A Tale of Two Dakotas

[Music] the united states grew from a coastal nation in the 18th century to a nation that crossed an entire continent by the end of the 19th century absorbing conquering and otherwise acquiring land and organizing all that land was a process that was fraught with politics and often underhanded dealings with native american tribes and of all the flyover states perhaps none are more obscure to the people who fly over than the place where i happened to spend my own youth the dakotas leaving millions of american schoolchildren pondering the eternal question why are there two dakotas and the answer to that question is illustrative of the strange politics of the territorial history of the united states it is history that deserves to be remembered most of the land that would become to go to territory was acquired from france in 1803 with the louisiana purchase but the boundary of the vast louisiana territory was not firm and as the united states solely organized original colonial claims in the northwest territory into states continued border disagreements with british canada necessitated the convention of 1818. the convention would determine the boundary between the two countries up to the rocky mountains establishing the 49th parallels the absolute border from the now state of minnesota through most of what is today montana the british seeded land south of the line which included land that would become minnesota and the dakotas the land west of the rocky mountains what would become modern idaho washington oregon and british columbia was jointly administered until it too was split along the 49th parallel by treaty in 1846 the land went through a long series of name and organizational changes over the 19th century it was louisiana territory until the admission of louisiana and then renamed missouri territory at this point the region was still very sparsely populated covered close to 800 000 square miles states were slowly carved out of the land missouri in 1821 arkansas in 1836 iowa in 1846 in minnesota in 1858 land that would become the dakotas spent time as part of michigan territory wisconsin territory iowa territory and nebraska territory and part often fell unorganized the land was at the time technically off limits to white settlers and was the source of conflict between native americans and the u.s government in negotiations with the yankton sioux the government negotiated the yankton treaty which ceded 11 million acres of what would become south dakota to the united states sioux leaders were concerned that the treaty would only lead to more white settlement which it did but saw little choice the yangton zoo were removed to the 460 thousand acre yankton reservation as states seceded from the union the dakota territory was finally organized in 1861 in part thanks to the lobbying of john blair smith todd cousin of president lincoln's wife lincoln installed the territory's first governor william jane an old friend and personal physician of the president from springfield illinois the new territory encompassed all the land that would eventually become the dakotas most of montana and parts of wyoming and idaho and yankton was chosen as the territorial capital while the civil war raged the u.s congress put the area through a series of territorial changes ultimately organizing both idaho and montana territory out of the dakota territory and putting the rest of what would become wyoming into the dakota territory this defined most of the western boundary of the dakotas finally in 1868 wyoming territory was formed and the dakota's boundaries were fully defined the name for the territory referred to a group of native people who spoke the suian language according to etymology online the group was recorded by lewis and clark in 1809 and the name roughly translates to friendly or by some accounts allies ironically conflict with the sioux whose word for friendly gave the territory its name continued the treaty of fort laramie was signed in wyoming territory in 1868 the territory established the great sioux reservation over much of the western part of the dakota territory that included the black hills meant to permanently settle the issues between settlers and native americans the treaty would ultimately fail to do so but the treaty did reduce the perceived danger of settling in the territory and the population of the dakotas boom from some 13 000 residents in 1870 increasing tenfold to more than 130 000 residents in 1880 in addition to greater safety the homestead act was passed in 1862 which gave significant incentives to settle these sparsely populated territories the northern pacific railroad which began construction in 1870 ran through bismarck and brought many new settlers to the northern half of the territory and tied the area commercially to minneapolis the northern part of the territory was much less settled than the southern half in 1880 98 000 of 130 thousand settlers in the territory lived in what would become south dakota well less than forty thousand lived in the north the southwest tied by trade more firmly to the missouri and big sioux rivers and the trading centers of sioux city omaha and even chicago kimberly porter a professor of history at the university of north dakota summed up the growing divergence between the two regions when she said simply the south did not like the north that's a rivalry to which i can personally attest was still going strong in the 1970s she continues that the south seem to think that the north was too controlled by wild folk like cattle ranchers and fur traders and was more dangerous than the comparably more civilized south again arguments that are still being made today territorial governments were often ineffective as well most of the territorial legislators in the far off territories were carpet baggers friends of congress members in dc who were appointed to represent the territories and generally only lived in those territories as long as they served their terms locals usually resented these representatives who knew little of what it was like to live in the territories or their problems in 1874 lieutenant colonel george armstrong custer of the us seventh cavalry set off from bismarck to explore the black hills specifically to find a location for a fort a route southwest and to assess reports of gold in the region all despite the fact that it was by treaty sue territory custer set his camp the site of what today is a town named in his honor koster south dakota civilians with the expedition sought gold exactly how much they found is unclear as is who discovered the gold first william mckay a minor with the expedition wrote that he had found gold one evening taken from the gravel and sand in the bed of the creek on washington found it contained from one and a half to two cents which was the first gold found in the black hills the discovery immediately set off a gold rush which peaked in 1876 and 1877 and brought a huge number of settlers to the region the most valuable discoveries came when miners recovered significant amounts of gold in the deadwood and whitewood creeks while the creeks only produced eroded placer gold the sources were eventually found including a large amount of gold near leed south dakota the gold rush would lead to the great sioux war of 1876 in which custer was killed at the june 1876 battle of the greasy grass and after which the us government would index the black hills in permanently established reservations for the sioux possibly the greatest source of friction between the south and the north was over the choice of capital initially the town of