South Dakota

THE STATE OF South Dakota has been inhabited by Native Americans for several thousand years; the first European explorers, mainly French, visited the territory in the 18th century. In 1803, South Dakota, still largely unexplored by Europeans, was part of the Louisiana Purchase and became a part of the United States. It was visited during the Lewis and Clark Expedition, with the U.S. army setting up outposts in the 1850s. In 1856, Sioux Falls was established, with Yankton three years later. In the meantime, in 1858, the Yankton Sioux had been forced to sign a treaty ceding most of their lands. The Dakota Territory, as it was known at the time, had few European settlers until the discovery of gold in the Black Hills in 1874 during an expedition by Colonel George A. Custer. When the Sioux refused to grant mining rights or land in the Black Hills, skirmishes began between prospectors and Native Americans, leading to major fighting, with Custer being killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in June 1876, but the Native Americans eventually losing. Railroads were built across the Dakotas, and on December 29, 1890, the Massacre at Wounded Knee saw the killing of 300 Sioux, many of whom were women and children.

On November 2, 1889, South Dakota and North Dakota were admitted as states to the Union with Arthur C. Mellette, a Republican, elected as the first governor. From 1889 until 1974 the governor served a two-year term, with the number of consecutive terms limited to two in the 1940s, although in 1974 the governor's term was extended to four years, they were still allowed to serve only two consecutive terms. Arthur Mellette was from Indiana and had moved west when his wife fell ill, and hoped to find a more conducive climate for her. In November 1885, he ran unopposed for the office of governor of the Dakota Territory and in 1889 when voters approved the new constitution for South Dakota, just prior to statehood, they also elected him as governor.

In 1892, at the state Republican Convention, Charles H. Sheldon was nominated for governor. He had also moved to the Dakota Territory to seek a better climate, in his case, for his son. In the subsequent gubernatorial elections, the first after the granting of statehood, Sheldon defeated A.L. Van Osdel, an Independent, and Peter Couchman of the Democrat Party. In 1896, the Norwegian-born Andrew E. Lee was elected governor of South Dakota for the Populist Party. Lee then won re-election two years later. In that election, the 1898 gubernatorial elections ex-governor Charles Sheldon was asked to go on a speaking tour, but caught a cold during it and died of pneumonia five days after his last speech at Deadwood on October 15, 1898. Although the Populists at their convention in Sioux [Page 758]Falls nominated Lee for Congress, he lost in a Republican landslide that ended the short political influence of the Populist Party in South Dakota, with many of its adherents later joining the Democratic Party. The 1898 elections were also important, as they were the first time that any state in the Union allowed citizens to vote on policy propositions.

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