The Arikara people (sometimes called the Ree) moved north from Nebraska and Kansas. It was about five hundred years ago. They settled in central South Dakota. They farmed and hunted buffalo. They built permanent villages along the Missouri River. They did well in South Dakota for hundreds of years. Then diseases such as smallpox killed many of them. War with other native peoples made their villages weak. Soon the Arikaras moved near the Mandans in North Dakota.