South Dakota: Early Inhabitants, European Exploration, and Fur Trading

At the time of European exploration, South Dakota was inhabited by Native Americans of the agricultural Arikara and the nomadic Sioux (Dakota). By the 1830s the Sioux had driven the Arikara from the area. Part of the region that is now South Dakota was explored in the mid-18th cent. by sons of the sieur de la Vérendrye. The United States acquired the region as part of the Louisiana Purchase, and it was partially explored by Lewis and Clark in their Missouri River expedition of 1804–6. Later explorers became well acquainted with the warlike Sioux, who continued to dominate the region from the period of the fur trade until to the middle of the 19th cent. Individual traders from the time of Pierre Dorion in the late 18th cent. made the region their home, and the posts founded by Pierre Chouteau and the American Fur Company were the first bases for settlement. (Fort Pierre was established in 1817.)

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• Postwar Changes
• Railroads, Droughts, and the Great Depression
• The Dakota Land Boom, Statehood, and Agrarian Reform
• Gold Fever and the End of Sioux Resistance
• Settlement
• Early Inhabitants, European Exploration, and Fur Trading
• Government and Higher Education
• Economy
• Geography
• Facts and Figures
• Bibliography

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2024, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

See more Encyclopedia articles on: U.S. Political Geography