FOUNDATIONS OF HUMAN ACTIVITY, Chapter 3

South Dakota's first inhabitants were the Paleo-Indians, descendants of the people who crossed the Bering Strait from Russia into Alaska. They were hunters who lived off buffalo, elk, and other large mammals. As climatic conditions grew drier, they began hunting smaller animals, fishing, and eating berries.

Following the Paleo were the Plains Villagers, who gardened and hunted. They raised corn and hunted bison, living in large towns in earthen homes with mud walls. A one-thousand year old site exists today near Mitchell, South Dakota. As many as one thousand people may have lived together there, probably to protect themselves from outside invaders.

In A.D. 500, a group called the Mound Builders lived along the Big Sioux River in the northeastern part of the state. Their name represents the large earthen mounds they used to bury people that died.

From the Plains Villagers, tribes including the Arikara, Cheyenne, Crow, and Pawnee descended. In the 1700s, the Sioux, forced from Minnesota's forests by the armed Chippewa, who had traded with the French for guns, began moving onto the Plains. The Sioux split into subgroups as they spread across the Plains. The Dakota were those who stayed in southwestern Minnesota. In eastern South Dakota, the tribe was called the Nakota. Native Americans that moved west of the Missouri River called themselves the Lakota.

Sioux Indians, Dakota Territory, 1865

The Sioux acquired horses on the Plains that had been left behind in the 1600s by the Spanish explorers. They hunted buffalo on horseback, using every piece of the buffalo to supply their daily needs. The hides were used for teepees and clothing, bones were used as utensils and tools, sinew was made into thread, and of course, the meat was used for food. The Sioux flourished on the Dakota Plains, and were known as excellent horsemen, hunters, and warriors.

Lewis, Clark, and Sacagawea, early 1800s

Lewis and Clark passed through the Dakotas in 1804, and for the most part, their encounters with the Sioux were friendly. After the passage of the Homestead Act in 1862, white settlers began moving west onto the Prairies and Great Plains. As they moved into the territory, skirmishes between the Indians and whites became more frequent. The Sioux dominated huge areas of land for their buffalo hunts. Many settlers coexisted with them, but others began to kill the buffalo, in the hopes that, without their primary food source, the Indians would be forced to move to the reservations to avoid starvation.

Nasset Homestead, Dakota Territory, 1865

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