Upper (or Yellow Medicine) Sioux Agency, Granite Falls, MN - Minnesota Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

This historical marker is located on a hill in front of the agency buildings at Upper Sioux Agency State Park. The text reads:

By the treaties of 1851 and 1858 the lands of the once mighty Sioux were reduced to shoestring reservations along the southern bank of the Minnesota River. The Sisseton and Wahpeton bands of Upper Sioux held the land from Lake Traverse to the Yellow Medicine River.

The Upper, or Yellow Medicine, Agency was established to serve as the government’s headquarters for distributing annuity payments to the Sisseton and Wahpeton. It was also the center where schools were set up and where government employees attempted to teach the Indians to farm. The agency site, selected in July, 1854, by Agent Robert G. Murphy, was near the missions of Dr. Thomas S. Williamson and the Reverend Stephen R. Riggs.

Like the Lower Agency thirty miles downriver, the Upper boasted sturdy homes for its physician, carpenter, farm superintendent, blacksmiths, and other employees; a two-story brick warehouse and agent’s residence; a school; stables; a brick kiln; and a jail. Nearby were four traders’ stores and at least a hundred houses for farmer Indians.
Here at the Upper Agency, in August 1862, the initial rumblings of the Sioux Uprising were heard. The annuity payments were late, and the Sioux were starving and restless. Although there was food in the warehouse, the Indian agent at first refused to distribute it until the annuity money arrived. When the Indians threatened a fight, the agent yielded, and the situation temporarily quieted down.

Later that month the Sioux Uprising broke out, and the Indians looted and burned the Upper Agency. A leader of the peaceful faction of Upper Sioux, John Other Day, led many whites from the agency to safety.

Erected by the Minnesota Historical Society, 1966.

Marker Type:: Other

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