Indigenous Nations Notes

Diversity
-Once over 300 languages
-574 recognized nations
-Indigenous nations are as diverse as the geography of North America

Ochethi Sakowin: The Seven Council Fires. Designates the Lakota and Dakota people of South Dakota  and part of ND.
-9 Reservations in South Dakota
-about 72,000 Lakota/Dakota people
-SD overall population is 935,000

Ochethi Sakowin History
-1493 Horses brought to the Americas by Columbus and later Cortes, 1519
-1730 Cheyenne introduce horses to the upper plains (perhaps as early as 1707?)
-By 1700 Lakota/Dakota had given up woodland lifestyle

-1775-76 Lakota winter count records discovery of Black Hills

-By 1805 Lakota took control of the Black Hills from Kiowa and Cheyenne
-1830-1870 is the height of the nomadic horse culture of the plains