Antoine Scott Campbell

Antoine Scott Campbell (1790's-1851)
Scott was the son of Archilbald John Campbell and a Dakota woman. Antoine married Margaret Menagre, the daughter of Louis Fromme da Menagre, on 12 Aug 1825. Margaret Menagre was born in 1799 and died on 9 Jun 1892 on the Santee Reservation in Nebraska. Their children were: Henriette (b: 1824; married Benjamin AitkenDyomme), Scott II (b: 1828-1870), Hypolite (b: abt. 1828), Joseph (b: 1827/1836-1869; married Mary Ann) John (b: 1834-1865; married Marguerite Lize), Margaret (b: 1838; married Joseph Labathe in 1854), Marie (b. abt 1839), and Mathias.

Scott was a Metis whom Meriwether Lewis had met on his expedition up the Missouri River. He took the boy with him back to St. Louis on his return from his western journey. When Lewis died in 1809 under mysterious circumstances he returned to his Sioux relatives and finally drifted to the agency at Fort Snelling. He was licensed to trade above Prairie du Chien for James Lockwood in the 1819-1820 season. Having a knowledge of four languages, he worked for the Indian agent Major Lawrence Taliaferro's Dakota as an interpreter at Fort Snelling, where he assisted Lt. Edmund A. Ogden in setting the Dakota language on paper. Missionary, Samuel W. Pond credits Scott for his part in the manuscript that Ogden passed on to Samuel and his brother Gideon Pond which was finished and published through the efforts of fellow missionary, Stephen R. Riggs.

He was the interpreter for the Treaty of Prairie du Chien in 1825. In 1837, Scott was living in the St. Peters settlement near the mouth of the Minnesota River, going to Washington D.C. as the Dakota interpreter (with his brother Duncan) for a treaty. Pond wrote of Scott, "Mr. Campbell was, in his general deportment, very mild, quiet and gentlemanly, always ready to smoke of chat with white men or Indians, carefully avoiding all harsh language and disagreeable topics; but he had a fiery temper which sometimes broke through the smooth external covering in such ebullitions of passion as might expect from one in whom were mingled the Scotch and Dakota blood. He was skillful as a mis-interpreter…He told what he thought the speaker should have said rather than what he did say, and frequently a good understanding seemed to have been restored, simply because there had been no understanding at all."
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Buried in 1851

• Reference: Find A Grave Memorial - SmartCopy: May 15 2024, 17:03:15 UTC

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