The Ancient Mandan & Hidatsa Controlled Great Plains Trade From These North Dakota Village Ruins

Knife River Indian Villages, North Dakota

Before anyone had heard of Lewis and Clark, Native people were already running a busy trade center along the Knife River. They grew corn, hunted buffalo, and built homes that lasted through brutal winters.

Here’s their story, told through the ruins you can still walk through.

Life in the Knife River Indian Villages

Native Americans have lived in this area for more than 11,000 years, though the village remains we can see today aren’t that old.

The first folks to settle around the Knife River probably arrived about 12,000 years ago.

The remains you can visit in the park today are from the more recent villages of two tribes: the Mandan and the Hidatsa.

The Three Villages

The Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site, created in 1974, preserves the historic and archaeological remains of groups of Hidatsa, Northern Plains Indians, in North Dakota.

Three villages were in the Knife area. These three villages are generally known as Hidatsa villages – Awatixa Xi’e (lower Hidatsa village), Awatixa and Big Hidatsa village.

Awatixa Xi’e is thought to be the oldest of the three. The Big Hidatsa village was built around 1600.

The Hidatsa and the Mandan People

The Hidatsa are a matrilineal society, which means children belong to their mother’s clan. Before contact with Europeans, the Hidatsa had thirteen clans.

Until they were moved to reservations in the late 1800s, the Hidatsa were a semi-settled people who lived in dome-shaped earth-covered lodges; they grew corn, beans, squash, and tobacco and made pottery.

On the other hand, the Mandan people had a rich mythology and religious life. In the earliest historical accounts, the Mandan were well-established in permanent villages near the Heart River.

Verendrye described them as a large and powerful nation that feared no one.

The friendship between the Mandan and Hidatsa had developed over many years, and they shared their big hunting territory to the west.

The Center of Village Life

The most distinctive feature of these villages were the earthlodges – the traditional homes of the Hidatsa and Mandan peoples.

Among the Hidatsa, women owned and mostly built the earthlodges. The men of the tribe did help with the construction, though women supervised them.

They were made entirely of wood, covered by a layer of willows which was, in turn covered by a layer of dried grass. The grass layer was covered by about 4 inches of earth, and that’s why they’re called earthlodges.

Building the Earth Lodge

To build an earthlodge, they first set up a frame of wooden posts and beams. This was covered with a layer of willow branches, then a layer of dried grass, and finally about 4 inches of earth sod.

The result was a sturdy, dome-shaped dwelling that stayed cool in summer and provided good insulation in winter.

Inside the Lodges

Inside were separate areas for sleeping, eating, and storage.

An earthlodge lasted about 10 years and housed between 10 and 20 people.

Corrals for horses were built inside each earth lodge, but these housed only the best and most prized war and hunting ponies brought in at night to protect them from theft and bad weather.

A small sweat lodge, an important part of Hidatsa life, was also built inside the lodge, usually to the right of the entrance near the corral.

Daily Life in the Village

Village life followed the rhythm of the seasons and was based around a mixed economy of farming and hunting. Women were the backbone of village life.

They owned the earthlodges and the fields, and their farming skills provided the steady food supply that made settled village life possible.

Men’s responsibilities centered around hunting and defense, and often formed warrior societies that cut across family lines.

As with other Plains Indians, the Sun Dance was the main religious ritual, involving long preparation, sacred promises, prayer, and self-sacrifice.

Religion was part of every aspect of daily life for the people of the Knife River villages.

The Villages as Trading Centers

The site was a major Native American trade center for hundreds of years before becoming an important market place for fur traders after 1750. The Knife River Villages served as an important central trading and agricultural area.

The Native Americans acted as middlemen in a trading network that stretched from Minnesota, to the Great Plains and Gulf Coast, and the Northwest Pacific Coast.

The Knife River villages also became known as a trading post for high quality horses that would be exchanged for guns and ammunition.

This way, the Hidatsas and Mandans gained considerable wealth and power among the Northern Plains tribes.

When Lewis and Clark Arrived

Lewis and Clark got here in November 1804 and found lots of Native people. Their journals counted at least 320 Hidatsa warriors and 600 Mandan warriors living in villages along both rivers.

The explorers built Fort Mandan about seven miles away, finishing it on November 27, 1804. They needed people who could translate for the trip ahead, so they hired Charbonneau.

His pregnant wife Sacagawea came too. She had her baby Jean Baptiste Charbonneau on February 11, 1805, in the middle of a really cold Dakota winter. When spring came on April 7, 1805, she tied her baby to her back and headed west with them.

Devastation of the 1837 Smallpox Epidemic

Starting in the 1830s, steamboat traffic up the Missouri brought more people into contact with the tribes at Knife River.

In 1837 a smallpox epidemic so severely reduced Hidatsa and Mandan numbers that the two tribes consolidated into one village to defend themselves against their traditional enemy, the Sioux. Later, in 1862, many Arikara joined them for similar reasons.

Since 1868 the Hidatsa, Mandan, and Arikara, collectively known as the Three Affiliated Tribes, have lived together on what is now the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota.

Visiting Knife River Indian Villages

Located at 564 County Road 37 in Stanton, North Dakota (an hour north of Bismarck), this National Historic Site is completely free to visit.

Open daily year-round with summer hours 9am-5pm and winter hours 8am-4:30pm (closed Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s).

Start at the visitor center to watch a film and explore the museum, then tour the reconstructed earthlodge and walk the trails to three historic village sites where Sacagawea lived.

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