Joseph Renville

Joseph Renville marker at Lac qui Parle Mission site, Jack Renshaw, 1971The son of a French trader and a Dakota woman, Joseph Renville was born near present-day St. Paul and lived with his Dakota relatives until he was ten, when he moved with his father to Canada. He eventually returned to Minnesota, where he was an interpreter for Lieutenant Zebulon Pike in 1805 and 1806 and for Major Stephen Long in 1823. Renville established a fur-trading post in 1826 near Lac qui Parle as an agent for the American Fur Company. His familiarity with European and Indian culture, as well as his fluency in the Dakota, English, and French languages, made him an effective trader and a trusted intermediary among the people who lived and worked near his post.

Raised as a Catholic, Renville invited European missionaries to establish a mission and school near his fur post. Through the Lac qui Parle mission, Renville worked to further strengthen relationships among the European and Dakota peoples. With missionaries Thomas S. Williamson, Stephen R. Riggs, and Samuel and Gideon Pond, he translated the Bible and various hymnals into the Dakota language. The process was slow: a Bible verse would be read in French, Renville would translate it into the Dakota language, and his words would be carefully written down. Dakota is an oral language, and Renville's translations were among the first attempts to record Dakota in written form.
 

Theme:

Shared History

Topics:

Fur Trade
Cite
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Bibliography

MN150. Minnesota Historical Society.

Neill, Edward D. "A Sketch of Joseph Renville: a 'Bois Brule' and Early Trader of Minnesota," Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society, Vol. 1: 1902.  

Resources for Further Research

Websites

MN150. Minnesota Historical Society.

Historic Sites

Lac qui Parle Mission. 

Key People

Zeb-Pike_0
Lieutenant Zebulon Pike
Zeb-Pike_0

Lieutenant Zebulon Pike

Zebulon Montgomery Pike, Jr. was born in 1779. He was an American military officer and explorer.
Pike worked at a series of frontier posts. In 1805, General James Wilkinson, governor of the Upper Louisiana Territory, ordered Pike to find the source of the Mississippi River. Wilkinson wanted to obtain sites for future military posts in case of war with Great Britain.  Pike met with a party of about 150 Dakota at the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers and made a deal with two Dakota leaders for about 100,000 acres of land. It was the future site of Fort St. Anthony, later called Fort Snelling.
In 1810 Pike published an account of his expeditions. He later achieved the rank of brigadier general in the Army, and served during the War of 1812. He was killed by British forces during the Battle of York, which, however, was won by the American side. 

View full article: Lieutenant Zebulon Pike