Among the Sioux | Page 3

and
the Pottawatomies, but he was not led to choose a field of labor
amongst any of these.
A strange Providence finally pointed the way to Mr. Pond. In his efforts
to reform a rumseller at Galena, he gained much information
concerning the Sioux Indians, whose territory the rumseller had
traversed on his way from the Red River country from which he had
come quite recently. He represented the Sioux Indians as vile, degraded,
ignorant, superstitious and wholly given up to evil.
"There," said the rumseller, "is a people for whose souls nobody cares.
They are utterly destitute of moral and religious teachings. No efforts

have ever been made by Protestants for their salvation. If you fellows
are looking, in earnest, for a hard job, there is one ready for you to
tackle on those bleak prairies."
This man's description of the terrible condition of the Sioux Indians in
those times was fairly accurate. Those wild, roving and utterly
neglected Indians were proper subjects for Christian effort and
promised to furnish the opportunities for self-denying and
self-sacrificing labors for which the brothers were seeking.
Mr. Pond at once recognized this peculiar call as from God. After
prayerful deliberation, Samuel determined to write to his brother
Gideon, inviting the latter to join him early the following spring, and
undertake with him an independent mission to the Sioux.
He wrote to Gideon:--"I have finally found the field of service for
which we have long been seeking. It lies in the regions round about
Fort Snelling. It is among the savage Sioux of those far northern plains.
They are an ignorant, savage and degraded people. It is said to be a
very cold, dreary, storm-swept region. But we are not seeking a soft
spot to rest in or easy service. So come on."
Despite strong, almost bitter opposition from friends and kinsmen,
Gideon accepted and began his preparations for life among the Indians,
and in March, 1834, he bade farewell to his friends and kindred and
began his journey westward.
Early in April, he arrived at Galena, equipped for their strange,
Heaven-inspired mission. He found his brother firmly fixed in his
resolution to carry out the plans already decided upon. In a few days we
find them on the steamer's deck, moving steadily up the mighty father
of waters, towards their destination. "This is a serious undertaking,"
remarked the younger brother as they steamed northward. And such it
was. There was in it no element of attractiveness from a human
view-point.
They expected to go among roving tribes, to have no permanent
abiding place and to subsist as those wild and savage tribes subsisted.

Their plan was a simple and feasible one, as they proved by experience,
but one which required large stores of faith and fortitude every step of
the way. They knew, also, that outside of a narrow circle of personal
friends, none knew anything of this mission to the Sioux, or felt the
slightest interest in its success or failure. But undismayed they pressed
on.
The scenery of the Upper Mississippi is still pleasing to those eyes,
which behold it, clothed in its springtime robes of beauty. In 1834, this
scenery shone forth in all the primeval glory of "nature unmarred by the
hand of man."
[Illustration: SAMUEL W. POND, 20 Years a Missionary to the
Sioux.]
[Illustration: GIDEON H. POND, For Twenty years Missionary to the
Dakotas.]
As the steamer Warrior moved steadily on its way up the Mississippi,
the rich May verdure, through which they passed, appeared strikingly
beautiful to the two brothers, who then beheld it for the first time. It
was a most delightful journey and ended on the sixth day of May, at the
dock at old Fort Snelling.
This was then our extreme outpost of frontier civilization. It had been
established in 1819, as our front-guard against the British and Indians
of the Northwest. It was located on the high plateau, lying between the
Mississippi and the Minnesota (St. Peters) rivers, and it was then the
only important place within the limits of the present state of Minnesota.
While still on board the Warrior, the brothers received a visit and a
warm welcome from the Rev. William T. Boutell, a missionary of the
American Board to the Ojibways at Leach Lake, Minnesota. He was
greatly rejoiced to meet "these dear brethren, who, from love to Christ
and for the poor red man, had come alone to this long-neglected field."
A little later they stepped ashore, found themselves in savage
environments and face to face with the grave problems they had come

so far to solve. They were men extremely well fitted, mentally and
physically, naturally and by training for the toils and privations of the
life upon which they had now entered. Sent, not by man but