BULL. 30] 



MISSIONS 



887 



Sioux mission. In 1829 Rev. Frederick 

 Ayer joined the Mackinaw station, and, 

 after two years' study of the language, 

 opened among the Chippewa at Sandy 

 Lake, Minn., in 1831, what is said to have 

 been the first scliool in Minnesota. He 

 is the author of a small text-book in the 

 language. Other stations were estab- 

 lished soon after among the same tribe, 

 at Lapointe, Wis., Pokegama lake, and 

 Leech lake, Minn., but seem to have been 

 discontinued aljout 1845. The Mackinaw 

 mission had already been aljandoned. 

 Rev. Peter Dougherty, under the direct 

 auspices of the Presl)yterian mission 

 board, labored among the Chippewa and 

 the Ottawa at Grand Traverse bay, lower 

 Michigan, in 1843-47-f- and is the author 

 of several text-books and small religious 

 works in the language of the former tribe. 



In 1834 two volunteer workers, Mr 

 Samuel W. Pond and his brother Gid- 

 eon, took up their residence in a village 

 of the Santee Sioux on L. Calhoun, 

 near the present St Paul, ]Minn. They 

 afterward became regularly ordained 

 missionaries under the American Board, 

 continuing in the work for 18 years. In 

 the same year Rev. Thomas S. William- 

 son, "the fatherof the Dakota mission," 

 made a reconnoissance of the field for 

 the same Board, and on his favorable 

 report two mission stations were estab- 

 lished in 1835 — one at L. Harriet, near 

 St Paul, under Rev. J. D. Stevens, for- 

 merly of the Mackinaw mission, the 

 other under Williamson himself at Lac- 

 qui-parle, high up on Minnesota r. With 

 Mr Williamson then or later were his 

 wife, his daughter, and his two sons, all 

 of whom became efficient partners in the 

 work. In 1837 Rev. Stephen R. Riggs, 

 with his wife, Mary, and his son, Alfred 

 L. — all known in mission annals — joined 

 the station at Lac-qui-parle. In the next 

 10 or 12 years, as the good will of the 

 Indians was gradually won and the work- 

 ing force increased, other stations were 

 established, all among the Santee Sioux 

 in Minnesota. Among these was the one 

 started by Rev. John F. Alton, in 1848, 

 at Redwing, where Revs. Francis Denton 

 and Daniel Gavan, for the Evangelical 

 Missionary Society of Lucerne, had estab- 

 lished the "Swiss mission" in 1837, these 

 two missionaries now combining forces 

 with the American workers. In 1852, in 

 consequence of a cession of Indian land, 

 the eastern station, then at Kaposia, was 

 removed Ijy Williamson to Yellow Medi- 

 cine on the upper Minnesota, and two 

 years later, in consequence of the burn- 

 ing of the Lac-qui-parle station, that mis- 

 sion also was removed to Hazelwood, in 

 the same neighborhood. 



The work continued with varying suc- 

 cess until interrupted by the Sioux out- 



break in the summer of 1862, when the 

 missions were abandoned and the mis- 

 sionaries sought safety within the older 

 settlements. Throughout the troubles 

 the Christian Sioux generally remained 

 friendly and did good service in behalf 

 of the endangered settlers. As a result 

 of the outbreak the Santee Sioux were 

 removed to Niobrara, n. e. Nebr., where 

 they now reside. The missionaries fol- 

 lowed, and in 1866 the "Niobrara 

 mission" was organized, the work being 

 extended to other neighboring bands of 

 Sioux, and the principal workers being 

 Revs. John P. Williamson and Alfred L. 

 Riggs, sons of the earlier missionaries. 

 Nearly all the earlier Presbyterian work 

 among the Sioux, as among the Chero- 

 kee, was conducted through the Ameri- 

 can Board of Commissioners for Foreign 

 Missions. 



To the Congregational missionaries we 

 owe most of our knowledge of the Sioux 

 language, their work being almost en- 

 tirely in the Santee or eastern dialect. 

 Stevens, the Pond brothers, all of the 

 Williamsons, and Stephen and Alfred 

 Riggs have all made important contribu- 

 tions, ranging from school text-books and 

 small devotional works up to diction- 

 aries, besides adapting the Roman alpha- 

 bet to the peculiarities of the language 

 with such success that the Sioux have 

 become a literary people, the majority of 

 the men being able to read and write in 

 their own language. It is impossible to 

 estimate the effect this acquisition has 

 had in stimulating the self-respect and 

 ambition of the tribe. Among the most 

 important of these philologic productions 

 are Riggs' Grammar and Dictionary of 

 the Dakota Language, published by the 

 Smithsonian Institution in 1852, with a 

 later revision by Dorsey, and Riggs and 

 Williamson's Dakota Bible, published in 

 1880, being then, in Billing's opinion, 

 with two exceptions, the only complete 

 Bible translation in any Indian language 

 since Eliot's Bible in 1663. In much of 

 the earlier linguistic work the mission- 

 aries had the efficient cooperation of 

 Josepli Renville, an educated half-blood. 

 As an adjunct to the educational work, a 

 monthly journal was conducted for about 

 2 years by Rev. G. H. Pond, chiefly 

 in the native language, under the title of 

 'The Dakota Friend,' while its modern 

 successor, 'lapi Oaye' ('The Word 

 Carrier'), has been conducted under 

 the auspices of the Niobrara mission 

 since 1871. 



In 1821 two Presbyterian missions were 

 established among the Osage by the 

 United Foreign Missionary Society. One 

 of these. Harmony, was near the junction 

 t)f the Marais des Cygnes with the Osage 

 r., not far from the present Rich Hill, 



