This article lists prominent missionaries to the Dakota Indians, sponsored by the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions. Samuel W. Pond and his brother Gideon were early Euro-American settlers of Minnesota who arrived at Fort Snelling in 1834 and set up their log-cabin mission at Lake Calhoun near Cloud Man's village. They devised an alphabet for the Dakota language and became excellent speakers of Dakota. Thomas S. Williamson was considered the "Father of the Dakota Mission," and he arrived in Minnesota in 1834 and started the Lac qui Parle Mission to the Dakota Indians. Stephen R. Riggs joined the Dakota Mission at Lac qui Parle in 1837, and Jane S. Williamson was a teacher and activist who worked with her brother and taught an estimated 1,000 Dakotas to read and write in their own language. John P. Williamson, son of Dr. Thomas S. Williamson, grew up playing with Dakota children and developed a deep understanding of their culture. Other women missionaries, including Cordelia Eggleston Pond, Sarah Poage Pond, Agnes Johnson Hopkins Pond, Margaret Poage Williamson, Mary Longley Riggs, and Sarah Amelia Van Nice Williamson, served as missionaries and teachers and took a leading role in instructing Dakota children who came to the schools. They also raised their own children in isolated frontier environments.