Among the Sioux Part 1

Among the Sioux.

by R. J. Creswell.

_INTRODUCTION_

By the Rev. David R. Breed, D.D.

The sketches which make up this little volume are of absorbing interest, and are prepared by one who is abundantly qualified to do so.

Mr. Creswell has had large personal acquaintance with many of those of whom he writes and has for years been a diligent student of missionary effort among the Sioux. His frequent contributions to the periodicals on this subject have received marked attention. Several of them he gathers together and reprints in this volume, so that while it is not a consecutive history of the Sioux missions it furnishes an admirable survey of the labors of the heroic men and women who have spent their lives in this cause, and furnishes even more interesting reading in their biographies that might have been given upon the other plan.

During my own ministry in Minnesota, from 1870 to 1885, I became very intimate with the great leaders of whom Mr. Creswell writes. Some of them were often in my home, and I, in turn, have visited them. I am familiar with many of the scenes described in this book. I have heard from the missionaries' own lips the stories of their hardships, trials and successes. I have listened to their account of the great ma.s.sacre, while with the tears flowing down their cheeks they told of the desperate cruelty of the savages, their defeat, their conversion, and their subsequent fidelity to the men and the cause they once opposed. I am grateful to Mr. Creswell for putting these facts into permanent shape and bespeak for his volume a cordial reception, a wide circulation, and above all, the abundant blessing of G.o.d.

DAVID R. BREED.

Allegheny, Pa., January, 1906.

_PREFACE_.

This volume is not sent forth as a full history of the Sioux Missions.

That volume has not yet been written, and probably never will be.

The pioneer missionaries were too busily engaged in the formation of the Dakota Dictionary and Grammar, in the translation of the Bible into that wild, barbaric tongue; in the preparation of hymn books and text books:--in the creation of a literature for the Sioux Nation, to spend time in ordinary literary work. The present missionaries are overwhelmed with the great work of ingathering and upbuilding that has come to them so rapidly all over the widely extended Dakota plains. These Sioux missionaries were and are men of deeds rather than of words,--more intent on the _making_ of history than the _recording_ of it. They are the n.o.blest body of men and women that ever yet went forth to do service, for our Great King, on American soil.

For twenty years it has been the writer's privilege to mingle intimately with these missionaries and with the Christian Sioux; to sit with them at their great council fires; to talk with them in their teepees; to visit them in their homes; to meet with them in their Church Courts; to inspect their schools; to worship with them in their churches; and to gather with them on the greensward under the matchless Dakota sky and celebrate together with them the sweet, sacramental service of our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ.

He was so filled and impressed by what he there saw and heard, that he felt impelled to impart to others somewhat of the knowledge thus gained; in order that they may be stimulated to a deeper interest in, and devotion to the cause of missions on American soil.

In the compilation of this work the author has drawn freely from these publications, viz.:

THE GOSPEL OF THE DAKOTAS, MARY AND I, _By Stephen R. Riggs, D.D., LL.D._

TWO VOLUNTEER MISSIONARIES, _By S. W. Pond, Jr._

INDIAN BOYHOOD, _By Charles Eastman_

THE PAST MADE PRESENT, _By Rev. William Fiske Brown_

THE WORD CARRIER, _By Editor A. L. Riggs, D.D._

THE MARTYRS OF WALHALLA, _By Charlotte O. Van Cleve_

THE LONG AGO, _By Charles H. Lee_

THE DAKOTA MISSION, _By Dr. L. P. Williamson and others_

DR. T. S. WILLIAMSON, _By Rev. R. McQuesten_

He makes this general acknowledgment, in lieu of repeated references, which would otherwise be necessary throughout the book. For valuable a.s.sistance in its preparation he is very grateful to many missionaries, especially to John P. Williamson, D.D., of Grenwood, South Dakota; A.

L. Riggs, D.D. of Santee, Nebraska; Samuel W. Pond, Jr., of Minneapolis, and Mrs. Gideon H. Pond, of Oak Grove, Minnesota. All these were sharers in the stirring scenes recorded in these pages. The names Dakota and Sioux are used as synonyms and the English significance instead of the Indian cognomens.

May the blessing of Him who dwelt in the Burning Bush, rest upon all these toilers on the prairies of the new Northwest.

R. J. CRESWELL.

Minneapolis, Minnesota, January, 1906.

PART ONE.

SOWING AND REAPING.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FORT SNELLING.]

They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.

He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing Precious Seed, Shall doubtless come again With rejoicing, Bringing his sheaves.

_Psalm 126._

Chapter I.

_Now appear the flow'rets fair_ _Beautiful beyond compare_ _And all nature seems to say,_ "_Welcome, welcome, blooming May._"

It was 1834. A lovely day--the opening of the merry month of May!

The Warrior, a Mississippi steamer, glided out of Fever River, at Galena, Illinois, and turned its prow up the Mississippi. Its destination was the mouth of the St. Peters--now Minnesota River--five hundred miles to the north--the port of entry to the then unknown land of the Upper Mississippi.

The pa.s.sengers formed a motley group; officers, soldiers, fur-traders, adventurers, and two young men from New England. These latter were two brothers, Samuel William and Gideon Hollister Pond, from Washington, Connecticut. At this time, Samuel the elder of the two, was twenty-six years of age and in form, tall and very slender as he continued through life. Gideon, the younger and more robust brother was not quite twenty-four, more than six feet in height, strong and active, a specimen of well developed manhood. With their clear blue eyes, and their tall, fully developed forms, they must have attracted marked attention even among that band of brawny frontiersmen.

In 1831 a gracious revival had occurred in their native village of Washington. It was so marked in its character, and permanent in its results, that it formed an epoch in the history of that region and is still spoken of as "the great revival". For months, during the busiest season of the year, crowded sunrise prayer-meetings were held daily and were well attended by an agricultural population, busily engaged every day in the pressing toil of the harvest and the hayfields. Scores were converted and enrolled themselves as soldiers of the cross.

Among these were the two Pond brothers. This was, in reality with them, the beginning of a new life. From this point in their lives, the inspiring motive, with both these brothers, was a spirit of intense loyalty to their new Master and a burning love for the souls of their fellowmen. Picked by the Holy Spirit out of more than one hundred converts for special service for the Lord Jesus Christ, the Pond brothers resolutely determined to choose a field of very hard service, one to which no others desired to go. In the search for such a field, Samuel the elder brother, journeyed from New Haven to Galena, Illinois, and spent the autumn and winter of 1833-34 in his explorations. He visited Chicago, then a struggling village of a few hundred inhabitants and other embryo towns and cities. He also saw the Winnebago Indians and the Pottawatomies, but he was not led to choose a field of labor amongst any of these.

A strange Providence finally pointed the way to Mr. Pond. In his efforts to reform a rumseller at Galena, he gained much information concerning the Sioux Indians, whose territory the rumseller had traversed on his way from the Red River country from which he had come quite recently. He represented the Sioux Indians as vile, degraded, ignorant, superst.i.tious and wholly given up to evil.

"There," said the rumseller, "is a people for whose souls n.o.body cares.

They are utterly dest.i.tute of moral and religious teachings. No efforts have ever been made by Protestants for their salvation. If you fellows are looking, in earnest, for a _hard job_, there is one ready for you to tackle on those bleak prairies."