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Did Native Americans live in Yellowstone?

Yellowstone was somewhat of a battle ground for the four tribes who lived around it, the Crows, the Blackfeet, the Bannocks, and the Shoshones.



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1896 Supreme Court case Ward v. Race Horse decided that the legislation that had established Yellowstone as a national park was the legal foundation for efforts to keep Indians off public land.

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The first documentation of Native Americans in the Greater Yellowstone area was around the 1400s to 1700s by the Kiowa and later ancestors of the Blackfeet, Cayuse, Coeur d'Alene, Bannock, Nez Perce, Shoshone, and Umatilla. In subsequent years, tribes came to various regions of the park for different purposes.

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The Crow Indians called Yellowstone “land of the burning ground” or “land of vapors” while the Blackfeet called it “many smoke.” The Flatheads called it “smoke from the ground.” The Kiowas called it “the place of hot water.” Only the Bannocks had a name that did not call to mind the park's thermal regions: “buffalo ...

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— There are 27 listed tribes who have historic connections to the lands and resources now found within Yellowstone National Park (YNP). Many think of YNP as an untouched wilderness, but human occupation in YNP goes back 11,000 years ago and includes an important history of indigenous peoples.

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Arrowheads made from Yellowstone obsidian have been found as far away as the Mississippi Valley, showing how important the natural resources of Yellowstone were for the Native Americans.

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One of the first settlers to explore Yellowstone was a man named John Colter. He was one of America's first mountain men, living in the wilderness for months at a time, and a member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, sent by President Thomas Jefferson to find a route through the American West.

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The Yellowstone supervolcano last erupted about 640,000 years ago. A sleeping giant is nestled in the western part of the United States. Though it stirs occasionally, it has not risen from slumber in nearly 70,000 years.

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No, Yellowstone is not based on any real events or people that exist in real life. However, the creator of the show explained that the issues that are explored in the show are inspired by problems that exist in western mountain states in the US.

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Instead, the name was attributed as early as 1805 to Native Americans who were referring to yellow sandstones along the banks of the Yellowstone River in eastern Montana, several hundred miles downstream and northeast of the Park.

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