P R E F A C E .
The Territory of Dakota is but a remnant of what was formerly, and for many years, laid down on the maps and known as the “Great North-West Territory.” The great states of Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, and the Territory of Nebraska have, from time to time, been carved from the vast region comprised under that name, and yet the great North-West Territory is little more than half exhausted. Minnesota, while a territory, embraced all that portion of Dakota east of the Missouri river; and the boundaries of Nebraska, prior to 1861, embraced all that portion lying west of the Missouri. The admission of Minnesota as a state in the Union in May, 1858, with its present boundaries, left all the country situated between the Big Sioux and the Red river of the North on the east, and the Missouri on the west, unincluded in any organized state or territory. This neglected fragment of the public domain was, by general consent, designated by the name of Dakota, from the nation of Indians of that name, who claimed and possessed the soil.
The first cession of lands was made in 1858 by the Yankton and Poncas tribes of Indians. By this purchase the government extinguished the Indian title to over
