Established | 1886 |
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Location |
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Board of Directors | President Fr. John Hatcher, S.J. |
Area | 34 acres (14 ha) |
Affiliations | Jesuit, Catholic |
Website | SF Mission |
St. Francis Mission | |
Location | Rosebud Indian Reservation |
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NRHP reference No. | 75001723 [1] |
Added to NRHP | June 20, 1975 |
St. Francis Mission is a Roman Catholic mission complex on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in St. Francis, South Dakota, in territory of the Lakota (Sioux) Native Americans. The mission was founded in 1886 by priests of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), who were welcomed by Bishop Martin Marty of the Diocese of Saint Cloud, Minnesota, which extended to this territory at the time. The Jesuit order soon developed a large complex to serve the Lakota at this reservation. Most of the buildings were destroyed by a fire in 1916, but many were soon rebuilt.
Today the mission complex includes 26 buildings, the most prominent of which are St. Charles Borromeo Church and the 1916 Drexel Hall. The latter is a multi-function structure providing classrooms, meeting spaces, and residential spaces. The complex also includes one of two known copies of a statue of Native American saint, Kateri Tekakwitha, by Joseph-Émile Brunet. [2] The complex was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. [1]
Jesuit Fr. Peter DeSmet, S.J., was welcomed here in the 1840s by the Plains Indians on a mission from Saint Louis, Missouri. During this period, he had contacts with the Lakota. Based on DeSmet's reputation as a man who could be trusted, and on the Jesuit reputation as educators, in 1877, Chief Sinte Gleska (Spotted Tail), leader of the Sicangu Lakota, and Chief Red Cloud, leader of the Oglala, obtained permission from President Rutherford B. Hayes "to get Catholic priests. Those who wear black dresses. These men will teach us how to read and write English." [ citation needed ]
A Jesuit Father and brother reached the reservation soon after 1881 and, with financial help from St. Katherine Drexel, constructed a large building by 1886. [3] In 1888, Franciscan Sisters Kostka, Rosalia, and Alcantara came to teach in the school, which they named after St. Francis. Jesuit Fr. Florentine Digmann, who had come with the sisters, worked with the Lakota and established a total of 37 mission stations, or chapels, on the Rosebud Reservation.
Since 1974, the tribe has run the school, locally called Sapa Un Ti ("where the Black Robes live"), independently from the Jesuit mission. The many chapels have been replaced by six parishes on the reservation. [4]
In 2016, three Jesuit priests, along with Jesuit Volunteer Corps members, [5] were serving the Mission. They were assisted by Lakota: a deacon, several commissioned lay ministers, and numerous volunteers, all of whom worked among the 20,000 Lakota who reside on the reservation. The Mission supports high school equivalency (GED) and adult education, the Icimani Ya Waste Recovery Center, the White River Recovery Center, the CYO Religious Education Center in Rosebud, and the Wiwila Wakpala after-school center in Spring Creek
The following programs are conducted at the Mission Center: [6]
The Lakota are a Native American people. Also known as the Teton Sioux, they are one of the three prominent subcultures of the Sioux people, with the Eastern Dakota (Santee) and Western Dakota (Wičhíyena). Their current lands are in North and South Dakota. They speak Lakȟótiyapi—the Lakota language, the westernmost of three closely related languages that belong to the Siouan language family.
The Sioux or Oceti Sakowin are groups of Native American tribes and First Nations people from the Great Plains of North America. The Sioux have two major linguistic divisions: the Dakota and Lakota peoples. Collectively, they are the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, or "Seven Council Fires". The term "Sioux", an exonym from a French transcription of the Ojibwe term Nadowessi, can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or to any of the nation's many language dialects.
Rosebud also Sicanġu is a census-designated place (CDP) in Todd County, South Dakota, United States. The population was 1,455 at the 2020 census.
Lakota, also referred to as Lakhota, Teton or Teton Sioux, is a Siouan language spoken by the Lakota people of the Sioux tribes. Lakota is mutually intelligible with the two dialects of the Dakota language, especially Western Dakota, and is one of the three major varieties of the Sioux language.
The Sicangu are one of the seven oyates, nations or council fires, of Lakota people, an Indigenous people of the Northern Plains. Today, many Sicangu people are enrolled citizens of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe of the Rosebud Indian Reservation and Lower Brule Sioux Tribe of the Lower Brule Reservation in South Dakota.
