About South Dakota
While South Dakota was first tracked by French explorers in 1743, then again in 1804 by Lewis and Clark, it wasn’t until 1874 when gold was discovered in the Black Hills that this state began to see settlements in earnest.
During the 1800’s, fur trade became a booming industry between the Native Americans and European-American fur trappers. It wasn’t long before a dispute broke out between the two groups as they both fought for control of the trade.
This conflict was alleviated by American Government Officials stepping in and providing a treaty in hopes to benefit everyone.
To this day, South Dakota still prides itself in its rich Native American history and is home to over 62,000 Native American Indians who all make up the Sioux Nation.
When juxtaposed to the national average, South Dakota’s violent crime rates are well below average.
While violent crime is below average, hate crimes on the other hand are more than triple the national average.
When viewing hate crimes specifically, South Dakota’s numbers for these crimes in relevance to race, sexual orientation and ethnicity show to be above average year after year. Property related crimes consistently show as being the least-common crime in the state.
