Creswell, J.) - Among the Sioux - a story of the Twin Cities and the two Dakotas

—S. W. Pond.

In the long ago, a young Indian brave espoused as his wife this Indian maiden of whom the poet sing-s. AVith her he lived happily for a few A-ears, in the enjoyment of ever}' comfort of which a savage life is capable. To crown their happiness, they were blessed with two lovely cliildren on whom they doted. During this time, by a dint of activi(ty and perseverance in the chase, he became signalized in an eminent degree as a hunter, having met with unrivaled success in the pursuit and capture of the wild denizens of the forest. This circumstance contributed to raise him high in the estimation of his fellow savages and drew a crowd of admiring friends around. This operated as a spur to his ambitions.

At length some of his newl\' acquired friends suggested to him the propriety of taking another wife, as it would be impossible for one woman to manage the afl^airs of his household and properly wait upon the

;o AMONG THE SIOUX.

many guests his rising importance would call to visit him. They intimated to him that in all probability he would soon be elevated to the chieftainship. His vanity was fired by the suggestion. He yielded readily and accepted a wife they had already selected for him.

After his second marriage, he sought to take his new wife home and reconcile his first wife to the match in the most delicate manner possible. To this end he returned to his first wife, as yet ignorant of what had occurred, and endeavored, by dissimulation, to secure her approval..

"You know," said he, "1 can love no one" as I love you; yet I see your labors are too great for your powers of endurance. Your duties are daily becom.ing more and more numerous and burdensome. This grieves me sorely. But I know of only one remedy by which you can be relieved. These considerations constrain me to take another wife. This wife shall be under your control in every respect and ever second to you in my afll-ections." She listened to his narrative in painful anxiety and endeavored to reclaim him from his wicked purpose, refuting all his sophistry bv expressions of her unaffected conjugal affection. He left her to meditate. She became more industrious and treated him more tenderly than before. She tried ever}^ means in her power to disuade him from the execution of his vile purpose. She pleaded all the endearments of their former happy life, the regard he had for her happiness and that of the offspring of their mutual love to prevail on him to relinquish the idea of marrying another wife. He then informed her

of the fact of his marriage and stated that compHance on her part would be actually necessary. She must receive the new wife into their home. She was determined, however, not to be the passive dupe of his duplicity. With her two children she returned to her parental teepee. In the autumn she joined her friends and kinsmen in an expedition up the.Mississippi and spent the winter in hunting. In the springtime, as they were returning, laden wi;th peltries, she and her children occupied a canoe by themselves. On nearing the Falls of St. Anthony she lingered in the rear till the others had landed a little above the falls.

She then pain.ted heirself and children, paddled her canoe into the swift current of the rapids and began chanting her death song, in which she recounted her former happy life, with her husband, when she enjoyed his undivided affection, and the wretchedness in which i"he was now involved by his infidelity. Her friends, alarmed at her imminent peril, ran to the shore and begged her to paddle out of the current before it was too late, while her parents, rending their clothing and tearing their hair, besought her to come to their arms of love; but all in vain. Her wretchedness was complete and must terminate with her existence! She continued her course till her canoe was borne headlong down the roaring cataract, and it and the deserted, heartbroken wife and the beautiful and innocent children, were dashed to pieces on the rocks below. No traces of the canoe or its occupants were found. Her brothers avenged her death by slaying the treacherous husband of the deserted wife.

They say that still that song is heard Above the mighty torrent's roar,

When trees are by the night-wind stirred

And darkness broods on stream and shore.

AUNT JANE

The Red Song Woman

Miss Jane Smith Williamson, the subject of this sketch, was one of the famous missionary women in our land in the nineteenth century. She was widely known among both whites and Indians as "Aunt Jane." The Dakotas also called her ''Red Song Woman." She was born at Fair Foresit, South Carolina, March 8, 1803. Through her father she was a lineal descendant of the Rev. John Newton and Sir Isaac Newton. Her father was a revolutionary soldier.

Her mother was Jane T Smith) Williamson. They believed that negroes had souls and therefore treated the twenty-seven slaves they^had inherited like human beings. Her mother was fined in South Carolina, for teaching her slaves to read the Bible. Consequently, in 1804, in her early infancy, her parents emigrated to Adams county, Ohio, in order to be able to free their slaves and teach them to read the Word of God and write legibly.

The storv of Aunt Jane's life naturally falls into three divisions.

I PREPARATION FOR HER GREAT LIFE WORK.

This covered forty years. She grew up in an atmosphere of sincere and deep piety and of devotion to Christian principles. Her early educational advanta-o-es were necessarily limited, but she made the most of Ihem. She became very accurate in the use of Ian-

AUNT JANE, Or, The Ked Song Woman.

giiage, wrote a clear round hand and was very thorough in everything she studied. She was a great reader of good and useful books, possessed an excellent memory and a lively imagination and very early acquired a most interesting style of composition.

From her ancestors she inherited that strong sympathy for the colored race, which was a marked characteristic of her whole life. In her young womanhood, she taught private schools in Adams county, Ohio. The progress made by her pupils was very rapid and her instruction was of a high order. She sought out the children of the poor and taught them without charge. She admitted colored pupils as well as whites. For this cause, many threats of violence were made a-gainst her school. But she was such an excellent teacher that her white pupils remained with her; and a guard of volunteer riflemen frequently surrounded her school house. She calmly oursued the even tenor of her way.

In 1820, when she was oniy 17 years of age, she and her brother rode on horseback all the way from Manchester, Ohio^ to .South Carolina and back again, and brought with them two slaves they had inherited. They could have sold them in the • South for $300 each, and stood in great need of the money; but instead, they gave to these two poor colored persons the priceless boon of liberty. Miss Williamson's slave was a young woman of her own age, called Jemima. She was married to another slave named Logan. She was the mother of two children. Logan was a daring man, and rendered desperate by the loss of his young

wife, he determined tc be free and folloAv her. He fled from South Carolina, and after passing through many adventures of the most thrilling character, he found liis wife in Ohio, and lived and died a free man. He was fully determined to die rather than return to slavery. Jemima lived to a great age, surviving her husband, who was killed accidcntly in the fifties. They left a family highly respected.

During all these years ''Aunt Jane" was a very active worker in Sabbath schools, prayer meetings and missionary societies. In her own day schools, she made religious worship and Bible study a prominent feature of the exercises. In 1835, when her brother. Dr. Williamson, went as a missionary to the Dakotas, she strongly desired to accompany him. But her duty required her to remain at home and care for her aged father, who died in 1839, at the age of yy. She did not join her brother, however, until 1843, ^t the age of forty.