1846-1851.—Returning to Lac-qui-parle.—Reasons Therefor.—Mary’s Story.—“Give Me My Old Seat, Mother.”—At Lac-qui-parle.—New Arrangements.—Better Understanding.—Buffalo Plenty.—Mary’s Story.—Little Samuel Died.—Going on the Hunt.—Vision of Home.—Building House.—Dakota Camp.—Soldier’s Lodge.—Wakanmane’s Village.—Making a Presbytery.—New Recruits.—Meeting at Kaposia.—Mary’s Story.—Varied Trials.—Sabbath Worship.—“What is to Die?”—New Stations.—Making a Treaty.—Mr. Hopkins Drowned.—Personal Experience.
The time came when it was decided that Mary and I should go back to Lac-qui-parle. The four years since we left had brought many changes. They had been years of discouragement and hardship all along the line. The brothers Pond had built among the people of their first love—the old Lake Calhoun band, now located a short distance up from the mouth of the Minnesota. There they had a few who came regularly to worship and to learn the Way of Life. But the mass of the people of Cloud Man’s village were either indifferent or opposed to the Gospel of Christ. At Lac-qui-parle, where had been the best seed-sowing and harvesting for the first seven years, the work had gone backward. Bad corn years had driven some of the native Christians to take refuge among the annuity Indians of the Mississippi. Temptations of various kinds had drawn away others—they had stumbled and fallen. Persecutions from the heathen party had deterred others, and some had fallen asleep in Christ. Among these last was Mr. Joseph Renville, who had stood by the work from the beginning. He had passed away in the month of March; and thus the Lac-qui-parle church was reduced to less than half its members of four years ago. Out of this church there had gone a half a dozen or so, chiefly women, down to Kaposia, or Little Crow’s village, which was on the Mississippi, a few miles below the site of St. Paul. Through them, more than any other influence perhaps, there came an invitation, from Little Crow and the head men of the village, to Dr. Williamson, through the Indian agent at Fort Snelling, to come down and open a school and a mission. This application was considered at the meeting of the Dakota mission held at the Traverse, and the voices were in favor of acceptance. But if Dr. Williamson left Lac-qui-parle, that involved the necessity of our returning thither. This proposition Mary could not entertain willingly. True, the work at the Traverse had been full of hardships and suffering, but the very sufferings and sorrows, and especially that great first sorrow, had strongly wedded her affections to the place and the people. It was hard to leave those Oaks of Weeping. She could not see that it was right; still, she would not refuse to obey orders. And so the month of September, 1846, found us travelling over the same road that we had gone on our first journey, just nine years before. Then we two had gone; now we had with us our four little ones, but it was a sad journey. The mother’s heart was not convinced, nor was it satisfied we had done right, until some time after we reached Lac-qui-parle. MARY’S STORY. “This is probably the last letter I shall write you from this spot so dear to us. If I could see that it was duty to go, it would cheer me in the preparations for our departure, but I cannot feel that the interests of the mission required such a sacrifice as leaving this home is to me. “These are some of the thoughts that darken the prospect, when I think of leaving the comforts and conveniences which we have only enjoyed one or two short summers—such as the enclosure for our children—our rude back porch which has served for a kitchen, the door into which I helped Mr. Riggs saw with a cross-cut saw, because he could get no one to help him. We located here in the midst of opposition and danger, yet God made our enemies to be at peace with us. Sad will be the hour when I take the last look of our low log cabins, our neat white chapel, and dear Thomas’ grave.”
