Seth and Mary Eastman - Marriage and Family

Marriage and Family

During his first posting at Fort Snelling near what is now Minneapolis, Seth Eastman in 1830 married Wakanin ajin win (Stands Sacred), the fifteen-year-old daughter of Cloud Man, a Dakotah (Santee Sioux) chief. Eastman was reassigned from Fort Snelling in 1832, soon after the birth of their daughter Winona (meaning First-born daughter). He declared his marriage ended when he left, as was typical of many European-American men who abandoned Indian women and their children. His daughter Winona was also called Mary Nancy Eastman, and later named Wakantakawin in the Sioux tradition of marking life passages.

She married a Santee Sioux and had five children, dying at the birth of the youngest, later known as Charles. After adopting Christianity, her husband and two of their surviving sons took the Eastman surname. Winona's eldest son Rev. John (Marpiyawaku Kida) Eastman became a Presbyterian missionary at Flandreau, South Dakota. Her second son Dr. Charles Eastman was the first Native American certified as a medical doctor, after earning his degree at Boston University. He also worked for Native American rights and wrote several popular books about his growing up in Dakota culture. Some were translated into European languages and published on the Continent.

In 1835, while stationed at West Point, Seth Eastman married a second time, to Mary Henderson, daughter of a surgeon there. She and her family were from Warrenton, Virginia. They had five children together, some born during Eastman's extended assignment in the West when he returned to Fort Snelling for seven years as commanding officer. The couple were both interested in Dakota culture. Mary Eastman collected traditional stories and legends during their time at Fort Snelling, as preparation for a later book which her husband illustrated.