It was established in 1983, by Datuk Amar Leo Moggie Irok, after seceding from Sarawak National Party (SNAP) following his loss in the contest for the SNAP's president post against Datuk Amar James Wong Kim Ming.

PBDS, as a breakaway of SNAP, won 15 seats in the 1987 Sarawak state election, while its ally, Sarawak Malaysian People's Association (PERMAS), won only 5 seats.

[1] In both cases, SNAP and PBDS (both parties now defunct) joined the Malaysian National Front or Barisan Nasional (BN) as the ruling coalition.

[2] The dissolution of PBDS led to the formation two offshoot parties; one is Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) led by Datuk Dr James Jemut Masing and Datuk Sng Chee Hua which was successfully registered and admitted into BN in 2004 while another Malaysian Dayak Congress (MDC) failed to be registered by the Registrar of Societies (RoS).

Meanwhile, there was also an attempt to revive PBDS[3] and it was finally successfully approved and re-registered as Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (Baru) in 2013.