Introduction to History of South Dakota
The earliest inhabitants of what is now South Dakota were prehistoric hunters who reached the area perhaps 15,000 years ago. By 500 A.D., they had been succeeded by the Mound Builders. Arikara Indians reached South Dakota from Kansas and Nebraska about the 16th century. Then came the Sioux (Dakota) Indians, who moved westward from Minnesota beginning in the 17th century. The Sioux had spread throughout the region by the time the first white explorers arrived.
Important dates in South Dakota1682 Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, claimed for France all the land drained by the Mississippi River. This land included the South Dakota region.1743 Francois La Verendrye and Louis-Joseph La Verendrye were the first white people known to visit the South Dakota region.1803 The United States acquired South Dakota through the Louisiana Purchase.1804, 1806 Meriwether Lewis and William Clark passed through South Dakota on their expedition to and from the Pacific Ocean.1817 Joseph La Framboise established the first permanent settlement in South Dakota at what is now Fort Pierre.1861 The U.S. Congress created the Dakota Territory.1868 The Treaty of Fort Laramie ended Red Cloud's War.1874 Gold was discovered in the Black Hills.1889 South Dakota became the 40th state of the United States on November 2.1927 Gutzon Borglum began work on Mount Rushmore National Memorial. The monument was completed in 1941.1930's South Dakota suffered its worst drought.1944 Congress authorized construction of Fort Randall, Oahe, Gavins Point, and Big Bend dams.1973 A group of armed Indians seized the village of Wounded Knee and occupied it for 71 days.1980 The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the federal government to pay South Dakota Indian tribes $105 million for land seized by the government in 1877.1989 Legalized gambling began in Deadwood.2001 The Homestake gold mine closed.Exploration and Early Settlement
The land that later became South Dakota was originally claimed by France as part of its colonial empire in North America. The vast area that included South Dakota was named Louisiana in honor of Louis XIV. An expedition led by Daniel Greysolon, Sieur Dulhut (Duluth), may have reached South Dakota soil around 1679. Other groups under the leadership of Pierre Le Sueur possibly reached the site of Sioux Falls between 1683 and 1700.
In 1738 Sieur de La Vérendrye, a French-Canadian explorer and fur trader, attained the upper reaches of the Missouri River. His sons led an expedition (1742–43) that got within sight of the Black Hills. They were the first white men known for certain to have visited the area. During their return trip to Canada, they buried a small lead tablet, inscribed with the names of three members of the party and the date of their visit, on a hill overlooking the site of present Fort Pierre, on the Missouri River. (The tablet was discovered in 1913.)
In 1762, France ceded western Louisiana to Spain. Spanish explorers made several trips into the Dakota region to develop trade with the Indians, but established no permanent settlements. Spain returned western Louisiana to France under a treaty signed in 1800. In 1803 the region that became South Dakota came into the possession of the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase. The first United States explorers to pass through the region were the members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, in 1804 and 1806.
The Fur Trade
Soon after the return of Lewis and Clark, fur traders moved into the upper Missouri Basin and developed a prosperous fur trade with the Indians. The American Fur Company and several other firms opened trading posts along the Missouri. These posts were the first white settlements in South Dakota.
In 1831 Pierre Chouteau, head of the Western Department of the American Fur Company, introduced the steamboat to the upper Missouri. His steamer Yellowstone made its first voyage from St. Louis to Fort Tecumseh (Fort Pierre after 1832), a trading post that had been established a few years earlier. The steamboat soon became the primary form of commercial transportation. However, by 1850 the fur trade had greatly declined and river travel to the upper Missouri decreased. Many fur traders left the region and few settlers arrived in the next several years.
Dakota Territory
In 1850 the area that became North and South Dakota was still largely unsettled, with only a few trading posts along the Missouri. The part west of the Missouri was included in Missouri Territory (1812–21) and then became part of a large, unorganized area that had been set aside for Indians being moved west of the Mississippi River. The eastern half successively became part of Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota territories.
When, in 1854, Congress created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, the western Dakotas became part of the Nebraska Territory. This opened the way for the first significant settlement. As whites moved into the region, there was increasing hostility between them and the Indians, who were being forced out of their traditional hunting grounds. To protect the settlers, the federal government established a number of forts.
In 1856 the Dakota Land Company was formed by land speculators, who hoped to create a new territory out of the rich farmlands west of Minnesota Territory. Settlements were started at Medary, Flandreau, and Sioux Falls, on the Big Sioux River. In 1857, when Minnesota began preparing for statehood, the area between the Big Sioux and Missouri rivers (now the eastern half of South Dakota) was designated to become unorganized territory. Settlements quickly sprang up at Yankton and Vermillion, on the Missouri.
