The Hidatsa - Indians of North America Author:Mary Jane Schneider, Frank W. Porter III (Editor) The Hidatsa were living in permanent villages high above the Missouri River when they were first seen by a European, the Sieur de La Verendrye, in 1738. Like the Mandan, their neighbors and allies, the Hidatsa hunted buffalo and grew corn. During the early 1800s their villages became popular stopping places for scientists, artists, and adventure... more » seekers. The explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark spent the winter of 1804-1805 camped nearby. In the late 19th century, the Hidatsa, Mandan, and Arikara, who shared a reservation, came under pressure to adopt non-Indian ways and divide their land into individual plots for farming. Together these Indians incorporated as the Three Affiliated Tribes in 1934. When part of their reservation was flooded beneath a reservoir created by Garrison Dam in 1956, they successfully sued the federal government for damages. Since then the Hidatsa people have increasingly used legal action to assert their rights as American Indians.« less