Settlers who had come to Dakota Territory in the Great Dakota Boom wanted more land, and couldn’t bear seeing rich fields lying unplowed on the Great Sioux Reservation. In 1882, Dakota Territorial Delegate Richard Pettigrew, who was working to build a political following, sought to cut the Great Sioux Reservation in half. His plan would give settlers 11 million acres of land in a broad band across the middle of the reservation from the Missouri River to the Black Hills.2
