Stephen Return Riggs

Stephen Return Riggs (March 23, 1812 – August 24, 1883[1]) was a Christian missionary and linguist who lived and worked among the Dakota people.

Riggs was born in Steubenville, Ohio. His career among the Dakota began in 1837 at Lac qui Parle in what is now Minnesota, where there was a mission. He worked among the Dakota Sioux for the remainder of his life, producing a grammar and dictionary[2] and a translation of the New Testament[3]

In his autobiography Mary and I, or Forty Years with the Sioux, Riggs describes his life.[4] In 1862, he served as interpreter at the trials of the Sioux Uprising. He died in Beloit, Wisconsin.


Selected works
  • 1852 A Grammar and Dictionary of the Dakota Language[2]
  • 1871 Dakota wowapi wakan kin. The New Testament, in the Dakota language[3]
  • 1880 Mary and I, or Forty Years with the Sioux[4]

Archival Collections

The Presbyterian Historical Society in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has Stephen Return Riggs' papers, including detailed correspondence written by Stephen and Mary Riggs to their family members and two manuscript church histories written by Stephen Riggs. The correspondence also includes an occasional sketch of the missions they served.

References
  1. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/48384864
  2. Riggs, Stephen Return (1852). A Grammar and Dictionary of the Dakota Language. Washington DC, New York: Smithsonian Institution, G.P. Putnam.
  3. Riggs, Stephen Return (1871). Dakota wowapi wakan kin. The New Testament, in the Dakota language. New York: New York, American Bible society.
  4. Riggs, Stephen Return (1880). Mary and I or Forty Years with the Sioux. Chicago: W.G. Holmes.


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