“How pleasant it would be, dear mother, to join your little circle around home’s hearth; but it is vain to wish, and so I take my pen, that this transcript of my heart may enter where I cannot. In one of the late New York Observers, I found a gem of poetry, which seemed so much like the gushings of my affection for my mother that I must send you the verse which pleased me best:— “‘Give me my old seat, mother, With my head upon thy knee; I’ve passed through many a changing scene, Since thus I sat by thee, “Oh, let me look into thine eyes— Their meek, soft, loving light Falls like a gleam of holiness, Upon my heart, to-night!’ “How very often have I found myself half wishing for my old seat, with my head upon thy knee, that I might impart to you my joys and my sorrows, and listen to your own. In times of difficulty and distress, how I have longed for your counsel and cheering sympathy. After leaving our home at Traverse des Sioux and reaching this place, my heart yearned to embrace you. My associates could not comprehend why it should be so trying to me to leave that place so dear to us. I had hoped to live and die and be buried there by the loved grave of Thomas. I had laid plans for usefulness there, and the change that came over us in one short week, during which we packed all our effects and prepared for the journey, was so sudden and so great that it often seemed I should sink under it. Had I been able to see it clearly our duty, the case would have been different. I hope it will prove for the best. Doubtless I was too much attached to that burial spot and that garden of roses. Henceforth, may I more fully realize that ‘we have no abiding city here,’ and, like a pilgrim, press onward to that eternal haven—that unchanging home—little mindful where I pass the few brief nights that may intervene.”
“You will, I think, feel gratified to know that there are some things pleasant and encouraging here, notwithstanding the discouragements. The sound of the church-going bell is heard here—the bell which we purchased with the avails of moccasins donated by the church members. Some of those contributors are dead, and others have backslidden or removed; still, there are more hearers of the Word here than at Traverse des Sioux, although the large majority in both places turn a deaf ear to the calls and entreaties of the Gospel. Quite a number of the women who attend the Sabbath services can read, but some of them can not find the hymns, and I enjoy very much finding the places for them.”
Our place at the Traverse was filled by Mr. A. G. Huggins’ family, who thenceforward became associated with Mr. Hopkins, until they closed their connection with the mission work. Fanny Huggins had married Jonas Pettijohn, and they were our helpers at Lac-qui-parle for the next five years. The time seemed to have come when our relations to the Indians should, if possible, be placed upon a better basis. From the time that the chief men came to understand that the religion of Christ was an exclusive religion, that it would require the giving up of their ancestral faith, they set themselves in opposition to it. Sometimes this was shown in their persecution of the native Christians, forbidding them to attend our meetings, and cutting up the blankets of those who came. Sometimes it was exhibited in the order that the children should not attend school. But the organized determination to drive us from the country showed itself most decidedly in killing our cattle. We could not continue in the country, and make ourselves comfortable, without a team of some kind. This, then, was to be their policy. They would kill our cattle. They would steal our horses. And they had so persistently held to this line of treatment, during the last four years, that Dr. Williamson and his associates had with difficulty kept a team of any kind. Once they were obliged to hitch up milch cows to haul firewood. The Indians said we were trespassers in their country, and they had a right to take reprisals. We used their wood and their water, and pastured our animals on their grass, and gave them no adequate pay. We had helped them get larger corn-patches by ploughing for them, we had furnished food and medicines to their sick ones, we had often clothed their naked ones, we had spent and been spent in their service, but all this was, in their estimation, no compensation for the field we planted, and the fuel we used, and the grass we cut, and the water we drank. They were worth a thousand dollars a year! And so it seemed to me the time had come when some better understanding should be reached in regard to these things. I called the principal men of the village—Oo-pe-ya-hdaya, Inyangmane, and Wakanmane, and others—and told them that, as Dr. Williamson was called away by the Lower Indians, my wife and I had been sent back to Lac-qui-parle, but we would stay only on certain conditions. We knew them and they knew us. If we could stay with them as friends, and be treated as friends, we would stay. We came to teach them and their children. But if then, or at any time afterward, we learned that the whole village did not want us to stay, we would go home to our friends. For the help we gave them, the water we used must be free, the wood to keep us warm must be free, the grass our cattle ate must be free, and the field we planted must be free; but when we wanted their best timber to build houses with, which we should do, I would pay them liberally for it. This arrangement they said was satisfactory, and soon afterward we bought from them the timber we used in erecting two frame houses. From this time onward we did not suffer so much from cattle-killing, though it has always been an incident attaching to mission life among the