Stephen_Return_Riggs
Stephen Return Riggs
American clergyman and linguist
Stephen Return Riggs (March 23, 1812 – August 24, 1883) was a Christian missionary and linguist who lived and worked among the Dakota people.[1]
Riggs was born in Steubenville, Ohio.[1] His career among the Dakota began in 1837 at Lac qui Parle in what is now Minnesota, where there was a mission.[1] 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.[1]