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The 40th Annual Dakota Conference will examine the varied historical and literary responses to river transportation and related issues on the Northern Plains. Proposals for papers and sessions on this theme or any topic related to the Northern Plains should be submitted with paper/session title, abstract, author biography, and presenter name, address, phone number, and e-mail address.
This is the second in a series on transportation, following the 2007 conference on railroads. Travel on the Northern Plains by river allowed for communication and trade among villagers, such as the Oneota at Blood Run on the Big Sioux River, the Sioux on the lower Missouri River, and the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara on the upper Missouri River. Canoes and bullboats, technologies favored by indigenous peoples, gave way to the keelboats, mackinaws, pirogues, and steamboats used by Euro-Americans. Steamboat transportation on the Missouri River is largely responsible for the rise of mixed-blood societies identified as Missouri Valley Culture by Dr. Herbert T. Hoover in A New South Dakota History.
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