South Dakota's First People
The first humans arrived in South Dakota more than 11,000 years ago. 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. They lived from Nebraska all the way up to North Dakota.
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 became more commonly known as the Sioux due to the French colonists’ mispronunciation of the Chippewa nation’s name for the group. The bands were grouped into three nations, each representing a different dialect of the same language: the Dakota (Santee), Nakota (Yankton) and Lakota (Teton). Each nation had its unique traditions and a distinct but shared culture.
Today, there are nine federally-recognized tribes in South Dakota descending from the Dakota, Lakota and Nakota.
European Exploration and Colonial History in South Dakota
French 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. They claimed the territory for France.
At 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. 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.
In 1804, the Lewis and Clark Expedition provided the first accounts of the area that would eventually become South Dakota. Fort Pierre was established as a fur trading outpost in 1817 and became the oldest continuously occupied white settlement in South Dakota.
South Dakota, however, remained largely uncolonized for several decades. By 1860, there were fewer than 5,000 white settlers in the area. The Dakota Territory was established in 1861, encompassing South and North Dakota and much of Wyoming and Montana.
The 'Indian Wars' in South Dakota
The Lakota Sioux arrived in South Dakota in the 1700s, migrating south from the headwaters of the Mississippi River. They clashed with the Akira and several other tribes for control of eastern Dakota. Smallpox epidemics brought by white settlers in 1837 and again in 1856 decimated the Akira population in South Dakota. In 1862, the Akira moved to North Dakota and joined the Mandan and Hidatsa to form the Three Affiliated Tribes.
As more white settlers moved west in the 1800s, they sought Indigenous territory in South Dakota for farming and industry. 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. The Sioux considered bison a sacred animal and relied on it for virtually all their needs, including food, clothing, weapons, tools, trade and shelter.
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 Dakota were reserved a strip of land 20 miles wide on the Minnesota River. 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.
Frequent 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. 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.
In 1868, the Lakota Sioux and General William T. Sherman signed the Treaty of Fort Laramie, which guaranteed the tribe’s rights to their Black Hills territory in South Dakota. Known to the Lakota Sioux as He Sapa, Black Hills was a sacred site. The treaty established the Great Sioux Reservation on a large portion of the western half of South Dakota, including the Black Hills. Many nomadic tribal members of the Lakota Sioux, including leaders Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, rejected the reservation system.
In 1874, a military expedition into the Black Hills led by General George Armstrong Custer confirmed the existence of gold. The ensuing flood of miners and entrepreneurs to the Black Hills area violated the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie. The Commissioner of Indian Affairs ordered all Lakota Sioux onto reservations by January 31, 1876—a largely ignored demand. The United States military then sent troops led by Custer to fight the Lakota Sioux in what became known as the Black Hills War of 1876. At the Battle of the Little Bighorn, sometimes called Custer’s Last Stand, the Lakota Sioux killed Custer and defeated his army—the most decisive Native American victory of the so-called American-Indian Wars.
The United States continued to battle against the Lakota Sioux in the Black Hills until they confiscated all of the tribe’s land in 1877. The Dawes Severalty Act of 1877, which ostensibly granted plots of land to Native Americans for farming purposes, further resulted in the loss of Indigenous territory.
