Journal of the Senate of the Legislative Assembly of the State of South Dakota: title varies, 1887–, Bismarck, etc., var. state printers, 1891– (With
the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, the western two-thirds of the area that is now South Dakota became U.S. territory. The eastern one-third of South
Dakota’s present territory became part of the U.S. in consequence of the 1818 treaty with Great Britain that established the U.S. boundary with Canada at
the 49th parallel. In 1861 the Congress organized a much larger area (including present-day North Dakota, South Dakota, most of Montana, northern
Wyoming, and northeastern Nebraska) as the Dakota Territory {D.T.}. Over the next decade or so, the Nebraska, Montana and Wyoming portions were severed
from D.T. as those entities also became stand-alone territories; so that from 1869 to 1889 the D.T. encompassed only present-day North and South
Dakota. The first session of the D.T. legislature met in Yankton, D.T., in March, 1862. Statehood came for South Dakota in 1889, when D.T. was broken in
two, with North and South Dakota being admitted as separate states. The first session of the South Dakota statehood legislature was held in November,
1889. For laws prior to 1890 for the area that became the State of South Dakota, see Dakota Territory elsewhere on this site.)
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