The Great Sioux Reservation is an Indian reservation created by the United States through treaty with the Sioux, principally the Lakota, who dominated the territory before its establishment. In the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, the reservation included lands west of the Missouri River in South Dakota and Nebraska, including all of present-day western South Dakota. The treaty also provided rights to roam and hunt in contiguous areas of North Dakota, Montana Wyoming, and northwest Colorado.
The Rosebud Indian Reservation is an Indian reservation in South Dakota, United States. It is the home of the federally recognized Rosebud Sioux Tribe, who are Sicangu, a band of Lakota people. The Lakota name Sicangu Oyate translates as the "Burnt Thigh Nation", also known by the French term, the Brulé Sioux.
Mary Brave Bird, also known as Mary Brave Woman Olguin and Mary Crow Dog was a Sicangu Lakota writer and activist who was a member of the American Indian Movement during the 1970s and participated in some of their most publicized events, including the Wounded Knee Incident when she was 18 years old.
Joseph M. Marshall III son of Joseph Nelson Marshall Sr. and Hazel Lorraine Two Hawk-Marshall, is a historian, writer, teacher, craftsman, administrator, actor, and public speaker. He was a founding board member in 1971 of Sinte Gleska University, the tribal college at the Rosebud Indian Reservation.
The Diocese of Rapid City is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory, or diocese, of the Catholic Church in western South Dakota in the United States It is a suffragan diocese in the ecclesiastical province of the metropolitan Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis.
Iron Shell was a Brulé Sioux chief. He initially became prominent after an 1843 raid on the Pawnee, and became sub-chief of the Brulé under Little Thunder. He became chief of the Brulé Orphan Band during the Powder River War of 1866-1868.
The Lower Brule Indian Reservation is an Indian reservation that belongs to the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe. It is located on the west bank of the Missouri River in Lyman and Stanley counties in central South Dakota in the United States. It is adjacent to the Crow Creek Indian Reservation on the east bank of the river. The Lower Brule Sioux are members of the Sicangu, one of the bands of the Lakota people. Tribal headquarters is in Lower Brule.
Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve is a Native American author, with a focus on children's books about Native Americans.
Eugene Buechel was born on October 20, 1874, in Schleida, now Schleid, in the Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Germany, and died October 27, 1954, in O'Neill, Nebraska, United States. Buechel was a Jesuit priest and missionary, linguist and anthropologist among the Brulé or Sicangu Lakota or Sioux on the Rosebud Indian Reservation and the related Oglala Lakota or Sioux on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
Red Cloud Indian School is a private, Catholic, K–12 school run by the Jesuits in Oglala Lakota County, South Dakota. It is located in the Diocese of Rapid City and serves Oglala Lakota Native American children on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
Albert White Hat was a teacher of the Lakota language, and an activist for Sičháŋǧu Lakȟóta traditional culture. He translated the Lakota language for Hollywood movies, including the 1990 movie Dances with Wolves, and created a modern Lakota orthography and textbook.
Paul Ignatius Manhart, S.J. was ordained a Jesuit priest of the Roman Catholic Church and served in various capacities on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rapid City. His entire priestly career was dedicated to ministering among the Oglala Lakota Native Americans. Fr. Manhart’s scholarly work in linguistics helped preserve and disseminate the living, native North American Lakota language. He was a firsthand witness and participant in the Wounded Knee incident of 1973.
Matilda "Tillie" Black Bear was a Lakota anti-domestic violence activist known as the Grandmother (Unci) of the Grassroots Movement of Safety for Native Women. She worked as an activist, therapist, school counselor, nonprofit administrator, and college instructor.
Lionel Raphael Bordeaux was a Sicangu Lakota educator, advocate, and president of Sinte Gleska University (SGU) from 1973 until his death in 2022. At the time of his death, he was the longest-serving college or university president in the United States. During his time as university president, SGU became the first tribal university in the United States, and became the first tribal higher learning institution to achieve both bachelor's and master's degree accreditation.
Sicangu Akicita Owicahe Tribal Veterans Cemetery, also known as the Rosebud Sioux Tribe Veterans Cemetery, located near White River in Mellette County, South Dakota, United States, is the official cemetery for veterans belonging to the Rosebud Sioux Tribe. Opened in 2013 and funded by a grant from the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), it was one of the first tribal veterans cemeteries in the country.