Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2024
Hinyajice-duta-wiŋ Soft Scarlet Down of a Swan Susan Frénière was born Dec. 25, 1819 in Brown County, Minnesota Territory. Her parents were Narisse Cakpa LaFrénière (1792-1858) and Madeleine Winona Abigail Mazardewiŋ Tickling Iron Crawford (1805-1897).
Hinyajice-duta-wiŋ met Joseph Renshaw Brown at Lake Traverse in 1835. During the 1840s, they lived in Wisconsin Territory at a town site that he platted and named Dakota. The town is now known as Stillwater, Minnesota.
Joseph (1805-1870) was the son of Samuel Brown (1785-1828) Emily Renshaw Brown (1780-1806). His first two wives were Helen Dickson Brown Arconge (1808-1884), Margaret McCoy Bush (1816-1885). and his final wife was Hinyajice-duta-wiŋ Soft Scarlet Down of a Swan Susan Frénière. They had 12 children.
In the 1850s, they lived at Henderson, Minnesota, which was also platted by her husband. Joseph served as secretary of the Territorial Council, chief clerk of the House of Representatives, and member of both the State House and Senate. He edited the Minnesota Pioneer and published his own newspaper at Henderson.
In 1857, Hinyajice-duta-wiŋ’s husband was appointed by Henry Sibley to serve as U. S. Indian Agent for the Dakota, a federal political appointment. Her home between 1857 and 1861 was at the Upper Agency (Yellow Medicine).
In 1861, Joseph was replaced by Thomas Galbraith, a Republican appointee, who was living in Shakopee. Galbraith was unfamiliar and unsympathetic with the Dakota people and their needs. Many historians believe that the removal of Joseph from the position of Indian Agent was a major factor in the increased tension which fueled the Dakota War of 1862.
Joseph and Hinyajice-duta-wiŋ built a large house made of stone from granite quarries in Minnesota. Construction began in June 1861. The house was three and a half stories and had 19 rooms and about thirty windows!
Hinyajice-duta-wiŋ’s kitchen, dining room, and pantries were on the first floor. She furnished the house with upholstered furniture, heavy damask curtains, bronze and crystal chandeliers, a piano, and the latest cooking and serving utensils.
The house had just been completed when the Dakota War broke out on Aug. 18, 1862. On August 19, Hinyajice-duta-wiŋ, her 12 children, people who were hired help in the house, and neighbors abandoned the house and fled to Fort Ridgely for safety. Sometime during the war, the house was destroyed by fire.
On the way to Fort Ridgely, they were surrounded by Dakotas, including Ṡakpedaŋ, Marpiya Okinajin He Who Stands in the Clouds Cut-Nose, and Do wan’ s’a, the Singer.
Ṡakpedaŋ, on horseback, galloped ahead, then turned to whoop and yell. “Mother did not like this,” said Samuel Jerome Brown (1845-1925), son of Hinyajice-duta-wiŋ. “She told him that she wanted none of his foolishness around her, and that he must either shoot and kill or stop his antics. He would reply that we were his prisoners and should not talk so much, and then commenced singing the war song…When he saw that mother was not afraid of him he quit his foolin.”
Hinyajice-duta-wiŋ was part Dakota, and she made her influential connections with many Dakota leaders, including Sisseton and Wahpeton, known. She stood up in the wagon, waved her shawl and cried in a loud voice, in the Dakota language, that she was a Sisseton and a relative of Wannaton, Scarlet Plume, Sweet Corn, and Ah-Kee-Pah, and the friend of Standing Buffalo, and that she expected protection.
One of the warriors recognized her as the daughter of the woman who had saved his life the previous winter and jumped into the wagon and testified on her behalf. Dakota leader Thaóyate Dúta (Little Crow) then brought her and her family and some of their neighbors to his own house, where he said he would treat them like family. Over the next few days, he spent a great deal of time talking to her, and he protected her and her family during their time of captivity. Six weeks later, they were freed at Camp Release.
After Joseph died in 1870, Hinyajice-duta-wiŋ spent her remaining years living at the Sisseton Agency near her son Joseph.
Hinyajice-duta-wiŋ Soft Scarlet Down of a Swan Susan Frénière Brown, who was born Dec. 25, 1819, died at age 84 on Dec. 23, 1904. She was buried at St. Mary’s Episcopal Cemetery in Sisseton, South Dakota. The inscription noted:
Susan Frenier
Wife of the late Joseph R Brown
Born Christmas Day 1819
Buried Christmas Day 1904.