Native American Life on the Great Plains

by: Liz Olson
For centuries beginning around 1600, Native Americans settled along the wooded and rich-soil banks of Northern Plains rivers. In the United States the Plains include parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas. For the most part, the tribes of the Northern Great Plains were agricultural and trade-based societies. Upon European contact in the 18th and 19th centuries, many villages became major trading posts, bringing prosperity but transforming their culture forever.