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From the mid-1830s to the 1860s, the missionaries sent to Minnesota by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) wrote thousands of letters to their supervisors and supporters claiming success in converting the Dakota people. But author Linda M. Clemmons reveals that the reality of the situation was far more conflicted than what those written records would suggest. In fact, in the rough Minnesota territory, missionaries often found themselves looking to the Dakota for support. The missionaries and their wives struggled to define what it meant to convert and “civilize” Dakota people. And, although many scholars depict missionaries as working hand in hand with the federal government, Clemmons reveals discord over the Dakota people’s treatment, especially after the U.S.–Dakota War of 1862, when many missionaries spoke out against exile. The missionaries found that work with the Dakota was rarely as heroic, romantic, or successful as what they read about in the evangelical press, but, at the same time, they themselves painted a rosier picture of their own work.
"This classic work on the language, grammar, tales, history, and culture of the Dakota Indians is the result of many years of linguistic study and personal experience spent in Minnesota by Stephen R. Riggs, who arrived as a Presbyterian missionary in 1837 ... In Dakota grammar, Riggs presents three interrelating aspects of language and culture, beginning with a detailed description of the Santee dialect of the Dakota language and its grammar. The texts of the traditional stories ... are each accompanied by full English translations. Riggs also provides an ethnographic overview of various aspects of Dakota culture and history that enhances the value of the book to all students of Dakota"--Back cover.
Includes the proceedings of the annual meeting of the Society.