1. Joseph Renville was an interpreter, translator, expedition guide, Canadian officer in the War of 1812, founder of the Columbia Fur Company, and an important figure in dealings between settlers of European ancestry and Dakota Natives in Minnesota.
Joseph Renville contributed to the translation of Christian religious texts into the Dakota language.
Joseph Renville's father, Joseph Rainville, was a French Canadian canoeman and fur trader, and his mother, Miniyuhe, was a kinswoman of the Mdewakanton Dakota chief Little Crow family.
Joseph Renville's wife, Mary Tokanne Renville, a kinswoman of Big Thunder Little Crow II, was an early Christian convert.
The town of Renville, Minnesota, is named in honor of Joseph Renville, as are Renville County, Minnesota and Renville County, North Dakota.
In 1805, Joseph Renville was appointed by the US as an interpreter on the recommendation of officer Zebulon Pike during his expedition to explore the upper northern reaches of the Louisiana Purchase.
Joseph Renville was present at the Siege of Fort Meigs in 1813 as well as the Siege of Prairie du Chien in 1814.
Joseph Renville guided the US expedition in 1823 to Red River of the North led by Major Stephen Harriman Long.
Joseph Renville eventually naturalized as an American citizen, relinquishing his British officer's pension, so he could maintain his trading post which was on US soil.
In 1826, Joseph Renville settled in Lac qui Parle, Minnesota.
In 1832, Victor Joseph Renville was ambushed and killed by a group of Ojibwe, as he was leading a group of soldiers back from a revenge attack and raid on an American Fur Company trading house.
An examination of distinctive meters and other evidence leads to the conclusion that Joseph Renville probably composed the three hymn tunes, and he certainly composed the three Dakota texts.
In modern English-language hymnals, a paraphrase by Philip Frazier, loosely based on Joseph Renville's text, appears with the tune LACQUIPARLE, and it is known to many Christians by the opening words, "Many and great, O God, are thy works, maker of earth and sky".
The Joseph Renville family was considered "one of the most preeminent French-Sioux families in the upper Mississippi region" in the nineteenth century.
Joseph Renville was the first Dakota pastor to be ordained by the Dakota Presbytery and served as the pastor of Ascension Church on the Sisseton and Wahpeton Reservation in South Dakota for 30 years.
Joseph Renville helped to look after his nephew, Gabriel Renville, after his brother Victor Renville was killed in 1832.
Gabriel Joseph Renville was a driving force within the Dakota Peace Party during the Dakota War of 1862, and served as the leader of the Dakota scouts for three years.
Joseph Renville went on to become Chief of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate Sioux Tribe, overseeing the creation and settlement of the Lake Traverse Reservation.