The Dakota or Sioux in Minnesota As They Were in 1834

by Samuel William Pond, Gary Clayton Anderson (Introduction)

Authoritative discussion of Dakota Indian material culture and the social, political, religious, and economic institutions by a missionary who spent nearly twenty years learning the language and living among Indians in Minnesota.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Indigenous

192 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1986

About the author

Rev. Samuel William Pond and his brother Gideon Hollister Pond were early Presbyterian missionaries among the Indians of Minnesota and the first to adapt the English alphabet for writing Dakota.

His son Samuel William Pond Jr. provided an account of the lives of the two brothers in the book Two Volunteer Missionaries Among the Dakotas; Or, the Story of the Labors of Samuel W. and Gideon H. Pond.

Reviews

[Blake · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having lived as a missionary among them for over 20 years, at the time of writing Rev. Samuel Pond may have been the world's leading non-Dakota expert on the Dakota people, or at least of the band living in what would eventually become south Minneapolis.

As it happened, he actually spent more time learning the Dakota language and attempting to teach farming and English to his intended flock than doing much anything in the way of preaching, and in the course of these undertakings, along with his brother, he developed a written form of Dakota in Latin characters, revolutionizing the ability of the Dakota to learn English and newly arriving early settlers to learn Dakotan. It was through these efforts he was able to witness or learn about nearly every aspect of the Dakota culture and lifestyle, and his firsthand accounts of that wealth of knowledge are varied, specific, and exhaustive. He also takes the admirable tack of debunking commonly held misconceptions about the Dakota people, and seems highly annoyed with mainstream society opinions and the government's treatment of them.

That said, he was still a white dude from the 19th century, so many of his ideas and observations are framed in a way that wouldn't be acceptable by today's standards for public intellectuals. Nonetheless, if he hadn't had the presence of mind to record what he knew of the truth, we may well have been stuck with the popular misconceptions of what the 1830s were like in proto-Minneapolis, which I can attest from reading other sources were not favorable at all, especially after 1862, and crotchety and judgmental as he may come off in places, this is perhaps the least fanciful or dismissive primary source focusing on the natives of Minnesota I've read so far, and I've been on a serious binge of the topic lately.

I think my next foray into the subject needs to be delivered by Dakota people themselves, so I plan to read Dakota Oratory, a collection of chiefs' speeches from the era, and then to seek out a modern history written by someone who's actually Dakota. Recommendations are appreciated, if you have any favorites.

[Melle · Rating 2 out of 5]

On behalf of my great-great-great-great-uncle, I would like to apologize to the Dakota nation for the ignorant and entitled white man's perspective. That being said, it's unfortunate there are not more well-rounded historical works from a Minnesota Dakota perspective published and publicized.