| 102 | HISTORY |
sas and down to the Canadian and Red rivers of Louisiana, and eastward to the Mississippi. Thus it will be seen that this great Indian nation early in the sixteenth century occupied a large portion of British America, Montana, Wyoming, all of the Dakotas, more than half of Iowa, Missouri and Arkansas, all of Kansas and Nebraska, the greater part of Minnesota, and the north half of Wisconsin.
The Mahas, or Omahas, who speak a language similar to the Dakotas, occupied, at this period, the west side of the Missouri River from the Kansas to the James River of Dakota. It was an offshoot of the Omahas known as the Oc-to-ta-toes, or Otoes, who occupied the east side of the Missouri in what is now Iowa. Their hunting grounds extended from near Council Bluffs to the Des Moines River.
THE SIOUX
The Sioux Indians belonged to the Dakota nation and were first known to the French in 1640. In 1680 when Hennepin was sent to explore the valley of the upper Mississippi and was encamped with his party on the banks of one of the tributaries of the river, he was captured by a band of Sioux. They took him with them in their wanderings over Minnesota from April until September. The explorers were finally rescued by DuLuth, a French adventurer who had penetrated that region to the St. Peter River.
When the French took possession of that country in 1685 the Dakotas were divided into seven eastern and nine western tribes. During the wars between the French and various Indian tribes, the Sioux were forced southward into northern Iowa about the headwaters of the Des Moines River and Okoboji and Spirit Lakes. The branch of the Dakotas known as Sioux was divided into five bands, the Tetons, Yanktons, Sissetons, Mendawakantons
