Gabriel Renville was Chief of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux

Sioux

The Sioux are Native American and First Nations people in North America. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many language dialects...

 Tribe from 1866 until his death in 1892. As part of a large fur-trader family of French and Sioux origins, he was an unlikely candidate as Chief of the Sisseton-Wahpeton. However, with the coming of the Dakota War of 1862

Dakota War of 1862

The Dakota War of 1862, also known as the Sioux Uprising, was an armed conflict between the United States and several bands of the eastern Sioux. It began on August 17, 1862, along the Minnesota River in southwest Minnesota...

, his fortunes changed. Thanks to his family's connections, he obtained in 1863 the post of Chief of Scouts in the service of Minnesota state militia Colonel Henry Hastings Sibley

Henry Hastings Sibley

Henry Hastings Sibley was the first Governor of the U.S. state of Minnesota.-Early life and education:...

--later first governor of the state of Minnesota

Minnesota

Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

. His service to the U.S. Army ended in 1865. For his loyalty he was appointed by Sibley as Chief of the Sisseton-Wahpeton in 1866. His people seconded Sibley's appointment a year later by declaring Renville chief-for-life. His tenure as chief saw the creation and dissolution of the Lake Traverse Reservation and the transition of his people into the modern world. He is buried atop a bluff near Old Agency, South Dakota

South Dakota

South Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. Once a part of Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889. The state has an area of and an estimated population of just over...

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Gabriel Renville's father was killed by Chippewas, and the boy grew up in the care of his uncle, Joseph Renville

Joseph Renville

Joseph Renville was an interpreter, translator, and an important figure in dealings between white men and Dakota Indians in Minnesota. He contributed to the translation of Christian religious texts in to the Dakota language. The hymnal Dakota dowanpi kin, was "composed by J...

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