Dakota Territory - wikipedia Dakota Territory Territory of Dakota Organized incorporated territory of the United States ← ← 1861 -- 1889 → → → → Capital Yankton ( 1861 -- 1883 ) Bismarck ( 1883 -- 1889 ) Government Organized incorporated territory Governor List History Created from Nebraska and unorganized territories March 2, 1861 Idaho Territory split off March 4, 1863 Land received from Idaho Territory May 28, 1864 Wyoming Territory split off July 25, 1868 North Dakota and South Dakota statehood November 2, 1889 The Territory of Dakota was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 2, 1861, until November 2, 1889, when the final extent of the reduced territory was split and admitted to the Union as the states of North and South Dakota. Contents 1 History 2 Dakota Territory in the American Civil War 3 Dakota Territory and statehood 4 In popular culture 5 See also 6 Footnotes 7 Further reading 8 External links History The Dakota Territory consisted of the northernmost part of the land acquired in the Louisiana purchase in 1803, as well as the southernmost part of Rupert 's Land, which was acquired in 1818 when the boundary was changed to the 49th parallel. The name refers to the Dakota branch of the Sioux tribes which occupied the area at the time. Most of Dakota Territory was formerly part of the Minnesota and Nebraska territories. When Minnesota became a state in 1858, the leftover area between the Missouri River and Minnesota 's western boundary fell unorganized. When the Yankton Treaty was signed later that year, ceding much of what had been Sioux Indian land to the U.S. Government, early settlers formed an unofficial provisional government and unsuccessfully lobbied for United States territory status. Three years later President - elect Abraham Lincoln 's cousin - in - law, J.B.S. Todd, personally lobbied for territory status and the U.S. Congress formally created Dakota Territory. It became an organized territory on March 2, 1861. Upon creation, Dakota Territory included much of present - day Montana and Wyoming as well as all of present - day North Dakota and South Dakota and a small portion of present - day Nebraska. A small patch of land known as `` Lost Dakota '' existed as a remote exclave of Dakota Territory until it became part of Gallatin County, Montana Territory, in 1873. Dakota Territory in the American Civil War Dakota Territory was not directly involved in the American Civil War but did raise some troops to defend the settlements following the Dakota War of 1862 which triggered hostilities with the Sioux tribes of Dakota Territory. The Department of the Northwest sent expeditions into Dakota Territory in 1863, 1864 and 1865. It also established forts in Dakota Territory to protect the frontier settlements of the Territory, Iowa and Minnesota and the traffic along the Missouri River. Dakota Territory and statehood Dakota territory historical coat of arms ( illustrated, 1876 ) Following the Civil War, hostilities continued with the Sioux until the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie. By 1868, creation of new territories reduced Dakota Territory to the present boundaries of the Dakotas. Territorial counties were defined in 1872, including Bottineau County, Cass County and others. During the existence of the organized territory, the population first increased very slowly and then very rapidly with the `` Dakota Boom '' from 1870 to 1880. Because the Sioux were considered very hostile and a threat to early settlers, the white population grew slowly. Gradually, the settlers ' population grew and the Sioux were not considered as severe a threat. The population increase can largely be attributed to the growth of the Northern Pacific Railroad. Settlers who came to the Dakota Territory were from other western territories as well as many from northern and western Europe. These included large numbers of Norwegians, Germans, Swedes, and Canadians. Commerce was originally organized around the fur trade. Furs were carried by steamboat along the rivers to the settlements. Gold was discovered in the Black Hills in 1874 and attracted more settlers, setting off the last