pack corn for their families; and if not, with kettle in hand they go to their camps, toil all day, and often at night return with their syrup or sugar and a back load of wood for their husbands’ use the next day. Thus sugar is to them a hard-earned luxury. But they have also others, which they sometimes offer us, such as musk-rats, beavers‘-tails, and tortoises. I have never tried musk-rats, but husband says they are as good as polecats—another delicacy!”
But I must leave these broken threads, and take up the thread of my story. At Lac-qui-parle the schoolroom in Dr. Williamson’s log house became too strait for our religious gatherings. We determined to build a church. The Dakota women volunteered to come and dig out, in the side of the hill, the place where it should stand. Building materials were not abundant nor easily obtained, and so we decided to build an adobe. We made our bricks and dried them in the sun, and laid them up into the walls. We sawed our boards with the whipsaw, and made our shingles out of the ash-trees. We built our house without much outlay of money. The heavy Minnesota rains washed its sides, and we plastered one and clapboarded another. It was a comfortable house, and one in which much preaching and teaching were done; moreover, when, in after years, our better framed house was burned to the ground, this adobe church still stood for us to take refuge in. There we were living when Secretary S. B. Treat visited us in 1854, and in one corner of that we fenced off with bed-quilts a little place for him to sleep. In this adobe house we first made trial of an instrument in song worship. Miss Lucy Spooner, afterward Mrs. Drake, took in her melodeon. But the Dakota voices fell so much below the instrument that she gave it up in despair. By all these things we remember the old adobe church at Lac-qui-parle. And not less by the first consecration of it. That was a feast made by Dr. Williamson for the men. The floor was not yet laid, but a hundred Dakota men gathered into it and sat on the sleepers, and ate their potatoes and bread and soup gladly, and then we talked to them about Christ.
Of this church when commenced, Catherine Totidutawin wrote: “Now are we to have a church, and on that account we rejoice greatly. In this house we shall pray to the Great Spirit. We have dug ground two days already. We have worked having the Great Spirit in our thoughts. We have worked praying. When we have this house we shall be glad. In it, if we pray, he will have mercy upon us, and if he hears what we say, he will make us glad. As yet we do what he hates. In this house we will confess these things to him—our thoughts, our words, our actions—these we will tell to him. His Son will dwell in this house and pardon all that is bad. God has mercy on us and is giving us a holy house. In this we will pray for the nations.”
“The last two Sabbaths we have assembled in our new chapel. Only one half is completed, though husband and Mr. Pettijohn have been very diligent and successful. You can scarcely imagine what a task building is in a land where there is such a scarcity of materials and men. During the summer great exertions were made to prepare lumber, and two men were employed about two months in sawing it with a whip-saw. The woods were searched and researched for two or three miles for suitable timber, and the result was about 3200 feet—which is not enough—at an expense of $150. I might mention other hindrances, but, notwithstanding them all, the Lord has evidently prospered the work, and our expectations have been fully realized, if our wishes have not.”
Besides Simon Anawangmane, two or three other young men were won over to the religion of Christ before 1842. One of these was Paul Mazakootaymane. Paul was a man of different stamp from Simon. He was a native orator. But be was innately lazy. Still, he has always been loyal to the white people, and has done much good work on their behalf.
There was at this time an elderly man who sought admission to the church at Lac-qui-parle, Left Hand by name. This man was Mr. Renville’s brother-in-law. We could not say he was not a true believer—he seemed to be one. But he had two wives, and they both had been received into church fellowship. They had been admitted on the ground, partly, that it could not be decided which, if either, was the lawful wife, and partly on the ground that Dakota women heretofore could not be held responsible for polygamy. And now Left Hand claimed for himself that he had lived with these women for a quarter of a century, and had a family by each; that he had entered into this relation in the days of ignorance, and that the Bible recognized the rightfulness of such relations under certain circumstances, since David and Jacob had more than one wife. Mr. Renville, who was a ruling elder in the church, took this position, and the members of the mission were not a unit against it. So the question was referred to the Ripley Presbytery. The result was that our native church was saved from sanctioning polygamy. We had the two wives of Left Hand, and two women also in another case. But the husband’s dying has long since left them widows, and some of them also have gone to the eternal world. The loose condition of the marriage relation is still that, in the social state of the Dakotas, which gives us the most trouble.
