Among the Sioux Part 7

When their lives were imperilled, by their savage pursuers, during the terrible ma.s.sacre, Aunt Jane calmly said; "Well if they kill me, my home is in Heaven." The churches were scattered, the work apparently destroyed, but nothing could discourage Aunt Jane. She had, in the midst of this great tragedy, the satisfactory knowledge that all the Christian Sioux had continued at the risk of their own lives, steadfast in their loyalty, and had been instrumental in saving the lives of many whites. They had, also, influenced for good many of their own race.

III--THE CLOSING YEARS OF HER LIFE.

After that terrible ma.s.sacre the way never opened for her to resume her residence among the Dakotas; but she was given health and strength for nineteen years more toil for the Master and her beloved Indians. Her home was with her brother, Dr. Williamson, near St. Peter, until his death in 1879, and she remained, in his old home several years after his death. During this period, she accomplished much for the education of the Indians around her and she kept up an extensive and helpful correspondence with native Christian workers. All the time she kept up the work of self-sacrifice for the good of others. In 1881 she met a poor Indian woman, suffering extremely from intense cold. She slipped off her own warm skirt and gave it to the woman. The result was a severe illness, which caused her partial paralysis and total blindness from which she never recovered. In 1888 she handed the writer a $5 gold coin for the work among the freedmen with this remark: "First the freedman; then the Indian." Out of a narrow income she constantly gave generously to the boards of the church and to the poor around her. She spent most of her patrimony in giving and lending to needy ones.

The closing years of her life were spent with her nephew the great Indian missionary the Rev. John P. Williamson D.D. at Greenwood, South Dakota. There at noon of March 24, 1895, the light of eternity dawned upon her and she entered into that sabbatic rest, which remains for the people of G.o.d. Such is the story of Aunt Jane, modest and una.s.suming--a real heroine, who travelled sixteen hundred miles all the way on horseback and spent several months that she might rescue two poor colored persons whom she had never seen or even known.

Without husband or children, alone in the world, she did not repine, but made herself useful, wherever she was, in teaching secular learning and religious truth, and in ministering to the sick and afflicted, the down-trodden and oppressed. She never sought to do any wonderful things,--but whatever her hand found to do, she did it with her might and with an eye to the honor and glory of G.o.d. Hers was a very long and most complete Christian life. Should it ever be forgotten? Certainly not, while our Christian religion endures.

"Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth; yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors and their works do follow them."

--Rev. 14: 13.

V

ARTEMAS, THE WARRIOR PREACHER

He was one of the fiercest of the Sioux warriors. He fought the Ojibways in his youth; danced the scalp-dance on the present site of Minneapolis, and waged war against the whites in '62. He was converted at Mankato, Minnesota, in the prison-pen, and for thirty-two years, he was pastor of the Pilgrim Congregational church at Santee, Nebraska.

Artemas Ehnamane was born in 1825, at Red Wing, Minnesota, by the mountain that stands sentinel at the head of Lake Pepin. "Walking Along" is the English translation of his jaw-breaking surname. As a lad, he played on the banks of the mighty Mississippi. As a youth, he hunted the red deer in the lovely glades of Minnesota and Wisconsin. He soon grew tall and strong and became a famous hunter. The war-path, also, opened to him in the pursuit of his hereditary foes, the Chippewas. He danced the scalp-dance on the present site of Minneapolis, when it was only a wind-swept prairie.

While in his youth, his tribe ceded their ancestral lands along the Mississippi and removed to the Sioux Reservation on the Minnesota River. But not for long, for the terrible outbreak of 1862, scattered everything and landed all the leading men of that tribe in prison.

Artemas was one of them. He was convicted, condemned to death, and pardoned by Abraham Lincoln. While in the prison-pen at Mankato, he came into a new life "that thinketh no evil of his neighbor." The words of the faithful missionaries, Pond and Williamson and Riggs, sank deep into his heart. His whole nature underwent a change. Artemas once explained his conversion thus:

"We had planned that uprising wisely and secretly. We had able leaders.

