Mary and I: Forty Years with the SiouxRiggs, Stephen Return
History
Mary and I: Forty Years with the Sioux
Riggs, Stephen Return
Dakota Indians -- Missions; Riggs, Stephen Return, 1812-1883
This annual gathering at the head of the Coteau was held at Dry Wood
Lake, where Peter Big-Fire had settled. It was the most remarkable of
all those yearly camp-meetings. On this occasion about sixty persons
were added to our church list. It was a sight to be remembered, when,
on the open prairie, they and their children stood up to be baptized.
At the close of this meeting we held another at Buffalo Lake, in one
of their summer houses, which was full of meaning. The recently
organized church of Long Hollow, which then extended to Buffalo Lake,
had selected Solomon to be their religious teacher. And this after
meeting was held to ordain and install him as pastor of that church.
He was a young man of Christian experience and blameless life, and
has since proved himself to be a very reliable and useful native
pastor.
Since the marvels of grace wrought among the Dakotas in the prison and
camp, we had received numerous invitations to prepare some account
thereof for the Christian public. Several of these requests came from
members of the Dakota Presbytery, which then covered the western part
of Minnesota. Accordingly, I had taken up the idea, and endeavored to
work it out. Some chapters had been submitted for examination to a
committee of the Presbytery, and commended by them for publication. In
the autumn and winter of 1868, the manuscript began to assume a
completed form. It was submitted to Secretary S. B. Treat for
examination, who made valuable suggestions, and agreed to write an
introduction to the book. This he did, in a manner highly
satisfactory.
The manuscript I first offered to the Presbyterian Board of
Publication. But the best that Dr. Dulles could do was to offer me a
hundred dollars for the copy-right. Friends in Boston thought I could
do better there. And so "Tahkoo Wakan," or "The Gospel Among the
Dakotas," was brought out by the Congregational Publishing Society, in
the summer of 1869. In the preparation of the book Mary had taken the
deepest interest, although not able to do much of the mental work. The
preface bears date less than three weeks before her death.
Authors whose books do not sell very well, I suppose, generally marvel
at the result. This little volume was, and is still, so intensely
interesting to me that I wonder why everybody does not buy and read
it. But over against this stands the fact that hitherto less than two
thousand copies have been disposed of. Pecuniarily, it has not been a
success. But neither has it been an entire failure. And perhaps it has
done some good in bringing a class of Christian workers into more
intelligent sympathy and co-operation in the work of Indian
evangelization; and so the labor is not lost.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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