Alright, folks, let’s take a trip back to the Wild West—1889. The frontier is wide open, the buffalo are still roaming, and Congress is sitting around like, *You know what we need? More states.*
So, on February 22, President Grover Cleveland picks up his pen and says, *Fine, here you go,* and BOOM—North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Washington are on the fast track to statehood. And just like that, the U.S. got a little bigger, a little redder, and a whole lot more complicated.
Now, you might be asking, *Why four states? Why not just one big Dakota?* Well, my friends, because POLITICS. The Republican Party looked at the map, did some quick math, and said, *Hey, if we split these territories up, we get MORE Senators. More power. More seats in Congress. Mwahaha!*
And the Democrats? Oh, they saw it coming. But it didn’t matter. The Republicans basically walked into Congress like a bad used-car salesman: *Listen, we could sell you one Dakota… OR we could split it in two and throw in a Montana and a Washington at no extra charge! What do you say?*
And the answer was yes.
But let’s not forget who *wasn’t* invited to this party: Native Americans. Because in the fine print of “Hey, let’s make new states!” was “Oh, and by the way, we’re gonna take some land. You cool with that?” Spoiler alert: They weren’t.
Indigenous tribes in the region—Sioux, Crow, Cheyenne—had land promised to them by the U.S. government. And if there’s one thing history teaches us, it’s that “promised” lands are just lands America hasn’t stolen *yet.* So, surprise, surprise: Once these states joined the Union, settlers rushed in, reservations got smaller, and indigenous communities got the short end of the stick—again.
Fast forward to today, and you can still see the ripple effects. Those four states? Politically, they’re *exactly* what the Republicans hoped they’d be—big on rural conservative power, small on population, and somehow still holding the same number of Senate seats as California. (Which, if you’re wondering, is why a state with a million people gets the same say in the Senate as one with forty million. Because fairness.)
And Native communities? They’re still fighting for land rights, recognition, and just *basic respect* after being steamrolled by a 19th-century political power grab.
So, next time someone tells you statehood was just about geography, remind them that no—America doesn’t expand without a whole lot of *fine print.*
