South Dakota History and Government

South Dakota takes its name from the Dakota natives, one of several tribes that make up the Great Sioux Nation. Located in the north-central U.S., South Dakota is a predominantly rural state, with a population of less than a million spread out over 77,000 square miles. While agriculture dominates the state's economy, tourism also plays a large part. From De Smet (the childhood home of writer Laura Ingalls Wilder) to Deadwood (where "Wild Bill" Hickock met a grisly demise in Nuttal & Mann's Saloon No. 10), South Dakota's Wild West heritage is on ready display. Mount Rushmore, featuring the iconic sculptures of four former U.S. presidents, is located in South Dakota's Black Hills region and draws nearly 2 million visitors each year.

Although inhabited by the Sioux, Arapaho, and Cheyenne, the area was claimed by France in 1743 by the LaVerendrye brothers. As it was considered a part of greater Louisiana, the land passed to the U.S. in 1803 as a part of the Louisiana Purchase. As Meriwether Lewis and William Clark conducted their exploration of the region in 1804, they encountered two of the Sioux tribes. The Yankton Sioux were relatively peaceful, but warned the expedition of their hostile brethren upriver. The Teton Sioux (or Lakota) were openly contemptuous of the explorers, rejecting their gifts and demanding a boat in payment for passage through their territory.

Settlement of the area began with Fort Pierre, a trading post established by fur trappers in 1817. As the settlements slowly grew, the threat of attack from the hostile Lakota remained imminent. In 1855, the U.S. Army was dispatched to the region in an effort to keep the Native Americans in line. Operating from Fort Pierre, and later Fort Randall, the Army managed to secure the region, which brought in even more settlers. Land speculators began investing in what would become two of South Dakota's largest cities - Sioux Falls and Yankton. The Yankton Sioux signed a treaty in 1858 that ceded a large portion of their land to the U.S., and in 1861 the Dakota Territory was officially recognized. The Homestead Act of 1862, coupled with the completion of a railroad line between Yankton and Sioux City, Iowa in 1873, drew even American and European settlers to the prairies of South Dakota.

The Treaty of Fort Laramie, signed in 1868, designated the Black Hills to the Lakota as a part of the Great Sioux Reservation. However, gold was discovered in the region in 1874, during a military expedition led by General George Custer in flagrant disregard of the treaty. The Lakota refused to grant mining rights or land, claiming that the Black Hills had long been considered sacred by their tribe. (Since the Lakota had only discovered the Black Hills a hundred years previously, and had taken it by force from the Cheyenne tribe, many historians find this claim a tad dubious.) Miners began flooding into the Black Hills illegally and, much to the chagrin of the Lakota and their Cheyenne allies, the U.S. Army did little to prevent the incursions. Eventually, Lakota chief Sitting Bull and his war leader Crazy Horse led the Sioux and the Cheyenne in a war against the intruders and President Ulysses S. Grant issued orders to round up the bands of natives by force, resulting in the Black Hills War. General Custer led his cavalry detachment against the overwhelming Lakota-Northern Cheyenne forces near the Little Bighorn River in 1876, and was thoroughly decimated. Despite their resounding victory in the Battle of Little Bighorn, the Native Americans were eventually defeated in the Dull Knife Fight and the Battle of Slim Buttes. Another treaty was signed, allowing the U.S. to purchase the Black Hills land and legalizing Deadwood, Custer City, and the other boom towns in the region. In 1889, the unwieldy Dakota Territory was divided into North and South Dakota, and both states (along with Montana and Washington) were admitted to the Union.

South Dakota is one of six states in the Frontier Strip, which once divided the civilization of the Eastern U.S. from the historic Wild West. Traditionally, South Dakota has been divided into four distinct geographical provinces: The Drift Prairie, the Dissected Till Plains, The Great Plains, and the Black Hills.

The Drift Prairie is also known as Coteau des Prairies ("Prairie Hills"), and is situated in the eastern part of South Dakota. Bounded by the James River, this region consists of low hills and lakes formed by glaciers. Sioux Falls, the largest city in South Dakota, lies in the Drift Prairie region, on the banks of the Big Sioux River.

The Dissected Till Plains actually occupy a large portion of Iowa and Nebraska, but spill over into several other states, including the southeastern corner of South Dakota. Like the Drift Prairie, these lands were carved out hundreds of thousands of years ago by the movement of glaciers. The result was rolling hills crisscrossed by a multitude of streams, which produced the rich, fertile soil valued so highly within the Grain Belt and the Corn Belt.

The western two-thirds of South Dakota are dominated by the Great Plains, which are separated from the Drift Prairie by the James River Basin. The Coteau de Missouri hills lie in this region, as do the sharply eroded buttes, pinnacles, and spires of the Badlands. The capital city of Pierre sits on the rough river bluffs overlooking the Missouri River.

Finally, the Black Hills (which proved to be a major point of contention between the settlers and the native Lakota), lie in southwestern South Dakota and extend into Wyoming. South Dakota's highest point, Harney Peak, is located in the Black Hills, as is the Homestake Mine, one of the largest gold mines in the U.S. Wind Cave (near Hot Springs) and Jewel Cave (near Custer) are located within the Black Hills as well. These caves, which consist of over a hundred miles of labyrinthine tunnels and passageways, were established as national monuments in the early 1900s. But perhaps the most famous landmark in the Black Hills (or in South Dakota, for that matter) is the Mount Rushmore National Memorial. This elaborate monument, created by Gutzon Borglum, features the sculpted heads of former U.S. presidents Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt carved into the face of Mount Rushmore. Borglum had originally intended for his sculpture to show these historic figures from head to waist, but insufficient funding brought the project to an end in 1941.