Sahnish

The Sahnish, or Arikara, were a farming people of the northern Great Plains who lived in fortified villages along the Missouri River.

Their language suggests a separation from the Skidi Pawnee around the fifteenth century. Smallpox reduced their Missouri villages from 32 to two in 1780–1782. In 1823 they attacked William Henry Ashley's fur traders near the Grand River; American troops and Sioux allies besieged their villages, but the inhabitants escaped. Sahnish chiefs made peace with the United States in 1825.