Editing North Dakota (section)

===Pre-colonial history===
Native American people lived in what is now North Dakota for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans. The known tribes included the [[Mandan people]] (from around the 11th century),<ref name="auto">Wood, W. Raymond and Thomas D. Thiessen: ''Early Fur Trade On The Northern Plains. Canadian Traders Among the Mandan and Hidatsa Indians, 1738–1818.'' Norman and London, 1987, p. 5.</ref> while the first [[Hidatsa]] group arrived a few hundred years later.<ref>Ahler, Stanley A., T. D. Thiessen and M. K. Trimble: ''People of the Willows. The Prehistory and Early History of the Hidatsa Indians''. Grand Forks, 1991., p. 38.</ref> They both assembled in villages on tributaries of the Missouri River in what would become west-central North Dakota. [[Crow Nation|Crow Indians]] traveled the plains from the west to visit and trade with the related Hidatsas<ref name="auto"/> after the split between them, probably in the 17th century.<ref>Wood, W. Raymond: Notes on the Crow-Hidatsa Schism. ''Plains Anthropologist'', Vol. 22 (1977), pp. 83–100, p. 86.</ref>

Later came divisions of the [[Sioux]]: the [[Lakota people|Lakota]], the [[Dakota people|Santee]] and the [[Assiniboine|Yanktonai]]. The [[Assiniboine]] and the [[Plains Cree people|Plains Cree]] undertook southward journeys to the village Indians, either for trade or for war.<ref name="auto" /><ref>Milloy, John S.: ''The Plains Cree. Trade, Diplomacy and War, 1790–1870''. Winnipeg, 1988, pp. 47–66.</ref> The [[Shoshone|Shoshone Indians]] in present-day [[Wyoming]] and Montana may have carried out attacks on Indian enemies as far east as the Missouri.<ref>Wood, W. Raymond: The Earliest Map of the Mandan Heartland: Notes on the Jarvis and Mackay 1791 Map. ''Plains Anthropologist''. Vol. 55, No. 216 (Nov. 2010), pp. 255–276, p. 266.</ref> A group of [[Cheyenne]]s lived in a village of earth lodges at the lower [[Sheyenne River]] ([[Biesterfeldt Site]]) for decades in the 18th century.

Due to attacks by Crees, Assiniboines and [[Ojibwe|Chippewas]] armed with firearms{{clarify|date=July 2021}}, they left the area around 1780 and crossed Missouri some time after.<ref>Hyde, George E.: ''Life of George Bent. Written From His Letters''. Norman, 1987. pp. 9–15.</ref> A band of the few [[Cheyenne|Sotaio Indians]] lived east of Missouri River and met the uprooted Cheyennes before the end of the century. They soon followed the Cheyennes across [[Missouri]] and lived among them south of [[Cannonball River]].<ref>Wood, W. Raymond: The Earliest Map of the Mandan Heartland: Notes on the Jarvis and Mackay 1791 Map. ''Plains Anthropologist''. Vol. 55, No. 216 (Nov. 2010), pp. 255–276, p. 272.</ref>

Eventually, the Cheyenne and the Sutaio became one tribe and turned into mounted buffalo hunters with ranges mainly outside North Dakota. Before the middle of the 19th century, the [[Arikara]] entered the future state from the south and joined the Mandan and Hidatsa.<ref>Meyer, Roy W.: ''The Village Indians of Upper Missouri. The Mandans, Hidatsas, and Arikaras''. Lincoln and London, 1977, p. 90.</ref> With time, a number of Indians entered into treaties with the United States. Many of the treaties defined the territory of a specific tribe.