yangton was chosen because it was a good trading port and it sat along the missouri river which connected the region to trading partners throughout the united states the town had a river landing that stretched along the town's entire riverfront yankton was also at the extreme southern border of the territory putting it far away from the residents in the north but relatively closer to traders and politicians traveling from the east yangton became south dakota's second largest city and in 1872 welcome to railroad but then on march 27 1881 it was literally crushed the state had seen a particularly harsh winter with a serious mid-october blizzard as part of the famous 1880-1881 long winter in mars the river had risen so much in pier and yes it's spelled pierre but trust me dakotans call it pier that the town was flooded in four to six feet of water the melting ice caused an ice jam to burst and sent a deluge of water downstream yankton on the riverfront was wrecked by the flooding ice and several steamboats as well as the landings were destroyed the river trade never fully recovered for the territorial capital in 1880 nehemiah ordway a new hampshire state senator was appointed by president rutherford hayes is the governor of the dakota territory he became governor at a moment of huge change for the territory between 1879 and 1884 the population of the territory doubled it wasn't certain of the time how or even whether the territory would be split into more than one state yankton was no longer necessarily the first choice of capital after the flood its importance as a commercial center had waned and it was about as far from the rest of the territories it could get ordway had advocated for the admission of the territory as a single state and it came as a surprise to the people the territory when he created a commission to study the cost of moving the government offices there was a lot of resistance to moving the capital ordway was only able to get the commission when he threatened to veto consideration of communities whose representatives didn't support the study the commission determined that a parcel of land and about a hundred thousand dollars is what it would take to move the government it also recommended a location more central to the territory probably the move would have been resisted no matter what but there seemed to be clear corruption in the committee three of the commission members were affiliated with the northern pacific railroad and remember alexander mckenzie was a political agent of the railroad and sheriff of the town of bismarck ordway was further influenced by henry villard president of the railroad company when word came out that bismarck northern pacific railway hub was being considered resistance exploded a meeting in sioux falls vowed to demand the removal of ordway when paper wrote individually we were in favor of the removal of the capital but wanted to see it done honestly the black hills weekly times declared it the capital removal swindle the article went on to accuse the legislature of selling the choice of capital to whoever paid the hundred thousand dollars which would allow them to choose a site where the territorial government would be forced to buy 160 acres of land nearby 160 acres that would be conveniently owned by say northern pacific railroad 12 different towns bid for the capital but it seems that bismarck was the choice all along bismarck offered 320 acres to the government that in the controversy as part of the removal process a meeting had to take place in yankton and the citizens there got a court order to prevent that meeting from taking place ordway and others got around the predicament by holding the meeting on a railcar as it passed through yankton while ordway said about getting the capital moved some government officers refused to leave including the treasury and the supreme court dakotans from the southern half organized the dakota citizens league and held a constitutional convention in sioux falls for only the southern portion to become a state congress refused to approve it in 1885 they tried again and petitioned to move the capital south to pier this attempt was even passed by the house of representatives but it failed in the senate because of fears that both states would be republican and the balance of the senate would be upset president grover cleveland offered a compromise that montana dakota new mexico and washington should be admitted together as two were expected to be republican and two others democrat republicans took the fight for dakota statehood in the elections of 1880 and won both the presidency and controlled the senate in house before cleveland left office congress passed an enabling act splitting the territory into two states and nine months later they could be admitted as states by president benjamin harrison as could montana and washington amazingly disagreements still remained the southern part of the territory wanted to be called dakota and suggested that north dakota should be called pimbina pambini in fact was the older name in earlier suggestions pambima had been the choice and the region had often been called in the past pimbema country south dakota also had about twice the population of the northern section more than 300 000 in 1890. the issue was that north dakota insisted that its wheat was already famous under what they called the trademark dakota and refused to lose it neither side was willing to budge on the subject when the papers for officially admitting the states reached president harrison's desk yet another issue arose which state would be admitted first unsurprisingly neither one wished to go second to solve the important dispute harrison head his secretary of state james blame shuffled the papers and exposed only the signature line of the paperwork harrison signed his first one and then the other and no one in the room was meant to know which was signed first today most often north dakota is listed as the 39th state in south dakota as the 40th state but officially they're the only two states of the union that were admitted simultaneously and if anybody in that room in november of 1889 knew which one was actually signed first they never seemed to have said now i'll give fair disclosure here i grew up in south dakota but i mean of course no disrespect at all to those few unwashed barbarians who managed to eke out a living north of the border i mean it's it's perfectly nice up there in north dakota or at least we can all agree that it's better than nebraska in all sincerity the dakotas were not the only territories that became states amid controversy and even violence but the rivalry between north and south dakota is certainly somewhat unique come as it did at the end of the frontier era amid the the bald corruption of the gilded age and the rivalry between north and south dakota might seem trivial today but it is an interesting part of history that is representative of the politics of the nation at the time and of course has left its mark on the map of the united states i hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guide short snippets of forgotten history and if you did enjoy feed the algorithm by making a comment or clicking that like button if you have suggestions for future episodes please send those to 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Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 253,737

Keywords: history, history guy, the history guy, dakota, south dakota, north dakota, us history, state lines

Id: WVAllX6D5DM

Length: 14min 20sec (860 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 07 2021