We were well organized and thoroughly armed. The whites were weakened by the Southern war. Everything was in our favor. We had prayed to our G.o.ds. But when the conflict came, we were beaten so rapidly and completely, I felt that the white man's G.o.d must be greater than all the Indians' G.o.ds; and I determined to look Him up, and I found Him, All-Powerful and precious to my soul."

Faithfully he studied his letters and learned his Dakota Bible, which became more precious to him than any record of traditions and shadows handed down from mouth to mouth by his people. He soon became possessed of a great longing to let his tribe know his great secret of the G.o.d above. So when the prisoners were restored to their families in the Missouri Vally in Nebraska, Artemas was soon chosen one of the preachers of the reorganized tribe. His first pastorate was that of the Pilgrim Congregational Church at Santee, Nebraska, in 1867. It was also his last, for he was ever so beloved and honored by his people, that they would not consider any proposal for separation.

No such proposition ever met with favor in the Pilgrim Church for Artemas firmly held first place in the affections of the people among whom he labored so earnestly. He served this church for thirty-two years and pa.s.sed on to take his place among the s.h.i.+ning Ones, on the eve of Easter Sabbath, 1902.

Artemas seldom took a vacation. In fact there is only one on record. In 1872, his church voted a vacation of six weeks. True to his Indian nature, he planned a deer hunt. He turned his footsteps to the wilds of the Running Water (Niobrara River), where his heart grew young and his rifle cracked the death-knell of the deer and antelope. One evening, in the track of the hostile Sioux and p.a.w.nees, he found himself near a camp of the savage Sicaugu. He was weak and alone. They were strong and hostile.

He had tact as well as courage. He invited those savage warriors to a feast. His kettle was br.i.m.m.i.n.g, 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 G.o.d came to my tent. I remember all he said. He told me not to be troubled, but to trust in G.o.d, and all would be well. He prayed; he asked G.o.d to strengthen the child so I could bring him home. G.o.d 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 G.o.d, 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."

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 civilization 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 10, 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 old warrior never forgot it. But it was another pardon he prized more highly than that. It was this pardon he preached and died believing.

VI

TWO FAMOUS MISSIONS.

_Lake Harriet and Prairieville_

In the spring of 1835, the Rev. Jedediah Dwight Stevens, of the Presbyterian Church, arrived at Fort Snelling under the auspices of the American Board of Missions. He established a station on the northwestern sh.o.r.e of Lake Harriet. It was a most beautiful spot, west of the Indian village, presided over by that friendly and influential 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.

Within a few rods of the Pavilion, where on the Sabbath, mult.i.tudes gather for recreation, and desecration of G.o.d'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 Forty-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 romantic wedding was solemnized by Rev. J. D. Stevens. The groom 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 Miss 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 Snelling, 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-Parle, 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 dwellers of the Indian village, making a novel group of whites, half-breeds and savage Indians. Many of the latter were poor, maimed, halt and blind, who thoroughly enjoyed the feast of potatoes, turnips, and bacon so generously provided by the happy bridegroom.

PRAIRIEVILLE.

In 1846, Shakpe or Little Six, extended an urgent invitation to Samuel Pond to establish a mission at Tintonwan--"the village on the prairies"--for the benefit of his people. He was chief of one of the most turbulent bands of Indians in the valley of the Minnesota. He was a man of marked ability and one of the ablest and most effective orators in the whole Dakota nation. Yet withal, Shakpe was a petty thief, had a "forked tongue," a violent temper, was excitable, and vindictive in his revenge. These characteristics led him to the scaffold. He was hanged at Fort Snelling, in 1863 for partic.i.p.ation in the b.l.o.o.d.y ma.s.sacre of '62. He and his followers were so noted for their deception and treachery, that Mr. Pond doubted their sincerity and the wisdom of accepting their invitation. But after weeks of prayerful deliberation, he accepted and began preparations for a permanent establishment at that point. He erected a commodious and substantial residence into which he removed, with his household, in November 1847.

This station, which Mr. Pond called Prairieville, was fourteen miles southeast of Oak Grove mission, on the present site of Shakopee. The mission home was pleasantly located on gently rising ground, half a mile south of the Minnesota River. It was surrounded by the teepees of six hundred noisy savages. 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, 1852, at Was.h.i.+ngton, 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, which 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 fort.i.tude of the heroic builder.