The American Missionary — Volume 42, No. 12, December, 1888 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 136 pages of information about The American Missionary — Volume 42, No. 12, December, 1888.

The American Missionary — Volume 42, No. 12, December, 1888 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 136 pages of information about The American Missionary — Volume 42, No. 12, December, 1888.
of inhuman violence, and then, the reservation taken up, the savage is removed still further back.  Thus the Indians have been planted and uptorn, re-planted and uptorn, and re-planted, until they are now removed, not hundreds of miles from the grounds of their fathers, but thousands of miles.  A tree will not grow if uprooted and transplanted every few months, and this will in brief tell us why the missions which began with the Moravians and the American Board, and which were so hopeful, were one after another abandoned.  These constant removals were as disastrous to missions as they were unjust to the Indians.  It was remarkable that there should be the degree of spiritual fruitage through all this period of Indian removals and Indian wrongs, which characterizes the labors of those who often, at peril of life, labored on for the red man’s salvation.

The American Board began its work among the Dakotas in 1835.  It was one of the most powerful tribes on the continent, numbering over 40,000.  Their hunting-grounds extended from the 43 degrees to the 49 degrees of latitude, and from the Mississippi River to the Black Hills west of the Missouri.  This was a territory equal in extent to that of Scotland.  The name Dakota means the “allied one,” and indicates the bands that united to form the tribe.  The missionary work, which was initiated under Rev. T.S.  Williamson, Rev. J.D.  Stevens and Rev. S. Riggs, with their wives, and lady teachers, began prosperously, and in six years forty-nine persons were formed into a church.  For some years the accessions were mostly women.  The acceptance of Christianity was more difficult to the men.  The change in the manner of life involved in it was greater.  It meant entire reconstruction of their ideas of life, and in the manner of it, the abandonment of polygamy, the adoption of civilized dress, the spirit of obedience and industry.  These were the contradictions to centuries of tradition and custom, and meant to an Indian brave the becoming like a woman.  At length, however, the gospel did take hold of the warriors.  The work and the faith of the missionaries were thoroughly tested by the opposition this aroused, but the gospel won its way.  At last, when the rumors of the Civil War between the Northern and the Southern States came to the Indians, it set their hearts aflame for battle with their white neighbors, whose encroachment they resented.

Then broke out the dreadful Minnesota massacre, when the missionaries were compelled to flee for their lives, and the missions were abandoned.  Twelve hundred United States troops at last scattered the savages and took about five hundred prisoners.  They were incarcerated at the Mankato prison in Minnesota, where thirty-eight were hung in one day.  The remainder in prison were visited by the missionaries, and the prison house became a chapel.  Soon it was a Bethel, a great revival began, which lasted all winter, and in the spring, two hundred Dakotas

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
The American Missionary — Volume 42, No. 12, December, 1888 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.