Sioux War. The population surge increased the demand for meat spurring expanded cattle ranching on the territory 's vast open ranges. With the advent of the railroad agriculture intensified : wheat became the territory 's main cash crop. Economic hardship hit the territory in the 1880s due to lower wheat prices and a drought. Dakota Territory, c. 1886 The territorial capital was Yankton from 1861 until 1883, when it was moved to Bismarck. The Dakota Territory was divided into the states of North Dakota and South Dakota on November 2, 1889. The admission of two states, as opposed to one, was done for a number of reasons. The two population centers in the territory were in the northeast and southeast corners of the territory, several hundred miles away from each other. On a national level, there was pressure from the Republican Party to admit two states to add to their political power in the Senate. Admission of new western states was a party political battleground with each party looking at how the proposed new states were likely to vote. At the beginning of 1888, the Democrats under president Grover Cleveland proposed that the four territories of Montana, New Mexico, Dakota and Washington should be admitted together. The first two were expected to vote Democratic and the latter two were expected to vote Republican so this was seen as a compromise acceptable to both parties. However, the Republicans won majorities in Congress and the Senate later that year. To head off the possibility that Congress might only admit Republican territories to statehood, the Democrats agreed to a less favorable deal in which Dakota was divided in two and New Mexico was left out altogether. Cleveland signed it into law on February 22, 1889 and the territories could become states in nine months time after that. However, incoming Republican president Benjamin Harrison had a problem with South Dakota ; most of the territory was Sioux reservation land and the state would not be viable unless much of this land became available to settlers. There had been previous attempts to open up the territory, but these had foundered because the Treaty of Fort Laramie ( 1868 ) required that 75 % of Sioux adult males on the reservation had to agree to any treaty change. Most recently, a commission headed by Richard Henry Pratt in 1888 had completely failed to get the necessary signatures in the face of opposition from Sioux leaders and even government worker Elaine Goodale, later Superintendent of Indian Education for the Dakotas. The government believed that the Dawes Act ( 1887 ), which attempted to move the Indians from hunting to farming, in theory meant that they needed less land ( but in reality was an economic disaster for them ) and that at least half was available for sale. Congress approved an offer of $1.25 per acre for reservation land ( a figure they had previously rejected as outrageously high ) and $25,000 to induce the Indians to sign. A new commission was appointed in April 1889 that included veteran Indian fighter general George Crook. Crook pulled out all the stops to get the Indians to sign, using a number of underhand tactics. He threatened them that if they did not sign, the land would be taken anyway and they would get nothing. This would not have been seen as an idle threat ; the treaty had been ignored in the past when the Black Hills were taken from the Sioux. Crook ignored leaders like Sitting Bull and Red Cloud who opposed the sale and kept them out of the negotiations, preferring instead to deal with moderate leaders like American Horse. American Horse, however, claimed immediately afterwards that he had been tricked into signing. Crook made many personal promises ( such as on reservation rations ) which he had no authority to make, or ability to keep. He claimed afterwards that he had only agreed to report the concerns back to Washington. Crook lied about how many signatures he already had, giving the impression that the signature he was currently asking for would make no difference. He said that those who did not sign would not get a share of the money for the land. Crook even allowed white men who had married