Indians. For the years that followed we were generally treated as friends. Sometimes there was a breeze of opposition, some wanted us to go away, but we always had friends who stood by us. And they were not always of the same party. The results of mission work began to be seen in the young men who grew up, many of them desirous of adopting, in part at least, the habits and the dress of the whites. There was another reason for a cessation of hostilities on their part; viz., that starvation did not so much stare them in the face. They had better corn crops than for some years previous. And, besides this, for two seasons the buffalo range was extended down the Minnesota far below Lac-qui-parle. For many years they had been far away, west of Lake Traverse. Now they came back, and for two winters our Indians revelled in fresh buffalo meat, their children and dogs even growing fat. And the buffalo robes gave them the means of clothing their families comfortably. Sometimes the herds of bison came into the immediate neighborhood of the village. One morning it was found that a large drove had slept on the prairie but a little distance back of our mission houses. Mr. Martin McLeod, the trader, and a few others organized a hunt on horseback. There was snow on the ground, I hitched our ponies to a rude sled, and we went to the show. As the hunters came into the herd and began to shoot them, the excitement increased in our sled—the ponies could not go fast enough for the lady. We now addressed ourselves afresh to the work of teaching and preaching. The day-school filled up. We took some children into our families. The young men who had learned to read and write when they were boys, came and wanted to learn something of arithmetic and geography. In the work of preaching I began to feel more freedom and joy. There had been times when the Dakota language seemed to be barren and meaningless. The words for Salvation and Life, and even Death and Sin, did not mean what they did in English. It was not to me a heart-language. But this passed away. A Dakota word began to thrill as an English word. Christ came into the language. The Holy Spirit began to pour sweetness and power into it. Then it was not exhausting, as it sometimes had been—it became a joy to preach. MARY’S STORY. “Since Mr. Riggs left home, two weeks to-day, I have had a double share of wants to supply. I could almost wish he had locked up the medicine-case and taken the key with him, for I have not so much confidence in my skill as to suppose the Indians would have suffered if it had been out of my power to satisfy their wants. I purposed only giving rhubarb and a few other simples, but I have been besieged until I have yielded, and have no relief to hope for until Mr. Riggs returns. “In addition to the medicines, there has been a great demand for garden-seeds, to say nothing of the common wants of a little thread, or soap, or patches for a ragged short-gown, or a strip of white cloth for the head to enable them to kill ducks or buffalo, as the case may be. There is scarcely any view of God’s character that gives me so clear an apprehension of his infinite goodness and power as that of his kind care of his sinful creatures. He listens to their requests, and giving doth not impoverish, neither doth withholding enrich him.”
“This afternoon twenty-six armed Indian men paraded before the door and discharged their guns. I was a little startled at first, but soon learned that they had been in search of Chippewas that were supposed to be concealed near by, and that they had returned unsuccessful, and were merely indulging in a little military exercise.”
“The last Sabbath in December, Mr. Riggs spent at an Indian encampment about sixteen miles from this place. When he left home, baby Samuel, Mr. and Mrs. Pettijohn’s only child, was ill, but we did not apprehend dangerously so; when he returned on Monday noon, little Samuel was dead. This has been a severe affliction to them. Why was this first-born and only son taken, and our five children spared, is a query that often arises. “Some weeks ago, an elderly woman with a young babe begged me for clothing for the little one. I asked her if it was her child. She replied that it was her grandchild, that its mother died last summer, and that she had nursed it ever since. At first she had no milk, but she continued nursing it, until the milk flowed for the little orphan. This, thought I, is an evidence of a grandmother’s love not often witnessed. I felt very compassionate for the baby, and gave the grandmother some old clothing. After she left, a knife was missing, which seemed rather like a gypsy’s compensation for the kindness received. But perhaps she was not the thief, as our house was then thronged with visitors from morning till night. We endeavor to keep such things as they will be tempted to steal out of their reach, but a mother can not watch three or four children, and perform necessary household duties at the same time, without sometimes affording an opportunity for a cunning hand to slip away a pair of scissors or a knife unnoticed. “The buffalo are about us in large herds. I have just taken a ride of four or five miles to see these natives of the prairie. Before the herd perceived our approach, they were quietly standing together, but, on perceiving us, they waited a moment for consultation, and then started bounding away. Those who were prepared for the chase entered their ranks, and then the herd separated into three or four parts, and scampered for life in as many different directions. Several were killed and dressed, and we brought home the huge head of one for the children to see, besides the tongue and some meat, which were given us as our share of the spoils.”
