He had tact as well as courage. He invited those savage warriors to a feast. His kettle was brimming, and as the Indians filled their mouths with the savory meat, he filled their ears with the story of the gospel, and gave them their first view of that eternal life, purchased by the blood of Christ.
The deer-hunt became a soul-hunt. The wild Sicaugu grunted their amicable "Hao" as they left his teepee, their mouths filled with venison and their hearts planted with the seeds of eternal truth.
Again he went on a deer-hunt, when he crossed another trail, that of hunters from another hostile tribe. In the camp he found a sick child, the son of Samuel Heart, a Yankton Sioux. But let Heart tell the story himself in his simple way:
"I was many days travel away in the wilderness. My child was very sick. I felt much troubled. A man of God came to my tent. I remember all he said. He told me not to be troubled, but to trust in God, and
all would be well. He prayed; he asked God to strengthen the child so I could bring him home. God heard him. My child lived to get home. Once my heart would have been very sad, and I would have done something very wicked. I look forward and trust Jesus."
This is how Rev. Artemas Ehnamane spent his vacations, hunting for wild souls instead of wild deer.
He was a scriptural, personal and powerful preacher.
Faith in a risen Saviour, was the keynote of his ministry. As he said: "Who of all the Saviours of the Indian people has risen from the dead? Not one." "Our fathers told us many things and gave us many customs, but they were not true." "I ^ grew up believing in what my father taught me, but when I knew of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, I believed in Him and put aside all my ways." It was to him in truth, the coming out of darkness into light. "Sins are like wolves," he said. "They abound in the darkness and destroy men. When we enter the way, Jesus watches over us. Be awake and follow Him. All over the world men are beginning to follow Christ. The day is here." "Repent, believe, obey."
He loved to sing:
"Saved, by grace, alone; That is all my plea; Jesus died for all mankind; Jesus died for me."
SOWING ANU REAPING. s^
The twenty grand-children of the old Sioux all of
school age—are diligently prosecuting their studies in order to be prepared to meet the changed conditions which civiHzation has made possible for the Indians. One of his grand-sons is a physician now, in a fair practice among his own people.
This man President Lincoln wisely pardoned, knowing full well what a great influence for good such a man could wield over his turbulent people. And the President was not disappointed. One of his sons has been a missionary among the Swift Bear tribe at the Rose Bud Agency for twenty years; another son has been a missionary at Standing Rock, on the Grand River, and is now pastor of an Indian congregation on Basile Creek, Nebraska, and is also an important-leader of his tribe. The Rev. Francis Frazier, one of his sons, was installed September lo, 1902, as his father's successor in the pastorate of Pilgrim church at Santee.
His married daughter is also very earnest in the woman's work in the church. Seventy-seven years of age at his death. Rev. Artemas Ehnamane had filled to overflowing with good deeds to offset the first half, when he fought against the encroachments of the whites and the advance of civilization with as much zeal as later he evinced in his religious and beneficent life. Abraham Lincoln pardoned Ehnamane and the uld warrior never forgot it. But it was another pardon he prized more highly than that. It was this pardon he preached and died believing.
TWO FAMOUS MISSIONS.
Lake Harriet and Prairieville
In the spring of 1835, the Rev. Jedediah Dwight Stevens, of the Presb3'terian Church, arrived at Fort SnelHng under the auspices of the American Board of ^Missions. He estabHshed a station on the northwestern shore of Lake Harriet. It was a most beautiful spot, west of the Lrdian village, presided over by that friendly and influencial chieftain Cloudman or Man-of-the-sky. He erected two buildings—the mission-home, first residence for white settlers, and the school house—the first building erected exclusively for school purposes within the present boundaries of the State of Minnesota.
\^ithin a few rods of the Pavilion, where on the Sabbath, multitudes gather for recreation, and desecration of God's holy day, is the site, where, in 1835, the first systematic effort was made to educate and Christianize Dakota Indians. It is near the present junction of Fortv-second Street, and Queen Avenue. (Linden Hills). '
In July, Mr. Stevens, and his interesting family, took possession of the mission house. With the co-operation of the Pond brothers, this mission was prosecuted with a fair measure of success till the removal of the Indians farther west, in 1839, when it was abandoned, and the connection of Mr. Stevens with the work of the Dakota mission ceased.
Here on the evening of November 22, 1838, a ro-
mantic wedding- was solemnized by Rev. J. D. Stevens. The ^room was Samuel Pond of the Dakota mission. The groomsman was Henry H. Sibley, destined in after years to be Minnesota's first delegate to Congress, her first state executive, and in the trying times of '62, the victorious General Sibley. The bride was Mis'? Cordelia Eggleston; the bridesmaid, Miss Cornelia Stevens ; both amiable, lovely and remarkably handsome.
It was a brilliant, starry evening, one of Minnesota's brightest and most invigorating. The sleighing was fine, and among the guests, were many officers, from Fort Snellino-, with their wives. Dr. • Emerson and wife, the owners of Dred Scott, the subject of Judge Taney's infamous decision, were present. The doctor was, then, post-surgeon at the fort, and the slave Dred, was his body-servant The tall bridegroom and groomsman, in the vigor and strength of their young manhood; the bride and bridesmaid, just emerging-from girlhood, with all their dazzling beauty, the officers in the brilliant uniforms^ and their wives, in their gay attire, must have formed an attractive picture in the long ago. After the wedding festivities, the guests from the fort were imprisoned at the mission for the night, by a blizzard, which swept over the icy face of Lake Harriet.