Sioux to sign, a dubious action given that the blood quantum laws only counted full - blood Indians as members of the tribe. By August 6, 1889, Crook had the requisite number of signatures, half the reservation land was sold, and the remainder divided among six smaller reservations. North Dakota and South Dakota became states simultaneously on November 2, 1889. President Harrison had the papers shuffled to obscure which one was signed first and the order went unrecorded. In popular Culture Dakota Territory was the setting for the syndicated western television series, Man Without a Gun, starring Rex Reason as newspaper editor Adam McLean and Mort Mills as Marshal Frank Tillman. The program aired from 1957 to 1959. The Disney musical film The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band takes place in the Dakota Territory during the time of the 1888 Presidential Election. Dakota Territory was the setting for several novels. Five books in Laura Ingalls Wilder 's Little House on the Prairie series, namely By the Shores of Silver Lake, The Long Winter, Little Town on the Prairie, These Happy Golden Years and The First Four Years, were set in Dakota Territory. Ole Rølvaag 's Giants in the Earth, a novel about Norwegian pioneers, was set in southeastern Dakota Territory. The story was later adapted as an opera by the same name, which won a Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1951. Dakota Territory is the main setting for the HBO TV series `` Deadwood ''. The city of Yankton and the Black Hills area are mentioned often in the show. See also Bibliography of North Dakota history Governors of Dakota Territory HBO fictional series Deadwood set in the Black Hills in the town of Deadwood in 1876. American frontier Historic regions of the United States History of North Dakota History of South Dakota List of Dakota Territory Civil War units Territorial evolution of the United States Territory of France that encompassed land that later became part of the Territory of Dakota : Louisiane, 1682 -- 1764 and 1803 Territory of Spain that was later returned to France : Louisiana, 1764 -- 1803 Territory of the United Kingdom that encompassed land that later became part of the Territory of Dakota : Rupert 's Land, 1670 -- 1870 U.S. territories that encompassed land that later became part of the Territory of Dakota : Louisiana Purchase, 1803 -- 1804 District of Louisiana, 1804 -- 1805 Territory of Louisiana, 1805 -- 1812 Territory of Missouri, 1812 -- 1821 Territory of Michigan, 1805 -- 1837 Territory of Wisconsin, 1836 -- 1848 Territory of Iowa, 1838 -- 1846 Territory of Minnesota, 1849 -- 1858 Territory of Nebraska, 1854 -- 1867 Territory of Idaho, 1863 -- 1890 U.S. territories that encompassed land that was previously part of the Territory of Dakota : Territory of Idaho, 1863 -- 1890 Territory of Montana, 1864 -- 1889 Territory of Wyoming, 1868 -- 1890 US states that encompass land that was once part of the Territory of Dakota : State of Nebraska, 1867 ( annexed land 1882 ) State of North Dakota, 1889 State of South Dakota, 1889 State of Montana, 1889 State of Wyoming, 1890 United States Congressional Delegations from Dakota Territory Footnotes Jump up ^ `` Beyond 50 : American States That Might Have Been ''. npr.org. Retrieved March 14, 2018. Jump up ^ The New Encyclopedia of the American West. Ed. Howard R. Lamar. 1998 Yale University Press, New Haven. pp. 282 Jump up ^ Encyclopedia of the American West. Ed. Charles Philips and Alan Axelrod. 1996 Macmillan Reference USA, New York. pp. 1200 -- 1201 Jump up ^ John H. Hudson, `` Migration to an American Frontier, '' Annals of the Association of American Geographers, ( June 1976 ), 243 -- 244 Jump up ^ The New Encyclopedia of the American West, 282 ^ Jump up to : Heather Cox Richardson, Wounded Knee : Party Politics and the Road to an American Massacre, Basic Books, 2013 ISBN 0465021301. Jump up ^ Heather Cox Richardson ( 25 November 2013 ). Wounded Knee : Party Politics and the Road to an American Massacre. Basic Books. p. 101. ISBN 9780465025114. `` On February 22, 1889, outgoing President Cleveland signed an omnibus bill that divided the Territory