Great Seal of North Dakota

A large tree stands at the center of the seal's composition, set against the open prairie. On the Northern Plains in 1889, a mature tree was a landmark: the treeless expanse of the Great Plains meant that settlements were often named for the rare groves or single trees that marked water sources and shelter.

A plow appears among the agricultural implements on the seal, representing the Homestead Act settlers who broke the Northern Plains sod beginning in the 1860s and accelerating through the 1880s. By 1889, North Dakota's settled population had grown large enough to qualify for statehood largely because of agricultural migration.

The official constitutional description includes a bow crossed with three arrows, along with an Indian on horseback pursuing a buffalo toward the setting sun. Together these figures acknowledge the Native and plains-hunting history of the region before and during American settlement.

An anvil appears on the seal beside a sledge, representing industry and the craft economy that supported frontier settlement. Blacksmiths, mechanics, and tradespeople were essential to the agricultural communities that spread across the Northern Plains in the 1870s and 1880s.

The official description identifies a setting sun behind the central scene, not a sunrise. Above the tree arches a half circle of forty-two stars, a detail often missed in simplified summaries of the seal.

The motto Liberty and Union, Now and Forever, One and Inseparable comes from the closing words of Daniel Webster's reply to Senator Robert Hayne of South Carolina on January 27, 1830. The Webster-Hayne debate was a confrontation over the nature of the Union: whether states retained the right to nullify federal law and, implicitly, whether they could leave the Union at will.