History of North Dakota

Early history

When Europeans reached the territory of present-day North Dakota in the mid-1700s, several peoples were already living in the region. The Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara were settled along the Missouri River; the Ojibwa (locally called Chippewa or Anishinaabe) and Cree resided in the northeast; and various Sioux groups (the Assiniboin, Yankton, Wahpeton, and Teton) inhabited areas in the north, southeast, and west.

Explorers and traders

The Canadian fur trader Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, sieur (lord) de La Vérendrye, was one of the first explorers of the North Dakota area. He visited a cluster of earthen-lodge villages near present-day Bismarck in 1738. Fur traders from Hudson Bay and Montreal began arriving in the area on a regular basis in the 1790s. The first permanent trading post in North Dakota was established in 1801 at Pembina. American explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark arrived at Mandan and Hidatsa villages in 1804 near present-day Bismarck. They were taken with the friendliness of the village residents and constructed Fort Mandan nearby, where they passed the winter of 1804–05. (Today the North Dakota Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center is at Washburn, about 30 miles [48 km] north of Bismarck.)

The United States acquired the lands drained by the Red and Souris river systems (which from 1670 had been part of Rupert’s Land) through the Rush-Bagot Agreement of 1817 and the remainder of what became North Dakota from France through the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.

In the 1820s and ’30s American traders brought in guns, kettles, blankets, axes, and liquor but also disease. The Native Americans became dependent on the traders for their supplies, and in the process many Indians died. In 1837 smallpox reduced the Mandan population of North Dakota from about 1,800 to 125 in a few months. Native American hostility grew when steamboat traffic increased after the discovery of gold in Montana in 1862 and when the U.S. Army built forts along the rivers. In 1876 Lieut. Col. George A. Custer and the 7th Cavalry set out from Fort Abraham Lincoln, south of present-day Mandan, for their fateful encounter with the Sioux and Cheyenne in the Battle of the Little Bighorn, fought in present-day Montana.

Pioneering and statehood

The fur trade declined in the 1860s, and Anglo settlement began in earnest in 1871, when railroads reached the Red River from St. Paul and Duluth, Minn. A flood of pioneers who had acquired land under the Homestead Act of 1862 turned to wheat farming. During the period known as the Dakota Boom (from 1878 to 1886), many giant farms stretched across the new state, and North Dakota wheat made Minneapolis, Minn., the milling centre of the country in the 1880s. The Northern Pacific and Great Northern railway companies vied with each other to reach the richest grain centres. Dependence on wheat unified the farmers and helped strengthen the regionwide Populist Movement. The Dakota Territory, which was established in 1861, was divided in 1889, and both North and South Dakota were admitted to the union on Nov. 2, 1889.

North Dakota since 1900

Soon after the period of pioneer settlement ended in about 1920, the Nonpartisan League, which exerted great influence on the state government, established a state-owned bank, flour mill, and grain elevator. The league soon lost its political clout, but the North Dakota Farmers Union (founded in 1927) launched a strong cooperative movement to control the selling of grain and the purchase of farm supplies. (Such radical farm movements led many North Dakotans to oppose U.S. intervention in both World Wars, because they identified participation with war profits it generated for Wall Street firms.)

Since 1915 North Dakota’s history has been marked by increasing mechanization of agriculture, the enlargement of farms, the loss of rural population, and the widespread use of the automobile. After World War II came rural electrification, soil conservation, and highway construction. In the 1950s North Dakota became an oil-producing state. Construction of the Garrison Dam on the Missouri River, completed in 1954, created an enormous reservoir, Lake Sakakawea. But while important for hydroelectric production and irrigation, the dam flooded Native American farmland. (At the beginning of the 21st century, Native Americans’ claims for compensation were still not resolved.) In the 1960s, air force bases, missile sites, and antiballistic-missile installations were built in the state. A major expansion of the Interstate Highway System through North Dakota was completed in the 1970s.

Throughout the 1980s and ’90s, the state’s economy was affected by worldwide variations in the pricing of both fossil fuels and agricultural products, as well as by adverse weather, most notably a number of severe floods in the 1990s. The Freedom to Farm Act (1996)—federal legislation that phased out certain subsidies over a seven-year period—had a negative impact on the state’s agriculture, and the economy also suffered from the downsizing of military installations, most notably the air force bases.

In the early 21st century, flooding continued to cause disasters in numerous locations across the state but most notably in the drainage basins of the Red River of the North and Devils Lake. Such catastrophes have a significant impact on even the small percentage of the state’s income that is derived from manufacturing and tourism in North Dakota. Other major issues included increases in teenage alcohol abuse and drug use, especially of methamphetamine (more commonly known as crystal meth), as well as gambling problems among adults. Meanwhile, North Dakota’s government struggled to reverse current demographic trends by attempting to attract former residents back to the state to raise families. Yet, the stoic approach many North Dakotans take to such issues is not to be confused with defeatist complacency. Indeed, more than ever, North Dakota communities are determined to employ their fierce spirit to overcome these obstacles as they have others.