Land of the Dacotahs was first published in 1946. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.A new story about the American West, Land of the Dacotahs tells the dramatic history of the Upper Missouri Valley from the days of the early French explorers to today's plan for harnessing the Missouri, America's most willful river.Here is the land of the Sioux Indians, of Pte the buffalo, of the amazing Black Hills, of the great plains which became the tragic Dust Bowl. Here is this land's vast natural wealth, its violent extremes of weather, its man-wrought havoc and man-made fortunes – in stories of keelboatmen and Indian fighters, of cattle barons and rustlers, of Scandinavian immigrants and homesteaders, of the steamboats and the railroads, of the Nonpartisan League, and of the fights over the MVA.Bruce Nelson, a young North Dakota newspaperman, writes with a keen sense of historical pattern and a flair for the dramatic. He has made exciting use of little-known Indian lore and pioneer fold tales. Skillfully interwoven with the facts are diverting legends, with a sly bit of debunking besides, about such colorful figures as Hugh Glass, the exotic Marquis de Mores, Teddy Roosevelt, George Armstrong Custer, Sitting Bull, Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, and many others.The author was awarded a University of Minnesota Fellowship in Regional Writing to assist him in this work.
