Editor’s note: This is one in an occasional series on “forgotten” ancestors who may not have been recognized for their achievements.
Raymond Wilson
Special to ICT
A great amount of information is available on the interesting and significant lives of Dr. Charles A. Eastman, Ohiyesa, and his wife, Elaine Goodale Eastman. Charles was a famous author, dynamic lecturer, and active Indian reformer, while Elaine was also a noted author and reformer.
However, John Eastman, an older brother of Charles, has not been adequately recognized for his accomplishments and efforts to help Native people for more than four decades.
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John Eastman, Mahpiyawakankida, which translates to Worshiping Cloud in the Dakota language, was born on March 1, 1849, at Oak Grove Village in Minnesota. His father was Many Lightnings and his mother was Nancy Eastman, the daughter of Capt. Seth Eastman, a noted painter of Native people.
Raised in the traditional ways to become a hunter and warrior, John fought in the Dakota War of 1862. He and his father were captured and were among the more than 300 Dakotas sentenced to death by hanging.
Missionaries and others convinced President Abraham Lincoln to review the case, however, and John and his father were not among the 38 people ultimately hanged. John and his father were then imprisoned at the federal penitentiary at Davenport, Iowa.
During their imprisonment, John and his father became Christians. Many Lightnings adopted the name of Jacob Eastman and John became George Eastman, though he later changed it to John because of his admiration for the Rev. John Williamson.
In 1866, John and his father were released and went to the Santee Sioux Reservation in Nebraska. Unhappy with conditions there, Jacob filed for and received a homestead at Flandreau, South Dakota, in 1870.
In the 1870s, John began his formal education at the Santee Normal Training School and later taught there. He argued, in vain, that Indian students should be allowed to retain their Native language because they could comprehend their lessons better.
Both Williamson and the Rev. Alfred Riggs had a profound effect on John’s decision to become a Presbyterian minister. They convinced him to attend Beloit College’s preparatory school in Wisconsin, and in 1876, Williamson ordained him as minister at the First Presbyterian Church at Flandreau, a position he held for 30 years.
When his father died in January 1876, John conducted the burial services. Eastman held several other prominent church appointments, including minister of the Goodwill Presbyterian Church of Sisseton, South Dakota, in 1896; commissioner to the Presbyterian Church in the USA General Assembly on several occasions; and a general missionary for the Dakota Indian Presbytery in 1915.
Beginning in the mid-1890s, John and his brother, Ohiyesa, lobbied for the Santee claims case in Washington, D.C., regarding treaty violations – an issue not settled for more than two decades.
Church parishioners, friends, supervisors, and others held John in high esteem. They considered him a man of strong faith and forceful conviction. Other recognized qualities included his bilingual abilities in Dakota and English, and his concern for the sick and elderly.
He became a tribal elder, looking out for his peoples’ welfare. His syncretism — blending of religions — stressed the relationship of biblical and Indigenous values.
John Eastman was married twice. He had a brief marriage in 1873 to Viola Frazier, who died from smallpox shortly after they wed. He then married Mary Jane Faribault in 1874; they had nine children.
John Eastman died on Oct. 5, 1921. He was buried at Flandreau next to his father. A beautiful grave marker that contained his picture adorned his burial plot.
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