of Dakota in half. The bill also enable the people in the new Territories of North Dakota and South Dakota, as well as the older territories of Montana and Washington, to write state constitutions and elect state governments. The four new states would be admitted into the Union in nine months. This plan cut Democratic New Mexico out of statehood, and split Republican Dakota Territory into two new Republican states. Rather than two new Republican states and two new Democratic states that Congress had considered the previous year, the omnibus bill created three new Republican states and one new Democratic state that Republicans thought they would capture. In their eagerness to admit both Dakotas, Republican congressmen also ignored the uncomfortable fact that much of the land in the anticipated state of South Dakota belonged to the Sioux Further reading Dakota Territory Centennial Commission ( 1961 ). Dakota Panorama. Dakota Territory Centennial Commission. OCLC 2063074. Lauck, Jon K. ( 2010 ). Prairie Republic : The Political Culture of Dakota Territory, 1879 - 1889. University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 9780806141107. OCLC 455419815. Waldo, Edna La Moore ( 1936 ). Dakota. The Caxton printers, Ltd. OCLC 1813068. External links Wikisource has the text of the Encyclopaedia Britannica ( 9th ed. ) article Dakota. Collection of Historical Photographs of the Dakota Territory `` Dakota, a territory of the United States ''. The American Cyclopædia. 1879. State of North Dakota Bismarck ( capital ) Topics Bibliography Climate Colleges and universities Cuisine Delegations Geography Governors History LGBT history in North Dakota Music People Tourist attractions Seal of North Dakota Society Culture Crime Demographics Economy Education Politics Regions Badlands Coteau du Missouri Drift Prairie Red River Valley Turtle Mountains Larger cities pop. over 5,000 Bismarck Devils Lake Dickinson Fargo Grand Forks Jamestown Mandan Minot Valley City Wahpeton West Fargo Williston Smaller cities pop. 1,000 -- 5,000 Beach Beulah Bottineau Bowman Burlington Cando Carrington Casselton Cavalier Cooperstown Crosby Ellendale Garrison Grafton Hankinson Harvey Hazen Hettinger Hillsboro Horace Kenmare Langdon Larimore Lincoln Linton Lisbon Mayville New Rockford New Town Oakes Park River Rolla Rugby Stanley Thompson Tioga Velva Walhalla Washburn Watford City Wishek Counties Adams Barnes Benson Billings Bottineau Bowman Burke Burleigh Cass Cavalier Dickey Divide Dunn Eddy Emmons Foster Golden Valley Grand Forks Grant Griggs Hettinger Kidder LaMoure Logan McHenry McIntosh McKenzie McLean Mercer Morton Mountrail Nelson Oliver Pembina Pierce Ramsey Ransom Renville Richland Rolette Sargent Sheridan Sioux Slope Stark Steele Stutsman Towner Traill Walsh Ward Wells Williams State of South Dakota Pierre ( capital ) Topics Bibliography Cities Delegations Famous South Dakotans Geography Government History Timeline Towns & Villages Townships Transportation State Parks Symbols Universities Tourist attractions Seal of South Dakota Society Culture Crime Demographics Economy Education Politics Regions Badlands Black Hills Coteau des Prairies Coteau du Missouri Dissected Till Plains Drift Prairie East River Pine Ridge Siouxland West River Larger cities pop. over 5,000 Aberdeen Belle Fourche Box Elder Brandon Brookings Harrisburg Huron Madison Mitchell Pierre Rapid City Sioux Falls Spearfish Sturgis Tea Vermillion Watertown Yankton Smaller cities pop. 1,000 - 5,000 Baltic Beresford Britton Canton Chamberlain Clark Clear Lake Crooks Custer De Smet Deadwood Dell Rapids Eagle Butte Elk Point Flandreau Fort Pierre Freeman Garretson Gettysburg Gregory Groton Hartford Hill City Hot Springs Lead Lemmon Lennox Martin Milbank Miller Mission Mobridge North Sioux City Parker Parkston Platte Redfield Salem Sisseton Springfield Summerset Tyndall Volga Wagner Webster Winner Largest CDPs pop. over 1,000 Blackhawk Colonial Pine Hills Dakota Dunes Fort Thompson North Eagle Butte North Spearfish Oglala Pine Ridge Porcupine Rapid Valley Rosebud Largest towns pop. over 500 Aurora Humboldt St. Francis Wall Counties Aurora Beadle Bennett Bon Homme