Dakota Territory

The territory of Dakota was the northernmost part of the land acquired by the United States as a result of the Louisiana purchase . Its name comes from the name of the Dakota tribe - a branch of the Sioux tribes that inhabited this territory at that time. A significant portion of the newly formed Dakota Territory was previously part of the territories of Minnesota and Nebraska . After Minnesota received state status in 1858, the land between the western border of the new state and the Missouri River remained unorganized, and after the signing of the Yankton Treaty in the same year, under which the former Lakota tribe lands were administered by the US government, settlers who occupied all of these remaining unorganized lands , began to seek to give them the status of the Territory. Three years later, the Dakota Territory was officially established.

At the time of creation, the Dakota Territory, in addition to the future North and South Dakota, included the modern states of Montana and Wyoming . By 1868, the creation of new territories reduced the Dakota Territory to the modern borders of both Dakota. The boundaries of counties within the territory were determined in 1872.

The capital of the territory from 1861 to 1883 was Yankton , then the capital was moved to Bismarck . November 2, 1889 the territory was divided into two states - North and South Dakota. The main reason for the creation of two states, and not one, was the fact that the two main centers of population of the shared territory were in its north and south and were separated from each other for hundreds of kilometers. Another circumstance was pressure from the Republican Party, which hoped, through the creation of two states, to strengthen its position in the Senate .

• A collection of historical photographs of the Dakota Territory (inaccessible link from 07-12-2017 [640 days])