The American Missionary — Volume 38, No. 06, June, 1884Various
Religion
The American Missionary — Volume 38, No. 06, June, 1884
Various
Congregational churches -- Missions -- Periodicals; Home missions -- Periodicals
Across the Missouri, in Northern Nebraska, is a reservation about
twelve miles square on which are located the Santees. These Indians
came originally from Minnesota, and were concerned in the terrible
New Ulm massacre there. This was years ago. After that bloody
outbreak a large number of Indians were imprisoned. While thus
incarcerated they were deeply moved by the truths of religion. The
long and faithful labors of Drs. Riggs and Williamson bore fruit, and
very many were truly converted. These Minnesota Indians were
subsequently removed, a portion to the Sisseton Agency, a portion to
Flandreau, and a portion to the Santee Agency. At this last-named
spot the Indians are practically civilized. They wear the white man's
dress; they cultivate farms of their own; they sustain two churches,
one Episcopal and one Congregational, the latter having its excellent
native pastor and an outlying chapel where the native deacons conduct
meetings in turn; they have recently, to the number of fifty, taken
up land under the homestead laws and now own them in fee simple.
There are three boarding schools on the reservation, one sustained by
the American Missionary Association and in the charge of the Rev. A.
L. Riggs, another sustained by the Episcopalians, under the
jurisdiction of Bishop Hare, and a third supported by the Government,
of which Rev. Charles Seccombe, a Congregationalist, is principal.
The work in all these schools is admirable. The children are neat,
intelligent, attractive, orderly, and studious, and while not as far
advanced nor as quick, will compare favorably with the children of
schools among white people. The development of Indian character under
these Christianizing influences was remarkably shown in a visit to
one of the cottages on the mission. Here dwell one of the native
teachers, her mother and grandmother. The aged grandmother in her
whole appearance bespoke the wild Indian. Gray and bent with age, she
loved best to sit on the floor in a corner, after the fashion of her
people. The mother, a comely matron of perhaps forty-five, was
evidently more cultivated, was lady-like in her appearance, and had
lines of thoughtfulness on her thin face. The work of civilization
had made great advance in her. But the daughter, a young lady of
eighteen, well educated, knowing only the ways of civilization, was
as thoroughly refined and bright and attractive as the young ladies
of our own Christian homes.
[Illustration: INDIAN BURYING GROUND.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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