Among the Sioux | Page 4

by the
Lord; appointed, not by any human authority but by the great Jehovah;
without salary or any prospects of worldly emoluments, unknown,
unheralded, those humble but heroic men began, in dead earnest, their
grand life-work. Their mission and commission was to conquer that
savage tribe of fierce, prairie warriors, by the two-edged sword of the
spirit of the living God and to mold them aright, by the power of the
Gospel of His Son. And God was with them as they took up their
weapons (not carnal but spiritual) in this glorious warfare.
They speedily found favor with the military authorities, and with one of
the most prominent chieftains of that time and region--Cloudman or
Man-of-the-sky.
The former gave them full authority to prosecute their mission among
the Indians; the latter cordially invited them to establish their residence
at his village on the shore of Lake Calhoun.
The present site of Minneapolis was then simply a vast, wind-swept
prairie, uninhabited by white men. A single soldier on guard at the old
government sawmill at St. Anthony Falls was the only representative of
the Anglo-Saxons, where now dwell hundreds of thousands of white
men of various nationalities.
Busy, bustling, beautiful Minneapolis, with its elegant homes; its
commodious churches; its great University--with its four thousand
students--; its well-equipped schools--with their forty-two thousand
pupils--; its great business blocks; its massive mills; its humming
factories; its broad avenues; its pleasant parks; its population of a
quarter of a million of souls; all this had not then even been as much as
dreamed of.
Four miles west of St. Anthony Falls, lies Lake Calhoun, and a short
distance to the south is Lake Harriet, (two most beautiful sheets of
water, both within the present limits of Minneapolis). The intervening
space was covered by a grove of majestic oaks.

Here, in 1834, was an Indian village of five hundred Sioux. Their
habitations were teepees, made of tamarack bark or of skins of wild
beasts. Their burial ground covered a part of lovely Lakewood, the
favorite cemetery of the city of Minneapolis. This band recognized
Cloudman or Man-of-the-sky as their chief, whom they both respected
and loved. He was then about forty years of age. He was an intelligent
man, of an amiable disposition and friendly to the approach of
Civilization. Here, under the auspices of this famous chieftain, they
erected for themselves a snug, little home, near the junction of
Thirty-fifth street and Irving Avenue South, Minneapolis.
It was built of large oak logs. The dimensions were twelve feet by
sixteen and eight feet high. Straight tamarack poles formed the timbers
of the roof. The roof itself was the bark of trees, fastened with strings
of the inner bark of the basswood.
A partition of small logs divided the house into two rooms. The ceiling
was of slabs from the old government sawmill at St. Anthony Falls.
The door was made of boards, split from a tree with an axe, and had
wooden hinges and fastenings and was locked by pulling in the
latch-string. The single window was the gift of the kind-hearted Major
Taliaferro, the United States Indian agent at Fort Snelling. The cash
cost of the whole was one shilling, New York currency, for nails, used
about the door. The formal opening was the reading of a portion of
Scripture and prayer. The banquet consisted of mussels from the Lake,
flour and water. This cabin was the first house erected within the
present limits of Minneapolis; it was the home of the first citizen
settlers of Minnesota and was the first house used as a school-room and
for divine worship in the state. It was a noble testimony to the faith,
zeal and courage of its builders. Here these consecrated brothers
inaugurated their great work. In 1839 it was torn down for materials
with which to construct breastworks for the defense of the Sioux, after
the bloody battle of Rum River, against their feudal foes, the Ojibways.
Here amid such lovely natural surroundings were the very beginnings
of this mighty enterprise.
The first lesson was given early in May, by Samuel Pond to Big

Thunder chieftain of the Kaposia band, whose teepees were scattered
over the bluffs, where now stands the city of St. Paul. His chief soldier
was Big Iron. His son was Little Crow, who became famous or rather
infamous, as the leader against the whites in the terrible tragedy of '62.
Later in May the second lesson was taught by Gideon Pond to members
of the Lake Calhoun band. Both lessons were in the useful and
civilizing art of plowing and were the first in that grand series of
lessons, covering more than seventy years, and by which the Sioux
nation have been lifted from savagery to civilization.
While God was preparing