POWERFUL BLACKFEET CONFEDERACY THAT DOMINATED MONTANA, THE WEST’S MOST INTELLIGENT RACE OF REDMEN

(Published in the Hysham Echo November 19, 1925 & August 30, 1025)

 

On another page of the issue (last week’s issue), there is printed an article descriptive of the Blackfeet reservation town of Browning, which is located not many miles from the eastern entrance to the Glacier National Park, in what is now Glacier county, Montana. To the ordinary tourist, and to the average Montanan, this little town signifies little else than an ordinary village whose population is compose largely of Blackfeet Indians and members of the agency official force.
But Browning represents a great deal more. In addition to being a reservation town, it is significant of the last home of a fast vanishing race - perhaps the most intelligent nation of redmen that in the earliest years of the west, inhabited the plains and foothills of the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains. At least does Browning mark the home of the remnants of the once most powerful Indian confederacy in Indian history.
In the early days of the last century the Blackfeet nation comprised approximately 40,000 Indians. This great nation, or confederation, was split into three divisions, the Blackfeet proper, the Blood and the Piegans. All sprung from Algonquin stock. They spoke a common language, recognized their kinship to each other, were usually united in war, had the same customs and frequently intermarried. In their tribal government, though, they had three distinct councils, separate chiefs and separate Sun dances.
Before the white man came to restrict them, these three interlocked tribes dominated all of this section of the west between the Yellowstone river in Montana and the North Saskatchewan in Alberta, east of the main range of the Rocky Mountains to about the 105th parallel of longitude. Originally, it is said, this confederacy lived in western Canada, and their name comes from the dark fertile loam of Alberta, now a great wheat growing country. In damp weather, the black soil stained their moccasins, hence the name “Siksika,” in the Blackfeet language, meaning “Black Moccasins,” or as translated into English, “Blackfeet.”
Of all of the tribes east of the main range of the Rocky Mountains, they were the most warlike and adventurous. They were quick to resent an affront, and when Captain Lewis on his return trip from the Columbia more than a century ago, killed a Piegan horse thief on the Marias river, they declared war against the white race, and for three-fourths of a century their hand was always against the whites, because of this age-old deed. They made it particularly hard for the fur trappers and traders who followed in the wake of the Lewis and Clark expedition. The first of these traders to enter what is now Montana, was Manuel Lisa who came in the decade following the experiences of Lewis and Clark. His first trading post at the mouth of the Big Horn river was too far out of the Blackfeet domain for molestation, but his second fort built at the Three Forks of the Missouri, was wiped out root and branch within a few months after its completion. The story of this fort, together with the experiences of some of these traders was published in these columns recently.

Perpetually at War

The Blackfeet were always at war with the Crows, Sioux, Cheyennes, Assiniboines, Flatheads and Snake Indians, and this war finally drove the Crows from their old and choice hunting grounds along the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains, where deer and other game abounded. For a time after the exodus of the Crows, war parties would occasionally sally into the lands from which they had been driven, and they were fortunate indeed if they did not meet the patrols of the Blackfeet who gave them no quarter.

An Intelligent Race

The best authorities are agreed that the Blackfeet, of all of the Indian tribes of the Northwest, were a superior race of redmen. Ninety years ago, Catlin wrote of them:
“The several Indian tribes inhabiting the upper Missouri, are undoubtedly the finest looking, best equipped and most beautifully costumed. They live in a country well stocked with buffalo and wild horses, which furnish them with an excellent and easy living; their atmosphere is pure, which produces good health and long life, and they are the most independent and happiest Indians I have met. They are all in a state of primitive rudeness and wildness, and are picturesque and handsome beyond description. Nothing in the world of its kind can surpass their games, amusements and parades. In my travels I have more than realized my former predictions that these Indians who could be found almost entirely in a state of nature, with the least knowledge of civilized society, would be found the most cleanly in their persons, elegant in their dress and manners, and enjoying life to the greatest perfection.”

Were Lords of Vast Area

In search of the trophies of the chase, food and the loot of primitive war, these former lords of Montana roamed over a wide area. Their war parties, composed of veterans, led by chiefs of proven valor and ability, led them as far south as New Mexico, across the plains into the big grass country of southern Alberta, ready to throw down the gage of battle to any who would fight them. They went about in mounted bands of from 50 to 500, and were ever ready to ride for and strike hard whenever the occasion presented itself. They fought for the preservation of their hunting domain, for furs with which they could always purchase supplies from the factors of the Hudson’s Bay company, with whom they were ever on friendly terms, for the young women of enemy tribes whom they married out-of-hand by tribal ceremony, no matter how many wives might be waiting for them in their home tepees. Tribal legends narrate that some of these Blackfeet expeditions would stay away from Montana for as long as three years, usually coming back loaded with war’s plunder.
The return of one of these expeditions, that had been away for some time and had been successful, bearing the spoils of war and bringing with them prisoners, chanting the song of victory, was a great event, and the celebration would sometimes be prolonged for days, and be participated in by thousands. The chiefs and war heads encouraged these celebrations of victory, as it stimulated the young men to go out and fight for tribal glory and plunder.
The Blackfeet nation was at its zenith in the early part of the last century, and up until in the early 30s, when the first disaster befell the confederacy. It was about this time that the famous battle between the Blackfeet and the Crows was waged in the Sun River valley not far from the present city of Great Falls. This was perhaps the bloodiest engagement in Indian history, and as a result thereof many thousands of both combatants lay dead upon the scene of action. Although seriously depleted in warrior numbers, the Blackfeet nation was still most powerful, and remained so until early in the 60s. Just after the close of the civil war, the epidemic of smallpox hit the tribes, it being carried to them by white traders and prospectors who had then started to make their way in large numbers up the Missouri river. The disease swept over the Blackfeet country with disastrous results. The Indian remedies proved of no avail. During the winter of 1869 it was at its worst, and thousands, the flower of the Blackfeet nation, died. When the scourge had subsided only a pitiful remnant of the once great and powerful tribe was left, in a few scattering camps where natural conditions helped them to combat the disease. To this day old men of the tribe will talk of the year of “the great sickness: when three-fourths of the Blackfeet died. The slaughter of the buffalo, during the next ten years took much of their sustenance from them. Their hunting grounds were taken from them by the federal government. As a final result, there are now in the United States and Canada, less than one-tenth as many Blackfeet Indians as there were a half a century ago.

