Flandreau Christian Indian Community

Among the homesteaders the bronze leaves unnamed was Many Lightnings, a Santee Dakota man who took the name Jacob Eastman and filed for land at Flandreau in 1870. In 1873 he went into Canada for his youngest son, Ohiyesa, about fifteen and parted from the family since the 1862 war, and brought him here to begin school. The boy became Charles Eastman, Dartmouth graduate of 1887, physician and author. His elder brother John, Mahpiyawakankida, was ordained at the Flandreau church in 1876, served it thirty years, and was buried at Flandreau beside their father in 1921.

What the plaque says

Flandreau Christian Indian Community For a quarter of a century before 1862 and its War of the Indian Outbreak in Minnesota, Santee Sioux had been accepting Christianity. With the killing of over 500 whites by a truculent minority, the Government hung 38, imprisoned over 300 at Davenport and the remaining 1,300 old men, women and children were transported by steamboat to the bleak and drought stricken Crow Creek Agency, set up in May 1863 at Ft. Thompson. Longfellow's Evangeline is a parallel to this saga of separation, heartbreak and tragedy. Despite relief expeditions from Minnesota over 300 Santees died of malnutrition and exposure at Ft. Thompson that winter of 1863-64 and over 100 died at Davenport. The next two years were ones of continued tragedy. In 1866 the Ft. Thompson and Davenport groups were re-united at Santee Agency at the mouth of the Niobrara. The one third Christians had constant difficulty with the backward non-Christian brethren and in 1869 twenty-five families gave up tribal rights, annuities, everything to become citizens, and acquire homesteads along the Sioux at Flandreau. They soon built their little Presbyterian Church in what was to become Flandreau and that fall were joined by 15 additional families. Among those making the break with tradition were Old Flute, All Over Red, Iron Dog, Big Eagle signers of the 1868 Treaty and Iron Old Man their acting pastor, who perished in a blizzard enroute from Santee to Flandreau. John P. Williamson of that Missionary family of preachers and teachers was their early guide, counsellor and protector at Ft. Thompson and Flandreau. This Church, built in 1873, is one of the oldest continuously used Churches in South Dakota. The graveyard memorializes many of those early Christian names who shared in this hegira from Mankaton to Ft. Snelling, Ft. Thompson, Santee Agency terminating here. Erected 1956 by County Commissioners and State Highway Commission

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• Flandreau Indian High School — 0.3 mi
• Governor Bill Janklow — 1.5 mi
• In Memory of Mrs. Joseph Thatcher — 1.5 mi
• Brookings County / Moody County — 8.8 mi