“How very quiet and green I think those lanes are—no noise except the whispering winds in those beautiful elms and maples; and those still rooms, where rang the merry shout of children returned from school. I could almost fancy they would look as sober and sombre as those dark firs under which we played when we and they were small. They still are young and vigorous, for aught I know, but we, alas! are young no longer. Do the lilacs and roses and snowballs still bloom as brightly as ever? But the thought of those bright and beautiful scenes makes me sad, and I wish to write a cheering letter, so good-by to the visions of departed joys. “We are building, this summer, a plain, snug, one-story house, with a sitting-room, kitchen, and two bedrooms on the lower floor, and two rooms above, if ever they should be completed. We have been hoping to have a young lady to assist in teaching, etc., for an occupant of one of our bedrooms, but the prospect is rather discouraging. And yet I feel that it is no more so than we deserve, for I have not exercised faith in this respect. I have, however, some hope that He ‘who is able to do exceeding abundantly, above all that we ask or think,’ will send us such fellow-laborers as we need.”
During these two buffalo winters, almost the whole village removed up to the Pomme de Terre, or Owobaptay River as the Dakotas called it. That was a better point to hunt from. For the regulation of the hunt, and to prevent the buffalo from being driven off, they organized a Soldiers’ Lodge. This was a large tent pitched in the centre of the camp, where the symbols of power were kept in two bundles of red and black sticks. These represented the soldiers—those who had killed enemies and those who had not. To this tent the women brought offerings of wood and meat; and here the young and old men often gathered to feast, and from these headquarters went forth, through an Eyanpaha (cryer), the edicts of the wise men. For these two winters, I arranged to spend every alternate Sabbath at the camp, going up on Saturday and returning on Monday. This soldiers’ tent was, from the first, placed at my disposal for Sabbath meetings. It was an evidence of a great change in the general feeling of the village toward Christianity. It was a public recognition of it. All were not Christians by any means; but the following was honorable and honored, and we usually had a crowded tent. Our evening meetings were held in the tent of one of our church members. So the Word of God grew in Dakota soil. Where the village of Lac-qui-parle now stands is the site of Wakanmane’s planting-place and village of those days. In one of the summer bark houses, we were accustomed to hold a week-day meeting. Our mission was three miles from there, and on the other side of the Minnesota; but it was only a pleasant walk of a summer day, and I was sure to find a little company, chiefly women, of from half a dozen to a dozen present. After two years’ absence, Dr. Williamson returned to Lac-qui-parle on a visit, and remarked that he had found no meetings among the Dakotas so stimulating and encouraging as that weekly prayer-meeting. I have since spent a Sabbath, and worshipped with white people on the same spot. It seemed like Jacob coming back to Bethel, where the angels of God had been. There were still few things to encourage, and many to discourage, all through the Dakota field; but it began to appear to us that if our forces could be doubled, the work, with God’s blessing, might be pushed forward successfully. And so the Dakota Presbytery, which was organized in 1845, proceeded to license and ordain Gideon H. Pond and Robert Hopkins as ministers of the Gospel. They had both been working in this line for years, and it was fit that they should now be properly recognized as fellow-laborers in the vineyard of the Lord. The American Board was ready also to respond to our call for more help. In the spring of 1848, Rev. M. N. Adams and Rev. John F. Aiton were sent up from Ohio and Illinois; and, later in the season, Rev. Joshua Potter came from the Cherokee country. Our annual meeting was held that year with Dr. Williamson, at his new station, Kaposia, a few miles below St. Paul. It was a meeting of more than ordinary interest; not only on account of our own reinforcements, but because we met there two lady teachers (Gov. Slade’s