Over 11,000 years of human history have been recorded in southwestern South Dakota's Badlands National Park. Consisting of more than 244,000 acres of sharply eroded buttes, pinnacles and spires blended with the largest, protected mixed grass prairie in the United States, South Dakota's Badlands are filled with legends, Indian Wars, gold mining, and ghost towns.

For centuries the Badlands have been met with a mix of dread and fascination, beginning with nomadic tribes who migrated into the area more than 10,000 years ago. Using the area as their hunting grounds, the first known inhabitants were the paleo Indians, the mammoth hunters who were present at the end of the ice age. These were followed by the Arikara (or Ree) Indians in about 1500. The Cheyenne, Kiowa, Pawnee, Crow and Sioux (or Lakota) migrated to the area around the 1700’s. Following the buffalo that roamed the grasslands of the great plains, they survived the occasional harsh weather and difficult terrain by relying on the bison for their almost every need. About a century and a half ago, the Great Sioux Nation had displaced the other tribes from the northern prairie, commanding more than 80 million acres, the center of which is present-day South Dakota

The Lakota Sioux called the place "mako sica," and early French trappers called it "les mauvaises terres a traverser," both meaning "bad lands." Those very same French trappers would be the first of many Europeans who would, in time, supplant the Sioux, as the they were soon followed by soldiers, miners, cattlemen, farmers and homesteaders.

At the close of the 18th century, the dominant Sioux were at the height of their power, with numerous interrelated bands, comprised of three major tribes – the Yankton, Santee and Teton. Exceptional horsemen, the Sioux were also skilled hunters and superior warriors. When, in the 1700’s, French-Canadian explorers began to come to the area, they were first met with friendliness as the native tribes traded with the Europeans. When Lewis and Clark made their trek in 1803, they too, met with little resistance when they passed through South Dakota.

However, as more and more pioneers began to encroach upon these lands, skirmishes began to occur between the Indians and the new white settlers. Into this midst came homesteaders, building farms and small towns, as well as some of Wild West's most rough-and-ready characters, such as Jedediah Smith, Jim Bridger, Hugh Glass and Thomas Fitzpatrick.

The Lakota never welcomed the white man to their hunting grounds and as immigration increased there was a marked decline in American Indian-white relations. The Army established outposts nearby, but they seldom entered the Black Hills. Trouble escalated when bands of Lakota began to raid nearby settlements, then retreating to the Black Hills.