South Dakota

“ South Dakota, who recently passed on to join the shining ranks of the saved Sioux in glory.
Timid as a little child, yet bold as a lion, when aroused; shy of conversation in private, yet eloquent in the pulpit and in the council-chamber; yielding yet firm as a rock, when duty demanded it; a loving husband, a kind father, a loyal citizen, a faithful presbyter—a pungent preacher of the gospel, a soul-winner—a courteous, cultured Christian gentleman; such a man was this Indian son of a Sioux mother, herself the first fullblood Sioux convert to the Christian faith. ”

“ The leaders of that period believed that it would be a crime for them to sit idly by and permit the great territory to become one state, with but two members of the United States Senate, thus entailing to posterity forever a sort of political vassalage to the small states of the eastern seaboard. Besides this there was at that period an inherent difference between the people of South Dakota and those of the North. South Dakota was chiefly occupied by homesteaders, who brought with them the conservative notions of small farmers, about public and private economy, morality, and education. ”

“ The constitution was submitted to the people at an election on the first day of October. They approved it, and on the second day of November, 1889, President Harrison issued his proclamation, admitting South Dakota as a state in the Union. North Dakota was admitted as another state by the same proclamation.
Statehood was welcomed by the people with real rejoicing. As a territory the people had no part in the election of a President, nor in the legislation by Congress, and all of the conditions of territorial life tended to make a people dependent rather than self-reliant. ”

“ All of our members who are speakers have left, and there is no one here from South Dakota except myself. I am not an orator, so I will not attempt to make a speech; but when I heard from other States I could not help feeling that I come from a State that has the richest resources in the world. Our greatest resources lie in our inexhaustible soil and its fertility. We have people from most of the States in the Union, and when I have asked our citizens from several of the eastern States, and other rich States like Iowa, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Illinois, "Why are you here?" ”

“ This period, from 1877 until 1883, is known as the great Dakota boom. History has no other instance to compare with it.
When this period began, Sioux Falls was but a little village of three or four hundred people, and was the northernmost point of any consequence within what is now South Dakota. Within five years Brookings, Madison, Mitchell, Huron, Pierre, Watertown, Redfield, Aberdeen, Webster, and Milbank had become important cities. ”

“ The Republican national convention of 1888 made the division and admission of North and South Dakota a national issue and it was discussed from every platform in America. The Republican party prevailed in that election, and, before the close of the Congress then in existence, the bill for the division of Dakota territory and the admission of North and South Dakota was passed on St. Valentine's Day and approved on Washington's Birthday, 1889, and that bill provided that no acre of school land in South Dakota or North Dakota should ever be sold for less than the sum of ten dollars. ”

“ When human beings first came to live in the South Dakota country, is now unknown. Whether or not other men lived here before the Indian tribes is not certain. Those who have studied the subject most carefully believe there was no one here before the Indians came. In various localities there are a number of mounds evidently the work of man, but it is believed that they were all built by Indians. ”

“ They organized as the Dakota Land Company, and in the spring of 1857 sent a party of men, under the lead of Major Franklin De Witt, into the South Dakota country to claim the town sites. At Sioux Falls it was expected to establish the territorial capital, and there a city was to be immediately built. Governor Medary of Minnesota territory, a very influential politician, holding his appointment from the President of the United States and having large influence at Washington, was the president of the company. ”

“ We learn there that in an ancient time a great ocean rolled over South Dakota; that some great convulsion must have occurred deep in the earth which threw up the Black Hills and other western mountains; that the ocean swept over these hills, grinding them up and washing them down across its floor toward the eastern part of the state, thus laying down a formation or stratum now compressed into hard rock which is the lowest of the many formations studied by the geologist. ”

“ From that time forward, until the end of the campaign, the South Dakotans were constantly upon the firing line, sleeping in their clothes and patiently enduring all the discomforts of forced marches through the swamps and jungles of a tropical climate, where the heat was oppressive, the rain almost incessant, and the food frequently insufficient and of inferior quality ”

“ With the exception of an irregular salient angle in the southeast between the Missouri and Big Sioux Rivers, and a reëntering angle in the northeast formed by Lakes Bigstone and Traverse, the boundaries of the State are straight lines running along meridians and parallels, and forming a rectangle 200 miles wide and 380 miles long. The area is 77,650 square miles, of which 76,850 square miles, or 49,184,000 acres, are land surface. South Dakota ranks twelfth in size among the States. ”

“ Yankton, of course, gave up the capital reluctantly and made a hard fight for its retention. Southern Dakota was much more populous than northern Dakota, and had the larger delegation in the legislature; and the leaders were determined to remove the territorial capital back into southern Dakota at the next session. Pierre, Huron, and Mitchell were leading candidates for the honor, and in each session of the legislature of the territory, except the last one, the matter was vigorously fought, but without success, because the southern Dakota men could not all agree upon one town. ”

“ The remainder was divided into six smaller reservations, Standing Rock, lying partly in North Dakota, and Cheyenne River, Lower Brulé, Crow Creek, Rosebud, and Pine Ridge in South Dakota. Angered by this sacrifice of their lands and excited by prophecies of the coming of the Messiah, a considerable number of the Indians went on the warpath, but after a short campaign they were defeated by General Nelson A. Miles in the battle of Wounded Knee on the 29th of December 1890, and were compelled to make their submission. Since that time the whites have steadily encroached on the reservations. ”

“ It lays in southern South Dakota, and slopes back from the banks of the 'Big Muddy', stretching for many miles into the interior beyond. It is a prairie country. No trees, stumps, rocks or stones mar the progress of civilization. ”

