CHAPTER XXIX
THE MESSIAH WAR
South Dakota became a state of the Union during the period of reaction from the great Dakota boom. That boom brought to us not only many adventurers and promoters, but also a large class of honest but inexperienced persons,—mercantile clerks, factory hands, and mechanics,—who were attracted by the free government lands and who came to make farm homes, but who had no experience as farmers. Even those who knew how to farm in the eastern states found that eastern conditions did not apply to Dakota conditions and Dakota soil. The successful method of working our soil had to be learned by sore experience. It is no wonder, then, that thousands who came with high hopes of building homes and accumulating riches were sorely disappointed. Many of them, in utter discouragement, gave up their homesteads and returned to the East, where the impression became deep-rooted that Dakota was a failure. Following closely upon this reaction came a period of really bad crop years. A great drought in 1889 and 1890 made the crops in many counties a total failure.
Just at this time, also, a great religious excitement overwhelmed the Teton Sioux Indians, causing great
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