Long before the homesteaders, the Mandan and Hidatsa built thriving earthlodge towns along the Missouri, farming the bottoms and trading across the plains from the great villages at the Knife River.
Centuries before the first plow broke the prairie, the Mandan and Hidatsa peoples had built prosperous towns along the upper Missouri — clusters of great domed earthlodges, framed in timber and covered in packed earth, housing extended families around central plazas. They farmed the rich river bottoms in corn, beans, squash and sunflower, and stored the surplus against the winter.
Towns of Earth and Corn
These villages were the commercial heart of the northern plains, hubs of a trade network that reached in every direction. Nomadic peoples brought hides and dried meat to exchange for the villagers' corn and garden produce, and later for the goods of European traders, making the Knife River towns a marketplace of continental reach.
From the almanac's reckoning:
- The Mandan and Hidatsa farmed the Missouri bottoms from earthlodge towns.
- The Knife River villages were a trade hub reaching across the plains.
- Corn, beans, squash and sunflower were the staple village crops.
Disease and displacement would fall heavily on these communities, yet their descendants endure, and the earthlodge remains a powerful emblem of a civilization rooted in the river bottoms. The almanac counts the Mandan villages among the oldest and greatest achievements of the plains.
Elsewhere in the Almanac
Statehood at Last: North Dakota Joins the Union in 1889
After decades as a territory, the northern half of Dakota entered the Union as a state in 1889, its admission so entwined with its southern twin that the order was deliberately obscured.
The Métis and the Red River Carts of Pembina
At Pembina in the north, the Métis people forged a distinct culture of the buffalo hunt and the trade trail, their squealing wooden carts once a familiar sight across the plains.
The Powwow and the Living Culture of the Plains Nations
Far from a relic, the powwow endures as a vibrant celebration of song, dance and community among the plains nations, drawing dancers and drums from across the continent.