The series stars Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Sam Elliott, Isabel May, LaMonica Garrett, Marc Rissmann, Audie Rick, Eric Nelsen, and James Landry Hébert.

The series follows the post–Civil War generation of the Dutton family as they leave Tennessee, journey to Fort Worth, Texas, and join a wagon train undertaking the arduous journey west to Oregon (the Duttons are never on the actual Oregon Trail itself), before settling in Montana to establish what would eventually become the Yellowstone Ranch.

In a flashforward, Elsa Dutton watches in late 1883 as a group of pioneers are slaughtered by a band of Lakota on the Great Plains.

Months earlier, former Union Army captain Shea Brennan cremates his wife and daughter after they die of smallpox.

His partner Thomas arrives and prevents him from committing suicide when he informs him of a Pinkerton job in Fort Worth, Texas.

Shea and Thomas depart for Fort Worth and observe James Dutton kill thieves who attempt to rob his covered wagon.

James continues to encounter antagonistic criminals in town, while Shea and Thomas meet with a group of inexperienced European immigrants who pay them for an escort to Oregon.

As the wagon train departs, tensions rise between the Americans and the immigrants, as interpreter Josef struggles to keep his group in line with Shea's perceived harsh decisions.

With supplies short after a food wagon is lost in the river crossing, Josef reveals that a thief among them is hoarding the settlers' remaining stores.

With most of the settlers' wagons destroyed and their supplies dangerously low, Shea recommends they cut short their journey and find land to settle near Denver, Colorado.

In Lakota territory, the dwindling group is beset by further tragedy when Josef is bitten by a rattlesnake and his wife is thrown from her horse, the accident leaving her comatose and eventually proving fatal.

The Crow leader recommends a valley called 'Paradise' in the Montana Territory for the Duttons to settle, but promises that his people will reclaim the land in seven generations.

[33] In the eighth episode No Kindness for the Coward, Margaret Dutton and her sons John and Spencer are sitting at the dinner table in their ranch homestead waiting for her husband and their father to return from a dangerous manhunt of horse thieves who plague their territory.

[37][38] May also narrated the first episode and informed the audience about the intervening 30 years in the saga of the Duttons between 1893 (the time of flashback scenes on Yellowstone) and the start of series of 1923.

[40][41] In February 2021, Taylor Sheridan signed a five-year deal with ViacomCBS and MTV Entertainment Group following the success of Yellowstone.

Focusing on the perspective of "what would happen if someone like May left polite society behind" Sheridan completed the 1883 pilot script in a week.

"[43] Isabel May (who plays Elsa Dutton) discussed Taylor Sheridan's quest for "authenticity" concerning no cosmetics nor shaving of underarm hair.

The website's critics consensus reads, "1883 can feel too overdetermined to be a properly rough-hewn Western, but viewers will want to saddle up for Sam Elliott's commanding star turn.