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 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 C. Murphy, was near the missions of Dr. Thomas S. Williamson and the Reverend Steven T. Riggs. Like the Lower Agency thirty miles downriver, the Upper had sturdy homes for its physician, carpenter, farm superintendent, blacksmith, 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 100 houses for farmer Indians. 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. John Other Day, a leader of the peaceful faction of the Upper Sioux, led many whites from the agency to safety.