ABSTRACT
The Mandan were among the earliest of the extant indigenous peoples to have settled along the Missouri River in the Northern Plains of present-day North Dakota. Today there are some two hundred people, on and off of the Fort Berthold Reservation, who claim some Mandan ancestry. Most Mandans now also partially descend from other indigenous groups, Hispanics, African Americans (members of the nineteenth-century U.S. military stationed on the Upper Missouri), or a variety of European explorers, trappers, traders, and settlers who have been active in the region’s history since first contact. The Mandan language is the sole member of its own (Mandan) branch of the Siouan family within the larger Siouan-Catawba language family.