Uncle Sam and the Blackfeet

Had it not been for the ravages of the smallpox, the United States government would have found a formidable task in subduing the Blackfeet nation, for this war like tribe before the scourge, which took such a heavy toll of its finest fighting men, would have fought to the last ditch before surrendering and consenting to being penned up on a reservation.
The war department had its first experiences with the Blackfeet after 1865, in which year the Department of the Missouri was established with headquarters in St. Louis. In 1866, the Thirteenth infantry was ordered to establish a post on the Missouri. At that time, the only military post within the present bounds of Montana was the abandoned Fort Howie on the Missouri below Fort Benton, established by Acting Governor Meagher to resist the Sioux. The infantrymen from the east came and established Camp Cook on the Missouri 120 miles below Fort Benton. In 1867, Fort Shaw was built on Sun river, and Fort Ellis on the east Gallatin. In 1869 Camp Baker was established on Smith river, near where Fort Logan later stood. Fort Shaw was headquarters for the district of Montana.
In 1854 congress passed an appropriation of $80,000 for concluding a treaty with the Blackfeet. In 1856 a council was held with 2,000 representatives of the North Blackfeet, Bloods, Piegans and Gros Ventres present. This council was held on the banks of the Missouri, just opposite the mouth of the Judith river, and a treaty was concluded by the terms of which the Blackfeet lost no rights of value to them. In 1865 another treaty was concluded at a gathering of 7,500 Indians of various tribes at Fort Benton.
The council of 1865 was marked by the greatest savagery on the part of the whites and much bloodshed. Human life was unsafe and held cheaply by both sides. A good opportunity for skill in marksmanship was frequently rewarded with bloody trophies. Whites shot down in cold blood other whites for plunder,and after scalping and mutilating their victims, would report the act as a massacre by the Blackfeet. This led to the killing of many Indians who were innocent, as reprisals. The Indians grew bitter, but by the terms of the treaty, they surrendered great areas of their hunting grounds and received trade goods in return.
In 1869 some wagons were attacked by Crow Indians near Fort Benton, but the Blackfeet were blamed for the killing of one or two of the white men who fell in the fight. The people of Fort Benton were enraged. At this critical time, the brother of Mountain Chief, the latter a powerful Blackfeet warrior, and head chief of that tribe, was murdered in cold blood, with a Blood youth in the streets of Fort Benton, where he went to deliver special orders from Major Culbertson. Mountain Chief swore vengeance. In the same year, Malcolm Clarke was murdered by the Piegan relatives of his wife in the Prickly Pear canyon. These bloody acts made the situation between the white and the Indians tense. Then came the bad year of smallpox which made the Blackfeet almost powerless.
It was then, at this time, that Col. Shaw to attack Mountain Chief’s camp, and as result, there is not chronicled in history that deplorable “Baker Massacre,” of which much has been written, and a result of which many innocent and ill Blackfeet warriors, their squaws and children were killed.
There was never another fight between the Blackfeet warriors and the whites, for the Blackfeet nation as a fighting people had passed into history.

Many Tail Feathers

Most tourists who visit Glacier National Park during the summer months each year carry away with them the memory of one particularly interesting Indian chief whose picturesque tepee much of the time adds to the unique western atmosphere of the Glacier Park hotel’s surroundings. This old warrior who is known among and acquainted with all the prominent people who have visited the park is Many Tail Feathers. He is now one of the oldest Indians on the reservation.
Many Tail Feathers was born about eighty-five years ago on the Teton river, near what is known as “The Knees, and like many other boys of his time and age, spent his youth as a nomad, the Indian camps being changed from place to place as they were following the buffalo, gathering berries, or furs, or going to and from the trading posts of the Hudsons Bay company; or in different winter camps along the Montana river courses. Thus he at all times led a carefree and joyful life, except at those times when war parties would return with the sad news of the death of some relative or friend.
As a child, he had playthings somewhat the same as other children have today. He had bows and arrows, odd shaped pieces of bone which he called horses, pieces of flint and perhaps a few trinkets which some relative had secured from the early white settlers.
In a short time he became very proficient with the bow and arrow, and upon reaching manhood and becoming a member of one of the warrior societies, went forth on his first war and plunder parties armed only with the bow and arrows. He was 10 years of age, or thereabouts when he first saw a gun. Print this post