In the previous November, at Lac-qui-Pkrle, the younger brother was united in marriage to Miss Sarah Poage, by the Rev. Stephen R. Riggs. It was a unique gathering. The guests were all the dark-faced dw^ellers of the Indian village, making a novel group of whites, half-breeds and savage Indians.
f'6 AMONG THE SIOl^X.
Man of ilie latter wore poor, inaimod, halt aiul blind, who thoroughly enjoyed the feast of potatoes, turnips, and baeon so generouslv provided by the happy bridegroom.
PRAIRIEVILLE.
In 1846, Shakpe or Little Six, extende
This station,, which Mr. Pond called Prairieville, was fourteen miles soutlieast of Oak Grove mission, on the present site of Shakopee. The mission home w^s pleasantly located on gently rising ground, half a mile ^outh of the Minnesota River. It was surrounded by ilie teepees of six hundred noisy savaqvs. Here.-for
several years they toiled unceasingly for the welfare of the wild men, by whom they were surrounded.
In 1851, Mr. and Mrs. Pond were compelled, by her rapidly failing- health, to spend a year in the east. She never returned. She died February 6, 1
852, at Washington, Connecticut. Thus after fourteen years of arduous missionary toil, Cordelia Eggleston Pond, the beautiful bride of the Lake Harriet mission house, was called from service to reward at the early age of thirty-six.
Mr. Pond returned to Prairieville and toiled on for the Indians until their removal by the government, in 1853. He himself, remained and continued his labors for the benefit of the white community of Shakopee, v/hich had grown up around him. In 1853, a white Presbyterian church was organized and, in 1856, a comfortable church edifice was erected, wholly at the expense of the pastor and his people. The congregation still exists and the mission house still stands as monuments of the wisdom, faith and fortitude of the heroic builder. After thirteen years of faithful service, he laid the heavy burdens-down for younger hands, but for a quarter of a century longer he remained in his old home.
During these last years, his chief delight was in his
books, which lost none of their power to interest him
in advancing age; epecially was this true of the Book
of books. He was never idle. The active energy,
which distinguished his youth, no less marked his ad-
vancing years. His mind was as clear, his judgment as sound, and his mental vision as keen at eighty-three, as they v/ere at thirty-three. His was a long and happy old age. He lingered in the house his own hands had builded, content to go or stay, till he was transferred, December twelfth, 1891, to the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
THE PRINCE OF INDIAN PREACHERS.
Without disparagement to any of his brethren in the ministry, this title can be properly applied to the Rev. John Baptiste Renville, of lyakaptapte, (Ascension) South Dakota, who recently passed on to join the shining ranks of the saved Sioux in glory.
Timid as a little child, yet bold as a lion, when aroused; shy of conversation in private, yet eloquent in the pulpit and in the council-chamber; yielding yet firm as a rock, when duty demanded it; a loving husband, a kind father, a loyal citizen, a faithful presbyter—a pungent preacher of the gospel, a soul-winner— a courteous, cultured Christian gentleman; such a man was this Indian sen of a Sioux mother, herself the first fullblood Sioux convert to the Christian faith.
He was the youngest son of Joseph Renville, a mixed blood Sioux and French, who was a captain in the British army in the War of 1812 and the most famous Sioux Indian in his day. After the war, he became a trader and established his headquarters at Lac-qui-Parle, where he induced Dr. Thomas S. Williamson to locate his first mission station in 1835.
John Baptiste was one of the first Indian children baptized by Dr. Williamson and he enjoyed the benefits of the first school among the Sioux. He was rather delicate, which hindered his being sent east to school as much as he otherwise would have been. However, he spent several years in excellent white schools, and
w
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So
Pi
The Rev. Thomas S. Williamson, M. D.. Fortv-five vears a Missionary to the Sioux.
he acquired a fair knowledge of the elementary branches of the EngHsh language. The last year he spent at Knox College, Galesburgh, Illinois, where he wooed and won Miss Mary Butler, an educated Christian white woman, whom he married and who became his great helper in his educational and evangelistic work.
He was the first Sioux Indian to enter the ministry. In the spring of 1865, he was licensed to preach, by the presbytery of Dakota, at Mankato, Minnesota, and ordained in the following autumn. When he entered the ministry, the Sioux Indians were in a very unsettled state, and his labors were very much scattered; now with the Indian scouts on some campaign; again Avith a few families of Indians gathered about some military post, and anon with a little class of Indians, who were trying to settle down to civilized life.
In 1870, he became the pastor of lyakaptapte, (Ascension) a little church in what subsequently became the Sisseton reservation. Both physically and in mental and spiritual qualities, he was best adapted to a settled pastorate. His quiet and unobtrusive character required long intercourse to be appreciated. However, in the pulpit, his earnestness and apt presentation of the truth ever commanded the attention even of strangers. Under his ministry, the church increased to one hundred and forty members. More than half a dozen of them became ministers and Ascension was generally the leading church in every good work among the Dakota Indians. No one among the Christian Sioux was more widclv known and loved than Mr.
