Editing Belcourt, North Dakota (section)

==History==
Belcourt was laid out in 1884.<ref>{{cite news | url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=YcRkAAAAIBAJ&pg=609%2C3700595 | title=Explain Origin of All County Towns | work=Turtle Mountain Star | date=September 5, 1940 | access-date=May 2, 2015 | pages=7}}</ref> The community was named Belcourt in honour of [[Georges-Antoine Belcourt]].<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=REtEXQNWq6MC&pg=PA831 | title=Historical Gazetteer of the United States | publisher=Routledge | date=May 13, 2013 | access-date=November 30, 2013 | author=Hellmann, Paul T. | pages=831}}</ref> Father Belcourt was a [[French Canadian]] [[Roman Catholic]] diocesan priest and [[missionary]] who served the Chippewa and Métis throughout his ministry in the mid-nineteenth century. Belcourt advocated politically on the behalf of the Anishinaabeg and Métis in Canada and in the United States until 1859.<ref>{{cite book |last=Reardon |first=James Michael |date=1955 |title=George Anthony Belcourt Pioneer Catholic Missionary of the Northwest, 1803-1874: His Life and Times |location=St. Paul, Minnesota |publisher=North Central Publishing Company |pages=6, 171 }}</ref> Father Belcourt described the Chippewa historical territory in the [[Pembina River (Manitoba – North Dakota)|Pembina River]] basin as covering an area about 400 miles from north to south and 500 miles from east to west.