This Dakota village was located near the current Cedar Bridge crossing on the isthmus of land between Black Dog Lake and the Minnesota River, which is the present site of the Black Dog Power Plant. There were an estimated 250 Indians living there when white men first came to the area. Black Dog’s people belonged to the Mdewankanton band of the Sioux, also known as the Dakota Indians. This band is believed to have moved to the area from the Mille Lacs Lake area around 1750.

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This piece of land provided plenty of water for drinking, travel, fish, water fowl, and other game animals. Black Dog's band was sometimes referred to as "the people who didn't eat geese", because they made good trades with the birds at Fort Snelling. They also found plenty of customers for the fish caught in the Black Dog Lake among the first European settlers in the area. The Dakota regularly traded the fish for fresh pork, which was a staple among the Irish Roman Catholic settlers except during Lent, when they were required to eat fish for religious reasons. The original village location and Black Dog's people are parts of the histories for both Burnsville and Eagan. When Louis Martin arrived to teach farming in 1837 the village moved to his farm which was located at the present day junction of Highway 13 and Blackhawk Road in Eagan. There they stayed until 1856 when the entire village was relocated to the reservation at Morton, Minnesota.