The Great Plains of South Dakota

This Dances With Wolves country. Where massive herds of Buffalo often took days to pass a single location. Where flocks of now-extinct Passenger Pigeons blackened the sky during migration, turning noon to midnight. Where strangers arrived seeking game...and land...and gold. Where cultures collided, often in conflict and chaos.
Many of the enduring American images of the latter half of the 19th Century sprang from this sprawling land between "civilization" to the East and the Rockies to the West. Few are factual; most are idealized fiction. History is, after all, written by the winners.

Though more than a century has passed and many things have changed, the land remains the same. Quiet, expansive, impressive. An eternal sky still paints every horizon a remarkable blue, and an ancient wind still whispers in the high grass.
There are countless untold stories here, remaining just out of reach, secrets lost in time...and the land knows them all.
Welcome to the Great Plains.

Your Hosts, The Yankton Sioux

Before long, it will be three hundred years since the Yankton Sioux claimed and settled in this place. Beginning as early as 1730, more than 30,000 members of the federation of Sioux abandoned their places of residence around Minnesota's Lake Mille Lacs for more than 80 million acres to west.

In lands they had protected as hunting and gathering places, they now found a home. The Yanktons claimed the northernmost tract, between the Des Moines and Missouri Rivers as far north as present day border between South and North Dakota ("Yankton" is a shortened version of a Sioux phrase meaning "People of the End Village"). Their influence, however, extended as far as the Canadian boundary, where they made contact with the Assiniboine as well as their traditional enemies, the Ojibwas. They also joined with western Sioux to defend aboriginal rights as far west as the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.
Near the turn of the century, French explorers made their way upriver, later to be followed the famed Lewis and Clark Expedition and, of course, others. During that time, the Yankton Sioux welcomed these visitors in a peace-loving manner, and their steadfast commitment to the federation of Sioux people helped keep virtually all Sioux land intact, never placed in jeopardy by advancing white settlement.

By the mid-1800's, though, federal bureaucracy and corrupt officials created serious problems. The Yankton Sioux elected not to join the so called "Great Sioux Uprising of 1862" in neighboring Minnesota, through correspondence, the court system and Congressional appearances-to present their case and advance their cause. Peaceful, dignified and determined they were, an image that continues to this day.

And there were legendary leaders and heroes. Yankton Sioux names that create a cultural litany. War Eagle, Struck By the Ree, White Medicine Crow That Stands, Feather Necklace, Little White Swan, and many more. Names that will echo on and on...now and forever in the history of a proud people.
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