Their 1867 report led to the establishment of an Indian Peace Commission, whose goal was to end the wars and establish treaties to take over Native American land and compel Indigenous people to move west onto reservations. Very little payment was made, and the government allowed settlers to encroach on Dakota’s land This led to the Dakota Uprising of 1862, which resulted in the forcible removal of most Native Americans living in Minnesota to South Dakota, Iowa and Nebraska.įrequent clashes between Native Americans and white settlers in the 1860s and 1870s across the United States motivated a Congressional commission to study the issue in 1865. The Dakota were reserved a strip of land 20 miles wide on the Minnesota River. Weakened by the decline in the buffalo population and weary that the government would otherwise take their land, the Dakota Sioux sold almost all of their territory in 1851-nearly 24 million acres in total across South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota-to the United States with the Treaties of Mendota and Traverse des Sioux. The Sioux considered bison a sacred animal and relied on it for virtually all their needs, including food, clothing, weapons, tools, trade and shelter. European trappers also hunted bison on the South Dakota plains for their fur, leading to a decline in the population from an estimated 60 million North American bison in the early 1800s to just 500 by 1890. In 1862, the Akira moved to North Dakota and joined the Mandan and Hidatsa to form the Three Affiliated Tribes.Īs more white settlers moved west in the 1800s, they sought Indigenous territory in South Dakota for farming and industry. Smallpox epidemics brought by white settlers in 1837 and again in 1856 decimated the Akira population in South Dakota. They clashed with the Akira and several other tribes for control of eastern Dakota. The Lakota Sioux arrived in South Dakota in the 1700s, migrating south from the headwaters of the Mississippi River. The Dakota Territory was established in 1861, encompassing South and North Dakota and much of Wyoming and Montana. By 1860, there were fewer than 5,000 white settlers in the area. South Dakota, however, remained largely uncolonized for several decades. ![]() Fort Pierre was established as a fur trading outpost in 1817 and became the oldest continuously occupied white settlement in South Dakota. In 1804, the Lewis and Clark Expedition provided the first accounts of the area that would eventually become South Dakota. The Spanish gave the land back to the French in 1800, and the United States bought the entire area from France in 1803 for $15 million with the Louisiana Purchase. They claimed the territory for France.Īt the end of the French and Indian War in 1763, the French gave Louisiana-which encompassed all of their land west of the Mississippi, including modern-day South Dakota-to Spain. European Exploration and Colonial History in South Dakotaįrench brothers Louis-Joseph and François Sieur de la Vérendryes were the first Europeans to set foot in South Dakota in 1742 on a mission to explore the Great Plains. Today, there are nine federally-recognized tribes in South Dakota descending from the Dakota, Lakota and Nakota. Each nation had its unique traditions and a distinct but shared culture. The bands were grouped into three nations, each representing a different dialect of the same language: the Dakota (Santee), Nakota (Yankton) and Lakota (Teton). They became more commonly known as the Sioux due to the French colonists’ mispronunciation of the Chippewa nation’s name for the group. The Oceti Sakowin, or Seven Council Fires, is a confederacy of Native American bands located throughout South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska and Montana. ![]() They lived from Nebraska all the way up to North Dakota. Among South Dakota’s first established groups were the Sahnish, or Akira, who originally migrated to North America from Central America along the Missouri River. ![]() The first humans arrived in South Dakota more than 11,000 years ago.
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