Garrison Dam (1946-1956): the Fort Berthold Reservation and the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara

What happened

According to Cultural Survival, the 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty designated 12,500,000 acres between the Yellowstone and Missouri rivers for the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara, and later government actions reduced this to 640,000 acres by 1910. The Fort Berthold Reservation along the Missouri held the three tribes' farms and towns.

Congress authorized the Garrison Dam in the Flood Control Act of 1944 (Public Law 78-534). The Buffalo Bill Center of the West quotes a 1945 tribal resolution calling the land "their inherent property from time immemorial." It says the dam would force some 349 families to relocate, and that at every hearing the Indian people "simply refused to sell their land." The government then said, "either sell your land or it will be condemned." In April 1949 a tribal delegation testified before a House committee that was considering buying 155,000 acres. Public Law 437 (1949), called the Taking Act, covered compensation for the land.

Cultural Survival quotes Tribal Chairman George Gillette, who said that "our Treaty of Fort Laramie...and our constitution are being torn to shreds by this contract." The Center of the West quotes Chairman Martin Cross in 1952 that the dam's gates were scheduled to close on July 1, 1953.

A Senate report says a federal advisory committee later concluded the 1950s compensation "was inadequate." It says Congress then enacted a law acknowledging that the United States "did not justly compensate" the tribes, and set up a $149.2 million trust fund for the Three Affiliated Tribes and a $90.6 million fund for Standing Rock.

Good to know. Whether the dam took land guaranteed by the 1851 treaty is one organization's reading; no court found a treaty breach. Sources give 349 or 300 families moved and 153,000 or 155,000 acres.

Summarized with AI assistance from 3 sources and checked against their words; not yet reviewed by historians or by the nations. Report an error