girls), the first sent out to the white settlements of Minnesota. The toilers of fourteen years among the Dakotas now shook hands with the first toilers among the white people. The boy Thomas had been added to our little group of children. With a part of the family, Mary now made the trip back to the Traverse, with a much gladder heart than she had when coming up two years before. MARY’S STORY. “This year the annual meeting of our mission was at Kaposia, the station occupied by Dr. Williamson and family. I accompanied Mr. Riggs with three of our children. From the Traverse, Mr. Hopkins had arranged that we should proceed through the Big Woods, by means of ox-carts. There was no road cut yet, and hundreds of large logs lay across the path; but the patient animals worried over them, and drivers and riders were very weary when, late at night, we came into camp. At Prairieville, as Tintatonwe signifies, where Mr. S. W. Pond is located, we spent the Sabbath, and reached Dr. Williamson’s on Monday, only eight days from Lac-qui-parle, not a little fatigued, but greatly prospered in our journey. More truly than did the Gibeonites could we say, ‘This our bread we took hot for our provision out of our houses on the day we came forth to go unto you; but now, behold, it is dry, and it is mouldy.’ “At Kaposia we found the Messrs. Pond, also Mr. and Mrs. Aiton, and Mr. and Mrs. Adams, who have recently joined the Sioux mission. Mr. and Mrs. Hopkins, with their three children, who were of our party from the Traverse, and ourselves in addition to Dr. Williamson’s family, made such a company as I had not seen for a long time. The warm reception we met with from so many kindred in Christ excited me almost as much as did the greeting at home after five years’ absence. It reminded me of that happy meeting, and, as at that time, I was overpowered with joyful emotions. “We passed nearly a week at Kaposia, and then set our faces homeward, spending a night at Mr. G. H. Pond’s, at Oak Grove, and one also at Mr. Samuel W. Pond’s, at Tintatonwe. Two nights we camped out, and reached Traverse on Friday afternoon. While there I often went to brother Thomas’ grave. The turf, which I assisted in setting, was very green, and the rose-bushes were flourishing. The cedar we planted withered, but a beautiful one, placed by Mr. Hopkins near the grave, is fresh and verdant. Mr. and Mrs. Adams returned with us to Lac-qui-parle.”
“The Spirit has seemed near us, and we hope A. is listening to his teachings. Some of the Indians also have manifested an inquiring state of mind, but Satan is very busy, and unless the Lord rescues his rebellious subjects from the thraldom of the devil, I fear the Holy Spirit will depart from us. “The same foolish yet trying accusations are made—such as that we are to receive pay according to the number of scholars in the school here when the land is sold—that we are using up their grass and timber and land, and making them no requital. A few days ago the old chief and his brother-in-law came and rehearsed their supposed claims, and said that the Indians were tired eating corn and wanted one of our remaining cattle. Truly we can say that this earth is not our rest, and rejoice that we shall not live here always. “We have had faith to expect that the Lord was about to ‘make bare his arm’ for the salvation of these degraded Indians; and although the heathen rage, we know that He who ‘sitteth on the circle of the earth and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers,’ can turn the hearts of this people as the rivers of water are turned.”
“During Mr. Riggs’ absence, our worship on the Sabbath, both in Sioux and English, has consisted of reading the Scriptures, singing, and prayer. I have been gratified that so many attended the Sioux service—about thirty each Sabbath. Anna Jane remarked the Saturday after her father left home, ‘We can’t have any Sabbath because two men and one woman are gone,’ referring to her papa and Mr. and Mrs. Adams. Still, these Sabbaths have brought to us privileges, even though the preached Word and the great congregation have been wanting.”
“Mr. Riggs reached home two weeks ago, and last Monday he left again for Big Stone Lake, accompanied by Mr. Hopkins of Traverse des Sioux. They have gone hoping for opportunities to proclaim the Word of God to the Sioux in that region.”
