Stephen Return Riggs

Stephen Return Riggs was a Christian missionary and linguist who lived and worked among the Dakota people.
Riggs was born in Steubenville, Ohio. His career among the Dakota began in 1837 at Lac qui Parle in what is now Minnesota, at the Lac qui Parle Mission. He worked among the Dakota Sioux for the remainder of his life, producing a grammar and dictionary and a Dakota translation of the New Testament He later worked with Thomas Smith Williamson on a full translation of the Bible.
In his autobiography Mary and I, or Forty Years with the Sioux, Riggs describes his life. In 1862, he served as interpreter at the trials of the Sioux Uprising. He died in Beloit, Wisconsin.

Selected works

1852 A Grammar and Dictionary of the Dakota Language
1871 Dakota wowapi wakan kin. The New Testament, in the Dakota language
1879 Dakota Wowapi Wakan: The Holy Bible in the language of the Dakotas translated out of the original tongues
1880 ''Mary and I, or Forty Years with the Sioux''
Archival collections

The Presbyterian Historical Society in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has , including detailed correspondence written by Stephen and Mary Riggs to their family members and two manuscript church histories written by Stephen Riggs. The correspondence also includes an occasional sketch of the missions they served.

Family

Riggs's daughter Cornelia was the wife of journalist Julius A. Truesdell and mother of Major General Karl Truesdell.