South Dakota, though, could not be turned into a viable state unless the Sioux sold much of their land, and Congress set out to make that happen. On March 2, 1889, just a week after President Cleveland had split South Dakota off from North Dakota and authorized them each to organize a state government, the lame-duck Congress authorized the division of the Great Sioux Reservation into six smaller reservations. Desperate to get Sioux land for the nascent state of South Dakota, the incoming Republican administration was willing to offer higher land prices than the Democrats had.