Most of the settlers were driven out by the Sioux, but in 1858 the Yankton Sioux signed a treaty. They ceded all their lands between the Big Sioux and the Missouri to the United States except for 400,000 acres (162,000 hectares). When the Senate ratified the treaty in 1859, several hundred settlers moved into the newly opened region.
The settlers quickly set up their own government and petitioned Congress to establish a new territory. Congress passed a bill creating Dakota Territory, and President Buchanan signed it on March 2, 1861. The territory included all of present North and South Dakota and parts of Montana and Wyoming. Yankton was made the territorial capital. Montana was made a separate territory in 1864, Wyoming in 1868.
Gold Rush and Indian Troubles
During the 1860's settlement of the new territory was slow, as the Civil War and the fear of Indians discouraged immigration. A Sioux uprising that began in Minnesota in 1862 spread to Dakota, causing temporary abandonment of most of the towns. Further troubles with the Sioux led to the Laramie Treaty of 1868, by which the entire western half of present South Dakota was given to the Sioux as a reservation. The area was closed to all whites.
In 1874, in response to agitation by whites who wanted to open the area to settlement, Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer was ordered to lead a military expedition to explore the Black Hills, part of the Sioux lands. As the party was scouting the Black Hills, it discovered gold on French Creek, near the present town of Custer. When news of the discovery reached the eastern towns, miners began to pour into the region. Many mining camps were established within a short time, including Rapid City, Deadwood, and Lead. The gold rush also brought the railroad to Dakota Territory.
White intrusion into the Black Hills, sacred to the Indians, led to the Sioux War of 1876. Most of the Sioux surrendered after a short while and signed a peace treaty by which they gave up the Black Hills and agreed to move to reservations that were nearer the Missouri River. In return, the government promised to provide rations until the Indians were able to support themselves.
The Sioux largely remained on their reservations until 1890, when the tribes were aroused by a religious movement known as the Ghost Dance, which promised the disappearance of the white man. When the government, fearing an uprising, tried to stop the movement, some Indians fled the reservations. Troops were sent to force them to return. The last major fight between the Plains Indians and United States troops took place at Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota, in December, 1890. (
Statehood
The discovery of gold, the coming of the railroad, the defeat of the Sioux, and the availability of land led to a great increase in the territory's population between 1878 and 1887. It was during this period that the majority of Scandinavian immigrants came to Dakota Territory. The population, about 80,000 in 1880, rose to about 250,000 by 1885, and to about 300,000 by 1890. As more and more settlers arrived, Dakotans became dissatisfied with their territorial status and began to work for statehood.
Many persons wanted to divide the territory into northern and southern sections, each to become a state. Others favored the creation of a single state from the entire territory. In 1883 the territorial capital was moved from Yankton, in the southeastern corner, to Bismarck, in present North Dakota. This change caused many persons in the southern part to advocate the creation of South Dakota as a separate state.
On February 22, 1889, President Cleveland signed an act of Congress that divided the territory into two sections along a line just south of the 46th parallel. The act further authorized each section to set up a government in preparation for statehood. In South Dakota a constitution was adopted, Arthur C. Mellette was elected governor, and Pierre was chosen as the state capital. South Dakota was formally admitted to the Union on November 2, 1889.
20th Century
After a period of drought and economic depression during the 1890's, good times returned after 1900. Farmers became prosperous again as prices for crops rose and rainfall was plentiful. Some of the Indian reservation lands were opened for settlement under a system in which claims were drawn by lot. Many farms were abandoned, however, when a severe drought hit the state, 1910–11.
Prosperity returned during World War I as crop prices went up and agricultural products were in great demand. Much legislation beneficial to farmers was enacted during the administration of Governor Peter Norbeck (1917–21). Prosperous conditions generally prevailed throughout the 1920's.
During the 1930's South Dakota suffered badly. In addition to the depression that affected the entire nation, the state was plagued by one of the worst periods of drought in its history. Dust storms, called black blizzards , ruined thousands of acres of farmland by blowing away the topsoil. Swarms of grasshoppers damaged crops. The state recovered somewhat during World War II, as farm products were again in demand.
In the postwar era, South Dakota worked to diversify its economy, still mainly dependent on agriculture. The federal government built several dams in the state to help control floods and to provide hydroelectric power and water for irrigation. Despite increasing industrialization in the 1960's and early 1970's, the population declined as many people moved to urban areas in other states. Indian rights became an issue in 1973 when militant Sioux occupied the hamlet of Wounded Knee to publicize their demands In the mid-1970's, the state suffered a lengthy drought, which caused severe economic problems. Conditions had improved, however, by the decade's end.
In 1979 the federal government awarded Sioux tribes in the state more than $100 million for the loss of the Black Hills region in the 19th century. During the 1980's, agriculture, the mainstay of the economy, suffered from a protracted recession. According to the 2000 census, the state's population increased 8.5 per cent during the preceding decade.