Native Americans camped in Kandiyohi County for thousands of years before white settlers arrived in the 1850s. One of the large Indian camp sites was on the north shore of Green Lake. The Santee, or eastern bands of the Dakota Indians, were the last tribe to live in this area. Before the Santee arrived, the Yankton, or middle bands of the Dakota, were in this area. The Dakota had previously lived in the forests of northern Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan, until increasing pressures from eastern tribes drove them west and south. They remained here until they ceded their lands through treaties of the 1850s.