“ The South Dakota mounds that were erected by Indians are of less importance than similar mounds found in some other parts of the great Mississippi valley; but they are of great interest as the oldest works of man in our state. ”

“ With tractors and gang-plows operating in the Land of the Dakotas, South Dakota alone being a quarter larger than all New England, and Montana, the third largest state in the union, very much more than equal in size to England, Scotland, Ireland combined and Texas as big as Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Holland, and Switzerland together, these states being now chiefly unfarmed, with shoals of immigrants after the war to work these fields, bounded only by the sky line, how can a man use the expression, Cheap Food Never Again? ”

“ Within these pages of our State Constitution is the foundation of South Dakota's unique heritage and understanding of life as experienced on the prairie, in the rugged west and in city life. Our laws continue to reflect the diversity of culture and people who live here and have made South Dakota their home. ”

“ The first settlement of considerable size in South Dakota was, as far as we can learn, made in 1860, between the James river and Gayville. Other settlers followed in the succeeding years, spreading out over the bottom and later up on the prairie to the north. Among those who came to the vicinity of Yankton in the decade of 1860-70 we would mention the following: Ole Odland, '62 ”

“ To the people of southern Dakota, after the long years of dreary struggle through Indian troubles, grasshoppers, and bad crops, the Black Hills gold excitement seemed a godsend. The settlements along the Missouri were thronged with determined strangers waiting for an opportunity to slip into the Hills. ”

“ In 1849 North Dakota east of the Missouri became part of Minnesota for a time, and the area west of the river was made a part of Nebraska Territory. In 1851 to the Federal government was ceded part of the lands held by the Sioux Indians, and these lands were thrown open for settlement. In 1861 Dakota Territory was created, part of Montana and part of Wyoming being included in it; while two years later, on the creation of Idaho Territory, the Dakotas assumed almost their present area, and in 1889 they were separated, forming North Dakota and South Dakota. ”

“ The community had to protect itself. The miners met, organized a government, elected officers, established courts, and succeeded in maintaining order to a creditable degree. Of course, in such a community as existed in Deadwood in 1876, many crimes were committed, but most of them were promptly punished. Many of those pioneer gold diggers are still living among the most successful and most respected men of South Dakota. ”

“ This veto caused much indignation among the people of South Dakota and did very much to arouse the people to the necessity of prompt action. The executive committee thereupon called a delegate convention to meet at Huron, June 19, 1883. Every county in South Dakota was there represented by its strongest men. Its action was most calm and dignified. A solemn ordinance was passed providing for a constitutional convention for the south half of Dakota territory to be held at the city of Sioux Falls on September 4 of that year. ”

“ Population.—The total population of South Dakota in 1890 (the date of the first Federal census taken since its separate existence as a state) was 328,808, and in 1900 it was 401,570; the increase from 1890 to 1900 being (exclusive of persons on Indian reservations) 16.8%. In 1910, according to the U.S. census, the total was 583,888. Of the population in 1900, 380,714 were whites, 88,508 were foreign-born, 465 were negroes, and 20,225 were Indians. Of the Indians 9293 were taxed. The population on Indian reservations in 1890 was 19,792 ”

“ South Dakota, University of, a co-educational institution, organized in 1882 at Vermilion, S. D., and mainly supported by the Legislature for the work it does in the geological survey of the state, though it is otherwise well-endowed by land-grants and other resources. Its courses of study embrace pedagogy, music, commerce and engineering as well as arts and sciences. ”

“ In her wonderful prosperity she has been as jealous of the one as the other. In her Constitution and in her laws she has sought to make liberty secure, to foster and provide for the education of her children, to encourage the highest ideals of citizenship, to inspire a patriotism worthy of the opportunities of her people. Along all of these lines we feel South Dakota has met with a high degree of success. She stands almost the lowest in the percentage of illiteracy of her population. Pauperism is scarcely observable. Wealth and comfort are very generally diffused amongst her people. ”

“ Any one that had any energy, any spark of ambition, would grow restless or crazy in Nubbin Ridge! The very name smacks of poverty, ignorance and degeneration! But a real estate man from South Dakota has been in the neighborhood for a week, and has told some wonderful tales of opportunities out there. He has made it plain to papa that Western Kansas has been a failure to thousands of people for forty years; that South Dakota is different; that the rainfall is abundant; the climate is the best, and that every renter in Indiana should there proceed forthwith. ”

“ The fifteen year age limit is prescribed in only one State, South Dakota, which forbids it in mines, factories, hotels, laundries, theatres, bowling alleys, elevators, messenger service, or places where liquors are sold. ”

“ The Democratic leaders declared for admission of Dakota territory as a whole, and the federal government used its influence to oppose the division movement in Dakota; therefore, a considerable party grew up in Dakota in opposition to division, but at every test the people pronounced strongly for two states. The population of Dakota was increasing rapidly, there were nearly six hundred thousand white citizens in the territory, and, under the territorial form of government, they were denied many of the privileges of citizenship. ”

“ Thousands of despondent men resolved at once to recover their fortunes in southern Dakota. The action of the military in preventing the entry of the miners into the Black Hills cooled the ardor of many of them, but that very obstacle made the people believe that the army was guarding a vast storehouse of wealth, and that fortunes were awaiting them. Some, hardy enough to pass the barrier, sent out reports of rich finds, and this increased the determination of very many to get into the Hills. ”

“ South Dakota is fast developing into a manufacturing state, having in 1909 over 1000 industrial establishments, with an aggregate capital of $13,018,000, the wage-earners numbering 3,602 and the total value of products being $17,870,000, a third of which was yielded by the flour and grist mills, in addition to the output of factory-made butter. ”