Brookings Brown Brule Buffalo Butte Campbell Charles Mix Clark Clay Codington Corson Custer Davison Day Deuel Dewey Douglas Edmunds Fall River Faulk Grant Gregory Haakon Hamlin Hand Hanson Harding Hughes Hutchinson Hyde Jackson Jerauld Jones Kingsbury Lake Lawrence Lincoln Lyman Marshall McCook McPherson Meade Mellette Miner Minnehaha Moody Oglala Lakota Pennington Perkins Potter Roberts Sanborn Spink Stanley Sully Todd Tripp Turner Union Walworth Yankton Ziebach Black Hills of South Dakota and Wyoming Attractions Bear Butte Black Elk Wilderness Black Hills Central Railroad Black Hills National Forest Black Elk Peak Black Hills Playhouse Chapel in the Hills Crazy Horse Memorial Custer State Park Devils Tower Dinosaur Park Flintstones Bedrock City Homestake Mine Jewel Cave National Monument Mammoth Site Minuteman Missile National Historic Site Mount Rushmore National Memorial Mystic Miner Ski Resort Needles Pactola Lake Reptile Gardens Rushmore Cave Sheridan Lake Sitting Bull Crystal Caverns Sturgis Motorcycle Rally Sylvan Lake Terry Peak ski area Wind Cave National Park with bison herd Scenic routes Roads Norbeck Scenic Byway Iron Mountain Road Needles Highway Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway Trails Mickelson Centennial Trail Populated places Cities Belle Fourche Buffalo Chip Central City Custer Deadwood Edgemont Hot Springs Hill City Lead Newcastle Rapid City Spearfish Sturgis Whitewood Towns Buffalo Gap Fairburn Hermosa Keystone Pringle Sundance Unincorporated Dewey Four Mile Galena Hanna Johnson Siding Nemo Rochford Rockerville Silver City Three Forks History and people Native American Cheyenne people Lakota people Treaty of Fort Laramie ( 1868 ) established the Great Sioux Reservation Black Hills War, or Great Sioux War ( 1876 ) Black Elk Sitting Bull Crazy Horse Lone Horn Red Cloud Spotted Tail Old West Dakota Territory ( 1861 -- 1889 ) Black Hills Expedition ( 1874 ) Black Hills Gold Rush ( 1874 ) Newton -- Jenney Party ( 1875 ) Cheyenne - Black Hills Stage Route ( 1876 - 1887 ) Sidney - Black Hills Stage Road ( 1876 - 1887 ) Rapid City, Black Hills and Western Railroad ( 1893 -- 1947 ) Seth Bullock and Martha Bullock General George Armstrong Custer Dora DuFran Wild Bill Hickok Calamity Jane Historian Doane Robinson Sol Star Al Swearengen Charlie Utter Ghost towns Addie Camp Bismuth Blacktail Burdock Cambria Carbonate Etta Flatiron Greenwood Maitland Myers City Nahant Novak Pactola Sheridan Spokane Terraville Tigerville Tinton Trojan Modern Fossil Cycad National Monument ( 1922 - 1957 ) Stratobowl ( 1934 - 1959 ) Black Hills flood ( 1972 ) Sculptors Gutzon Borglum and Lincoln Borglum Author Joseph Bottum Politician Francis H. Case Poet Charles Badger Clark Historian Watson Parker Road junctions Carlile Junction Cheyenne Crossing Four Corners Four Mile Keystone Wye Maverick Junction Mule Creek Junction Related Mount Rushmore in popular culture Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dakota_Territory&oldid=840727594 '' Categories : States and territories established in 1861 States and territories disestablished in 1889 Dakota Territory Pre-statehood history of North Dakota Pre-statehood history of South Dakota Pre-statehood history of Wyoming 1861 establishments in Dakota Territory 1889 disestablishments in Dakota Territory Hidden categories : Use mdy dates from April 2013 Former country articles requiring maintenance All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from May 2015 Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from The American Cyclopaedia Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from The American Cyclopaedia with a Wikisource reference North Dakota articles missing geocoordinate data All articles needing coordinates Talk Contents About Wikipedia Asturianu Bân - lâm - gú Català Dansk Deutsch Español Français 한국어 Italiano မြန်မာဘာသာ Nederlands 日本 語 Norsk Polski Português Română Русский Suomi Svenska Tiếng Việt 中文 12 more Edit links This page was last edited on 11 May 2018, at 19 : 24 ( UTC ). 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Question: when did north dakota and south dakota split
Answer: November 2, 1889