The fifth winter in our “little chamber” was one full of work. In the early part of it, Mary was still in the school. In the latter part our third child was born. She was named “Martha Taylor,” for the grandmother in Massachusetts. During the years previous, I had undertaken to translate a good portion of the New Testament, the Acts, and Paul’s Epistles, and the Revelation. This winter the corrected copy had to be made. Of necessity I learned to do my best work surrounded by children. My study and workshop was our sitting-room, and dining-room, and kitchen, and nursery, and ladies’ parlor. It was often half filled with Indians. Besides my own translations, I copied for the press the Gospel of John and some of the Psalms. A part of the latter were my own translation, and a part were secured, as the Gospel was, through Mr. Renville. There was also a hymn-book to edit, and some school-books to be prepared. So the winter was filled with work and service. The remembrance of it is only pleasant. Of course, the ordinary family trials were experienced. A bucket of water was spilled and was leaking down on Mrs. Williamson’s bed below, or one of the children fell down the stairs, or our little Bella crawled out of the window and sat on the little shelf where the milk was set to cool in the morning, giving us a good scare, etc.
MARY TO HER BROTHER ALFRED.
“Your letter presented to my ‘mind’s eye’ our mountain home. I entered the lower gate, passed up the lane between the elms, maples, and cherries, and saw once more our mountain home embowered by the fir-trees and shrubbery I loved so well. How many times have I watched the first buddings of those rose-bushes and lilacs, and with what care and delight have I nursed those snowballs, half dreaming they were sister spirits, telling by their delicate purity of that Eden where flowers never fade and leaves never wither. Perhaps I was too passionately fond of flowers; if so, that fondness is sufficiently blunted, if not subdued. Not a solitary shrub, tree, or flower rears its head near our dwelling, excepting those of nature’s planting at no great distance on the opposite side of the St. Peter’s, and a copse of plums in a dell on the left, and of scrub-oak on the right. Back of us is the river hill which shelters us from the furious wind of the high prairie beyond. Until last season we have had no enclosure, and now we have but a poor defence against the depredations of beasts, and still more lawless and savage men. On reading descriptions of the situation of our missionary brethren and sisters in Beirut, Jerusalem, and elsewhere, the thought has arisen, ‘That is such a place as I should like to call home.’ But the remembrance of earthquakes, war, and the plague, by which those countries are so often scourged, hushed each murmuring thought. When I also recollected the mysterious providences which have written the Persian missionaries childless, how could I long or wish to possess more earthly comforts, while my husband and our two ‘olive plants’ are spared to sit around our table. Little Bella already creeps to her father, and, if granted a seat on his knee, holds her little hands, although, as Alfred says, ‘she does not wait till papa says amen.’ While we are surrounded by so many blessings, I would not, like God’s ancient people, provoke him by murmuring, as I fear I have done, and if he should deprive us of any of the comforts we now possess, may he give us grace to feel as did Habakkuk, ‘Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vine, etc., yet I will rejoice in the Lord and joy in the God of my Salvation.’
“I suppose you have hardly yet found how much of romance is mingled with your ideas of a married state. You will find real life much the same that you have ever found, and with additional joys, additional cares and sorrows. I have realized as much happiness as I anticipated, though many of my bright visions have not been realized, and others have been much changed in outline and finishing. For instance, our still winter evenings are seldom enlivened by reading, while I am engaged lulling our little ones or plying my needle. Although I should greatly enjoy such a treat occasionally, I can not, in our situation, expect it, while it is often almost the only time husband can secure for close and uninterrupted study. You know the time of a missionary is not his own.”
