In 1868 the lands of the Great Sioux Nation were reduced in the Fort Laramie Treaty to the east side of the Missouri River and the state line of South Dakota in the west.

The farming plan failed to take into account the difficulty that Lakota farmers would have in trying to cultivate crops in the semi-arid region of South Dakota.

By the end of the 1890 growing season, a time of intense heat and low rainfall, it was clear that the land was unable to produce substantial agricultural yields.

A former agent, Valentine McGillycuddy, saw nothing extraordinary in the dances and ridiculed the panic that seemed to have overcome the agencies, saying: "The coming of the troops has frightened the Indians.

If the Seventh-Day Adventists prepare the ascension robes for the Second Coming of the Savior, the United States Army is not put in motion to prevent them.

They joined the Big Foot Band in Cherry Creek, South Dakota, before traveling to the Pine Ridge Reservation to meet with Chief Red Cloud.

Six members are elected at-large and eight from the regional single-member districts: In the 1960s, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation built five large dams on the Missouri River, and implemented the Pick–Sloan Missouri Basin Program, forcing Native Americans to relocate from large areas to be flooded behind the dams.

[21] The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe filed an injunction against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to stop building the pipeline.

[27] The activists argued that the pipeline, which goes from North Dakota to Illinois, would jeopardize the water source of the reservation, the Missouri River.

[28][29] By late September, it was reported that there were over 300 federally recognized Native American tribes and an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 pipeline resistance supporters residing in the camp, with several thousand more on weekends.

The company used bulldozers to dig up part of the pipeline route that was subject to a pending injunction motion; it contained possible Native graves and burial artifacts.

"[34] Shortly thereafter, on September 7, 2016,[35] after the federal court denied the tribe's request for an injunction, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the United States Department of the Interior (DOI) and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation gave the order to halt the construction of the pipeline until further environmental assessments had taken place.

[39] On the weekend of December 2, 2016, approximately 2000 United States military veterans arrived in North Dakota in support of the activists.

[40] In January 2017, an executive order was issued by President Donald Trump to streamline the approval to construct the pipeline, on the basis of creating more jobs.

Since August 2016, the total number of protesters arrested had surpassed 700, and on February 3, 2017, 39-year-old American Indian activist Chase Iron Eyes and more than 70 peaceably assembled protesters were arrested in a police raid ordered by the Trump administration, on charges of "inciting a riot" which is considered a felony and carries up to 5 years in prison.

On February 7, 2017, the Trump administration authorized the Army Corps of Engineers to proceed, ending its environmental impact assessment and the associated public comment period.

[13] The tribe sued and in March 2020 a federal judge sided with them and ordered USACE to do a full environmental impact statement.

“In projects of this scope, it is not difficult for an opponent to find fault with many conclusions made by an operator and relied on by the agency, but here, there is considerably more than a few isolated comments raising insubstantial concerns.

[44] Following the publishing of her video, North Dakota Police issued an arrest warrant for Goodman under accusations of Criminal Trespass.

Goodman responded, "This is an unacceptable violation of freedom of the press..."[45] The 2016 Democratic and Republican presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump[46] made no comments during the campaign regarding the DAPL.

[47] US Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont, a 2016 Democratic presidential primary candidate, publicly spoke out against the pipeline and in favor of the "water protectors.

[50] Two days later Energy Transfer Partners purchased the property where protests were being staged, from David and Brenda Meyer of Flasher, North Dakota.