“Last evening, hearing Thomas cry after he had gone to rest, I went to the chamber. Alfred was teaching him to say, ‘Now I lay me,’ and the sentence, ‘If I should die,’ distressed him very much. I soothed him by asking God to keep him through the night. He has never seen a corpse, but, a few weeks ago, he saw Mrs. Antoine Renville buried, and he has seen dead birds and chickens. He said, ‘What is to die, mamma?’ and evidently felt that it was something very incomprehensible and dreadful. I felt a difficulty in explaining it, and I wished to soothe the animal excitement, and not lessen the serious state of mind he manifested. I think I will tell him more about Jesus’ death—his burial and resurrection. It is this that has illumined the grave. It is faith in Him who has conquered ‘him that had the power of death,’ which will give us the victory over every fear.”
With an increased missionary force, we hoped to see large results within the next few years. There was progress made, but not so much as we hoped for. In fact, it was chiefly apparent in “strengthening the things that remain.” Just before this enlargement, Mr. S. W. Pond had separated from his brother, and formed a station at Shakopee, or Six’s Village, which he called Prairieville. After a while, little churches were organized at Kaposia, Oak Grove, Prairieville, and Traverse des Sioux. At Lac-qui-parle the numbers in the church were somewhat increased. We began to have more young men in the church, and they began to separate themselves more and more from the village, and to build cabins and make fields for themselves. Thus the religion of Christ worked to disintegrate heathenism. The summer of 1851 came, which brought great changes, and prepared the way for others. It was one of the very wet summers in Minnesota, when the streams were flooded all the summer through. In making our trip for provisions in the spring, we were detained at the crossing of one stream for almost a whole week. In the latter part of June, the Indians from all along the upper part of the Minnesota were called down to Traverse des Sioux, to meet commissioners of the government. They were obliged to swim at many places. The Minnesota was very high, spreading its waters over all the low bottom contiguous to the mission premises. Governor Ramsay and Commissioner Lea were there for the government. General Sibley and the fur-traders generally were present, with a large number of the Wahpaton and Sisseton Sioux. The Fourth of July was to be celebrated grandly, and Mr. Hopkins had consented to take a part in the celebration, but the Lord disposed otherwise. In the early morning, Mr. Hopkins went to bathe in the overflow of the river. When the family breakfast was ready he had not returned. He was sought for, and his clothes alone were found. He had gone up through the flood of water. It was supposed that, unintentionally, he had waded in beyond his depth, and, as he could not swim, was unable again to reach the land. This was the second great sorrow that came, in the same way, to the mission band of Traverse des Sioux. It threw a pall over the festivities of the day. The Indians said again the Oonktehe—their Neptune—was angry and had taken the wechasta wakan. But the mission families were enabled to say, “It is the Lord.” When the body floated it was caught in fishing nets, and carefully taken up and buried by the “Oaks of Weeping.” Mr. Hopkins did not live to see much matured fruit of his labors, but he had put in eight years of good, honest work for the Master, among the Dakotas, and he has his reward. The Treaty was made, which, with one consummated immediately after, at Mendota, with the Lower Sioux, conveyed to the white people all their land in Minnesota, except a reserve on the upper part of the river. These treaties had an important bearing on our mission work and on all the eastern Dakotas. The messenger who brought word to us at Lac-qui-parle of the sudden death of our brother, Robert Hopkins, brought also to me a pressing invitation from the commission to attend the making of the Treaty. I at once mounted a pony and rode down. It gave me an opportunity of seeing the inside of Indian treaties. On my return, I was in advance of the Indians, and, coming to the Chippewa alone, I found no way of crossing its swollen tide but by swimming. In the middle of the stream, my horse turned over backward, and we went down to the bottom together. He soon, however, righted himself, and I came up by his side, with one hand holding his mane. I remember well the feeling I had when in the deep waters, that my horse would take me out. And I was not disappointed. This event has ever since been to me a lesson of trust. “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”
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