“Perhaps the scene that would amuse you most would be ‘the babies’ morning ride.’ The little wagon in which Isabella and my namesake, Mary Ann Huggins, are drawn by the older children, even Alfred ambitious to assist, would be in complete contrast with ‘the royal princess’ cradle’; yet I doubt not it affords them as much pleasure as a more elegant one would. Alfred’s was made by his father, and Hetta, an Indian girl living at Mr. Huggins’, constructed a canopy, which gives it a tasteful, though somewhat rude appearance. Mrs. Williamson’s son John draws his sister in a wagon of his own, so that the whole troop of ten little ones, with their carriages, form a miniature pleasure party.”
“We are grateful for the expression of kindness for us and for our children, and we hope that our duty to those whom God has committed to our care will be made plain. Before your letter reached us, containing the remark of ‘Mother Clark’ about taking the little girl, we had another little daughter added to our family, and had concluded to leave Isabella with Miss Fanny Huggins, as it is probable we shall return to this region, instead of ascending the Missouri. Our little Martha we shall of course not leave behind if our lives are spared and we are permitted to go East; and Alfred we intend taking with us as far as Ohio.”
Of the next year—from the spring of 1842—little need be said in this connection. The preparations were all made. Mary and I took with us the little boy, now in his fifth year, and the baby, while the little girl between was left in the care of Miss Fanny Huggins. It was a year of enjoyment. Mary visited the old home on Hawley hills. The old grandfather was still there, and the younger members of the family had grown up. Here, during the summer, the little boy born in Dakota land gathered strawberries in the meadows of Massachusetts. Our school-books and hymn-book were printed in Boston, and in the autumn we came to Ohio. During the winter months the Bible-printing was done in Cincinnati.
When we were ready to start back, in the spring of 1843, we had secured as fellow-laborers, at the new station which we were instructed to form, Robert Hopkins and his young wife Agnes, and Miss Julia Kephart, all from Ripley, Ohio. The intercourse with so many sympathizing Christian hearts, which had been much interested in the Dakota mission from its commencement, was refreshing. We found, too, that we had both been forgetting our mother tongue somewhat, in the efforts made to learn Dakota. This must be guarded against in the future. In our desire to be Dakotas we must not cease to be English.
The bottoms of the Lower Minnesota were putting on their richest robes of green, and the great wild-rose gardens were coming into full perfection of beauty, when, in the month of June, our barge, laden with mission supplies, was making its way up to Traverse des Sioux. At what was known as “The Little Rapids” was a village of Wahpaton Dakotas, the old home of the people at Lac-qui-parle. There were certain reasons why we thought that might be the point for the new station. We made a halt there of half a day, and called the chief men. But they were found to be too much under the influence of the Treaty Indians below to give us any encouragement. In fact, they did not want missionaries.
We passed by, and landed our boats at the Traverse. The day before reaching this point, Mrs. Hopkins and Mary had made arrangements to have some light bread,—they were tired eating the heavy cakes of the voyage. They succeeded to their satisfaction, and placed the warm bread away, in a safe place, as they supposed, within the tent, ready for the morning. But when the breakfast was ready, the bread was not there. During the night an Indian hand had taken it.
The Dakotas were accustomed to do such things. While at Lac-qui-parle we were constantly annoyed by thefts. An axe or a hoe could not be left out-of-doors, but it would be taken. And in our houses we were continually missing little things. A towel hanging on the wall would be tucked under the blanket of a woman, or a girl would sidle up to a stand and take a pair of scissors. Any thing that could be easily concealed was sure to be missing, if we gave them an opportunity. And these people at the Traverse (Sissetons they were) we found quite equal to those at Lac-qui-parle. Stealing, even among themselves, was not considered very dishonorable. The men said they did not steal, but the women were all wamanonsa.
