Origin of the State Name

ND History & Facts
Origin of the State Name - Dakota
By Cynthia Kirkeby
Aug 11, 2007, 11:22 PST

President James Buchanan created the Dakota territory on March 2, 1861, and the area originally included the land that would later become North and South Dakota, Montana and Wyoming. The territory was named after one of the Indian tribes that lived in the region, the Dakota tribe, part of the Sioux Nation.

It probably would have been more appropriate to name the territory, the Lakota or Nakota Territory. The Sioux Nation was a confederation of tribes that spoke three different dialects: the Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota. The largest regions were occupied by the Lakota or Teton Sioux, and the Nakota both of which primarily occupied North and South Dakota and Montana, while the Dakota tribes lived primarily in Minnesota and Nebraska.

Although "Sioux" comes from the Chippeway word "Nadowessioux" which means enemy, most of the tribes preferred to call themselves "Dakota" meaning "friends" or "to be friendly."

Beginning around 1877 efforts were begun to bring Dakota into the Union. First they tried bringing Dakota in as a single state, but it wasn't until they tried as two states that they made progress. On November 2, 1889 President Benjamin Harrison signed both North and South Dakota onto the roster of states. He supposedly made a great secret of which was first, but the honor of being the 39th state is generally attributed to North Dakota because it comes first in the alphabet.

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