author
R. J. (Robert J.) Creswell
1844–1906
A Presbyterian minister and missionary writer, he is best remembered for a brief 1906 history of missionary work among the Dakota and Sioux in the Upper Midwest. His writing draws on decades of church service and carries the tone of someone reporting from a life he knew firsthand.
1 Audiobook
Among the Sioux: A Story of the Twin Cities and the Two Dakotas
by R. J. (Robert J.) Creswell
About the author
Born in 1844 and dying in 1906, Robert J. Creswell was a minister of the United Presbyterian Church whose work connected him with major missionary efforts in both the South and the Northwest. Sources tied to Knoxville College credit R. J. Creswell with establishing a mission school in Knoxville in 1864 for free Black and formerly enslaved people, showing that his church work reached beyond writing alone.
Creswell is known as the author of Among the Sioux: A Story of the Twin Cities and the Two Dakotas, published in Minneapolis in 1906. The book presents a short historical account of missionary activity among the Dakota and Sioux, and its front matter identifies him as "The Rev. R. J. Creswell" and notes an earlier work, Who Slew All These.
The dedication of Among the Sioux says his wife Nellie had been his companion through forty years of missionary service among "the Freedmen" and in the "New Northwest," which helps explain the lived, personal perspective behind the book. I wasn't able to confirm more biographical detail from strong, easily verifiable sources, so this portrait remains necessarily brief.