Renville. In the councils of the church, though there were seventeen other ministers in the presbytery before his death, he was ever given the first place both for counsel and honor. He twice represented his presbytery in the general Assembly, and he was ever faithful in his attendance at Synod and Presbytery and active in the discharge of the duties devolving upon him. iMary Butler, the white wife of his youth, died several years ago. Their daughter Ella, a fine Christian young lady passed away at twenty years of age. She was active in organizing Bands of Hcj.e among the chilflren of the tribe. She sleeps, with her parents on the brow of lyakaptapte overlooking" the chruch to which all their lives were devoted. Josephine, the Indian wife of his old age, survives him and remains in the white farm house on the prairie in which John Baptiste Renville spent so many years of his long, happy useful life. He died December 19, 1904, in the seventy-third year of his age.
VlII
AN INDIAN PATRIARCH.
Chief Cloiidman or Man-of-the-skv, was one of the strongest characters among the natives on the headwaters of the Mississippi in the earlier half of the nineteenth century. He was one of the leading chiefs of t-he Santee band of Sioux Indians. He was born about 1780. He was brave in battle, wise in council, and possessed many other noble qualities, which caused him to rise far above his fellow chieftains. He possessed a large fund of common sense. Years prior to the advent of the white man in this region, he regarded hunting and fishing as a too precarious means to a livelihood, and attempted to teach his people agriculture and succeeded to a limited extent.
It was a strange circumstance that prompted the chief to this wise action. On a hunting tour in the Red River ccuntr}-, with a part of his band, they were overtaken by a drifting storm and remained, for several days, under the snow, without any food whatsoever. While buried in those drifts, he resolved to rely, in part, upon agriculture, for subsistence, if he escaped alive, and he carried out his resolution, after the immediate peril was passed. His band cultivated small fields of quickly maturing corn, which had been introduced by their chief in the early 30's. He was respected and loved by his people and quite well obeyed.
Before the coming of the missionaries he taught and enforced, by his example, this principle, namely, that
REV. JOHN EASTMAN.
SOWING AND REAPING.
93
it as wrong to kill non-combatants, or to kill under any circumstances in time of peace. He favored peace rather than war. He was twenty-five years of age, and had six notches on the handle of his tomahawk, indicating t'hat he had slain half a dozen of his O jib way foes before he adopted this human policy.
His own band lived on the shores of Lakes Calhoun and Harriet, within the present limits of Minneapo-On the present site of lovely Lakewood—Minneapolis' most fashionable cemetery—was his village of several hundred savages, and also an Indian burial place. This village was the front guard against the war parties of the O jib ways—feudal enemies of the Sioux—but finally as their young men were killed off in battle, they were compelled to remove and join their people on the banks of the Minnesota and farther West. He located his greatly reduced band at Bloomington, directly west of his original village. This removal occurred prior to 1838.
He was never hostile to the approach of civilization, or blind to the blessings it might confer on his people.
He was one of the first of his tribe to accept the white man's ways and to urge his band to follow his example. This fact is confirmed by the great progress his descendants have made.
He was the first S
ioux Indian of any note to welcome those first pioneer missionaries, the Pond brothers. As early as 1834 he encouraged them to erect their home and inaugurate their work in his village. In all the treaties formed between the government and the Sioux, he was ever the ready and able advocate of the white
man's cause. He threw all the weight of his powerful influence in favor of cession to the United States government of the military reservation on which Fort Snelling now stands. He died at Fort Snelling in 1863, ^^'^ was buried on the banks of the Minnesota in view of the fort.
He was the father of seven children, all of whom are dead, except his son David Weston, his successor in the chieftainship, who still lives at Flandreau, South Dakota, at the age of seventy-eight years. He was for many years a catechist of the Episcopal Church. His two daughters were called Hushes-the-Night and Stands-like-a-Spirit. They were once the belles of Lake Harriet, to whom the officers and fur traders paid homage. Hushes-the-Night married a white man named Lamont and became the mother of a child called Jane. She had one sister, who died childless, in St. Paul, in 1901. Jane Lamont married Star Titus, a nephew of the Pond brothers. They became the parents of three sons and two daughters. Two of these sons are bankers and rank among the best business men of North Dakota. They are recognized as leaders among the whites. The other son is a farmer near Tracy, Minnesota. Stands-Like-a-Spirit was the mother of one daughter, Mary Nancy Eastman, whose father, Captain Seth Eastman, was stationed at Fort Snelling—1830-36. Mary Nancy married Many Lightnings, a fullblood, one of the leaders of the Wahpe-ton-Sioux. They became the parents of four sons and one daughter. After Many Lightnings became a Christian, he took his wife's name, Eastman, instead of
his own, and gave all his children English names. John, the eldest, and Charles Alexander, the youngest son, have made this branch of the Cloudman family widely and favorably known.
Among the Sioux : a story of the Twin Cities and the two Dakotas Page 7