We're Open 10 am - 4 pm Tues–Fri
As the Lac qui Parle County Historical Society has done research for our upcoming exhibit on the Dakota people in Minnesota, we have run into a few familiar names that come up often in Minnesota and Lac qui Parle History. One person who comes up often that we want to share with you is Joseph Renville. Mr. Renville was an influential figure in the early history of Minnesota and often a bridge between the Dakota people and missionaries, traders, and military personnel who were expanding into the area. He worked all throughout Minnesota as an interpreter, a guide, a missionary, a military officer, a carpenter, an author, and as a trader.
Joseph Renville was born in 1779 at the Kaposia village located near the current location of St. Paul. Joseph’s father, Joseph Rainville, was a French-Canadian fur trader and his mother, Miniyuhewiŋ, was a member of the Mdewakanton tribe, one of the branches of the greater Dakota people. Joseph’s early years were atypical. As a child he was brought to Canada and educated by Catholic priests, as a teenager he was employed as a guide and interpreter for fur traders in Minnesota, and as a young man he helped guide expeditions through the northern sections of the Louisiana Purchase territory. During the War of 1812, Renville led a group of Dakota soldiers as a captain of the British army. They saw little action but were present at sieges on Fort Meigs in Ohio and Prairie du Chien in Wisconsin.
After the War of 1812, Renville returned to his career as a fur trader. He spent many years working for the Hudson’s Bay Company before leaving to help establish the Columbia Fur Company in 1821. The Columbia Fur Company saw some success before being bought out by their much larger competitor the American Fur Company in 1826. It was around this time in the late 1820s that Joseph built his trading post, Fort Renville, on the east shores of Lake Lac qui Parle. The fort was little more than a few wooden buildings and a fence, but it was one of the first permanent non-Dakota residences in the area.
In 1834 a Christian missionary named Dr. Thomas Williamson was looking to build a mission in western Minnesota and he happened to run into Mr. Renville who agreed to help him establish a mission at Lac qui Parle. The Lac qui Parle mission would run from 1835-1854 and was used as a base for the religious conversions that the missionaries were working towards. The site was also used for translation of bibles, hymns, and other scriptures and for Renville’s composition of a few Dakota language hymns found in the Dakota Odowan hymnbook. The Lac qui Parle Historical Society currently displays a copy of the Dakota Odowan from its collection.
While the sites of Fort Renville and the Lac qui Parle mission were used as a part of the United States’ greater goal of forcing the Dakota to abandon their centuries old religious beliefs, they were also centers of trade and served as distribution sites for food, medicine, and supplies. Renville himself was noted for his generosity towards people who visited his home at Fort Renville. After his death in 1846, historian Edward D. Neill wrote of Renville, “As long as Minnesota exists, he should be known as one given to hospitality. He invariably showed himself to be a friend to the Indian, the traveler and the missionary”.
Despite dying before Minnesota’s establishment as a state, Joseph Renville was still an important figure in its early history. As a result he became the namesake for the town of Renville, two counties in Minnesota and North Dakota, and the USS Renville, an attack transport ship used from 1944-1976. Fort Renville and the Lac qui Parle mission fell into disuse within a decade of Renville’s death, but both sites are now protected and the mission rebuilt by the Minnesota Historical Society. More information about Joseph Renville, the Lac qui Parle Mission, and the history of the Dakota people in Lac qui Parle County can be found at the Lac qui Parle County Historical Society and in our new Dakota display opening on May 17th at a special Open House Program. A miniature replica of Fort Renville made by Matthew R. Tyler will be on display at that exhibit.