We had decided to make this our new station. We should consult the Indians, but our staying would not depend upon their giving us an invitation to stay. And so the first thing to be done was to start off the train to Lac-qui-parle. In the early part of June, 1842, after Mary and I left, there had come frosts which cut off the Indian corn. The prospect was that the village would be abandoned pretty much during the year. This led Dr. Williamson to come down to Fort Snelling, as Mr. S. W. Pond and wife had already gone up to take our place. This spring of 1843, Mr. Pond had left, and Dr. Williamson could not return until the autumn, as he had engaged temporarily to fill the place of surgeon in the garrison. In these circumstances it was deemed advisable for Mr. and Mrs. Hopkins to go on to Lac-qui-parle for a year. Mary took her baby, Martha Taylor, now fifteen months old, and went up with them to bring down Isabella.
Thomas Longley, a young man of 22 years, and rejoicing in a young man’s strength, had joined us at Fort Snelling. He was a part of our boat’s company up the Minnesota; and now he and I and the little boy, Zitkadan Washtay, remained to make a beginning. Immediately I called the Indians and had a talk with them, at Mr. Le Bland’s trading-post. I told them we had come to live with them, and to teach them. Some said yes and some said no. But they all asked, What have you to give us?
It was at a time of year when they were badly off for food, and so I gave them two barrels of flour. Before the council was over, some of the principal men became so stupid from the influence of whiskey which they had been drinking, that they did not know what they were saying. Old Sleepy Eyes and Tankamane were the chief men present. They were favorable to our stopping, and remained friends of the mission as long as it was continued there. But some of the younger men were opposed. One especially, who had a keg of whiskey that he was taking to the Upper Minnesota, was reported as saying that when he had disposed of his whiskey, he would come back and stop Tamakoche’s building. But he never came back—only a few days after this, he was killed in a drunken frolic.
We expected to meet with opposition, and so were not disappointed. Thomas and I pitched our tents under some scrub-oaks, on a little elevation, in the lower river bottom, a half a mile away from the Trader’s. Immediately we commenced to cut and haul logs for our cabin.
In the meantime, the party going to Lac-qui-parle were nearing their destination. With them there were three young men who had accompanied us to Ohio, and spent the year. Their baptized names were Simon, Henok, and Lorenzo. Each was about twenty years old. While on their way down, we had cut off their hair and dressed them up as white men. They had all learned much in their absence; while two of them had added their names to the rolls of Christian churches in Ohio. Thus, they were returning. The party spent the Sabbath a day’s travel from Lac-qui-parle. On Monday, before noon, these young men had seen, on some far-off prairie elevation, what seemed to be Indians lying down. But their suspicions of a war-party were not very pronounced.
Five miles from the mission, the road crosses the Mayakawan—otherwise called the Chippewa River. It was a hot afternoon when the mission party approached it. They were thirsty, and the young men had started on to drink. Simon was ahead, and on horseback. Suddenly, as he neared the stream, there emerged from the wood a war-party of Ojibwas, carrying two fresh scalps. Simon rode up and shook hands with them. He could do this safely, as he was dressed like a white man. They showed him the scalps, all gory with blood; but he wot not that one of them was his own brother’s. This brother and his wife and a young man were coming to meet their friends. As the two men came to the crossing, they were shot down by the Ojibwas, who lay concealed in the bushes. The woman, who was a little distance behind, heard the guns and fled, carrying the news back to the village. And so it happened that by the time the mission teams had fairly crossed the river, they were met by almost the whole village of maddened Dakotas. They were in pursuit of the Ojibwas. But had not the missionaries taken these boys to Ohio? And had not these two young men been killed as they were coming to meet the boys? Were not the missionaries the cause of it all? So questioned and believed many of the frantic men. And one man raised his gun and shot one of the horses in the double team, which carried Mrs. Hopkins and Mary. This made it necessary for them to walk the remainder of the way in the broiling sun of summer. Mary found her little girl too heavy a load, and after a while was kindly relieved of her burden by a Dakota woman, whom she had taught to wash. The excitement and trouble were a terrible strain on her nervous system, and made the gray hairs come prematurely here and there among the black.
