South Dakota
Art, History & Archaeology Sites & Museums

A Midwest state in the country’s Heartlands, South Dakota is home to both open prairies and the dramatic Black Hills – now famous for the carved heads on Mount Rushmore. The name ‘Dakota’ was that of one of the indigenous groups who once predominated here, living alongside other peoples like the Mandan and the Arikara. The French moved into the area in the 17th and 18th centuries before selling it to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. The 19th century saw conflict between European American settlers and the indigenous population, culminating in the Massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890. The discovery of gold in the Black Hills attracted growing European American settlement from the 1870s on and in 1889 South Dakota became a state.