months, and the schools are open to all pupils between the ages of
six and twenty-one years. For children between the ages of eight
and fourteen attendance for twelve weeks, six being consecutive, is
compulsory. The total enrolment in the public schools in 1908 was
131,582, with an average daily attendance of 90,419. Educational
facilities are also furnished by the state through university and school
of mines at University, near Grand Forks, normal schools (opened
in 1890) at Valley City and Mayville, an agricultural college and
experiment station (1890) at Fargo, a normal and industrial school
(opened in 1899) at Ellendale, a school for the deaf (1890) at Devils
Lake, a scientific school (opened in 1903) at Wahpeton, and a school
of forestry at Bottineau. Fargo College at Fargo, founded in
1887 by Congregationalists, is now non-sectarian. The Methodist
Episcopal Church maintains Wesley College near Grand Forks
(formerly the Red River Valley University at Wahpeton), affiliated
with the state university. There is a state library commission. The
state supports a hospital for the insane at Jamestown, an institution
for the feeble-minded at Grafton, a home for old soldiers at
Lisbon, a blind asylum at Bathgate, a reform school (opened 1902)
at Mandan and a penitentiary at Bismarck. There is a state sanatorium
for tuberculosis (1909).
Finance.—The chief source of revenue for the state, counties and municipalities is the general property tax. There are no special corporation taxes, but licence-charges are levied upon express and sleeping-car companies, and a tax is laid on the premiums of insurance companies. No poll tax is levied for state purposes, but counties are authorized to levy such a tax for school purposes. There are boards of equalization and review for the state, counties and municipalities. The state board fixes the rate of the state tax. For defraying the expenses of the state government, exclusive of the interest on the bonded debt, the tax rate is limited by the constitution to four mills on the dollar of assessed valuation. The state debt, excluding the amount of Territorial indebtedness assumed when Dakota Territory was divided, may not exceed $200,000. Local indebtedness is limited to 5% of the assessed value of the local property, but incorporated cities may by special vote increase this limit. The total bonded debt of the state on the 31st of October 1908 was $642,300 and was incurred for the most part for the construction of public buildings during the Territorial period. At the close of the fiscal year ending on the 31st of October 1908, the receipts for the year amounted to $3,259,668, the expenditures to $3,476,073 and the balance in the treasury to $582,905.
History.—The first attempts to establish permanent settlements in what is now North Dakota were made by traders of the Hudson’s Bay Company, who began their operations in the Red river valley about 1793.[1] In 1797 C. J. B. Chaboillez, a French trader in the service of the North-West Fur Company, built a trading post on the southern bank of the Pembina river, near its mouth, but this was soon abandoned. Three years later Alexander Henry, the younger (d. 1814), built two trading posts in the present limits of the state for this company, one on the western bank of the Red river near the Park river, where he lived until 1808. David Thompson (1770–1857), an employee at different times of the Hudson’s Bay and North-West Fur companies, explored the region of the Missouri river in 1797–1798, and thus anticipated the work of Lewis and Clark, who entered the present limits of the state in 1804 and wintered among the Mandans, constructing Fort Mandan in what is now McLean county. In 1801 John Cameron (d. 1804) erected a trading post for the North-West Fur Company on the site of the present Grand Forks.
The first real homeseekers to enter the state of whom there is any record were a colony of Scottish Highlanders who had first settled at Kildonan (Winnipeg) in 1812 under a grant from the Hudson’s Bay Company to Thomas Douglas, 5th earl of Selkirk. A part of the Winnipeg colony soon migrated southward and settled on the site of the present city of Pembina, at the mouth of the Pembina river, which they thought to be in British territory, and named the settlement Fort Daer. When Major Stephen H. Long, commanding an exploring expedition to the Minnesota and Red rivers, reached Fort Daer in 1823, he found there about six hundred persons, a few being Scotch, but the greater part being half-breeds.
North Dakota formed part of the region ceded by France to the United States by the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. From 1803 to 1805 it was included in the District of Louisiana, and from 1805 to 1812 it was a part of the Louisiana Territory, the name of which was changed to Missouri Territory in 1812. In 1834 that part of the present state E. of the Missouri river was included in the newly organized Territory of Michigan, and became successively a part of Wisconsin Territory in 1836, of Iowa Territory in 1838, and of Minnesota Territory in 1849. In 1854 the Territory of Nebraska was organized from a portion of the Missouri Territory, and the part of the Dakotas W. of the Missouri, then locally called “Mandan Territory,” was included in its limits. After Minnesota entered the Union, in 1858, the country between the Red and the Missouri rivers had no Territorial government for three years, but the inhabitants formed a provisional government. On the 2nd of March 1861 the Territory of Dakota was created, including the present Dakotas and portions of Wyoming and Montana. The seat of the Territorial government was fixed at Yankton, and remained there until 1883, when it was removed to Bismarck. The name of the Territory was derived from the Dakota Indians; the word “Dah-ko-ta” (signifying “allied” or “confederated”), being originally applied to the Sioux Confederation. In 1863 when Idaho Territory was formed, the boundaries of the Dakotas were fixed at practically their present limits. The boundary between Dakota Territory and Nebraska was slightly altered in 1870 and 1882. The Territory had hardly been organized before its settlement was impeded by the Civil War without and by Indian troubles within. In 1862 the Indians began a series of bloody massacres along the frontiers of Minnesota and Dakota. In the following year General Alfred Sully (1821–1879), commanding United States troops, marched up the Missouri river as far as Bismarck, and thence to the valley of the James river. On the 3rd of September 1863 with 1200 men he routed 2000 Sioux near the present town of Ellendale, in Dickey county, in an engagement called the battle of White Stone Hills. Four hundred warriors were slain, and a great number were captured. In 1864 Sully defeated the Sioux at the battle of Takaakwta, or Deer Woods, on the Knife river, and a few days later he again encountered them, and after a desperate struggle of three days administered a crushing defeat; the warriors abandoned their provisions and escaped into the Bad Lands. The Indians still remained hostile, however, and in 1865 Sully found it necessary to conduct his troops N. as far as Devils Lake, and thence W. to the Cannon Ball river. By these operations the Indian frontier was fixed W. of the Missouri river, and forts and garrisons were placed along this stream. The worst of the Indian troubles in northern Dakota were then at an end, though for many years there were occasional outbreaks.
A period of rapid development in the Red river basin followed the entrance of the Northern Pacific railway into this region in 1872. At the election in November 1887 the question of the division of the Territory into two states at the “seventh standard parallel” was submitted to the people, and was carried at the polls. In accordance with the Enabling Act, which received the president’s approval on the 22nd of February 1889, a constitutional convention met at Bismarck on the 4th of July following, and drafted a frame of government for the state of North Dakota. In October this was ratified at the polls. The chief interest in the election turned on the prohibition clause in the constitution, which was submitted separately, and received a majority of only 1159 votes. On the 2nd of November 1889 President Harrison issued a proclamation declaring North Dakota a state. By an agreement between North and South Dakota, embodied in their constitutions, each state assumed the debt created for the erection of public buildings within its limits during the Territorial period.
In the development of the state since its admission into the Union the railways have been an important factor. In 1894 they inaugurated the so-called “concentration movement,” and began to conduct annual excursions into North Dakota, thus bringing into the state thousands of immigrants. They have also adopted the policy of selecting favourable town-sites on the uninhabited prairie, erecting grain elevators at such points, and furnishing transportation facilities by means of branch roads tapping the main lines of travel. Under this system prosperous towns and villages have sprung up among the prairies.
- ↑ There seems to be no good authority for the statement often made that the first settlement in North Dakota was made by French Canadians in 1780.
