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Prior to the entry of the non-Indians into the present day Fort Peck
Reservation area, the region had been occupied by several bands of
Assiniboine Indians, and had generally been thought of by non-Indians as
a very wild and unsettled area.
The Assiniboines were in the larger region as early as the late 1600’s.
Western bands were visited by the Hudson Bay Company (HBC) explorer
Henry Kelsey in the Saskatchewan River County in the late 1690’s, and
already their seasonal round included forays as far south as the
Missouri River provided important wintering grounds, always rich enough
to make the winter prosperous, without threats of starvation.
The Assiniboines were veteran middle men in the fur trades. The
French-Canadian explorer, La Verendreye, accompanied a regular annual
trade expedition by eastern Assiniboines to the Mandan Villages in 1731.
As the Assiniboines gradually moved more and more of their population
onto the prairies out of the woodlands, they continued to ally
themselves with Crees, Chippewas, and Monsoni against the Sioux,
Arikaras, Cheyennes, Blackfeet, and Gros Ventres. The Assiniboines had
previously been tied to the HBC trade, but gradually accepted the French
peddlers from Quebec, who eventually became the Northwest Company,
especially when HBC displaced Assiniboines as the canoe men for the
journeys down to the Bay. The HBC also moved to set up inland posts to
the competition, and the Assiniboines became adept at playing one
company against the other. As early as 1770’s independent traders, some
out of Spanish St. Louis, began operating in the Mandan Village, the
major inter-tribal trade center on the northern plains since long before
the 1730’s. The Assiniboines were pragmatists, who saw these villages
where the trade fairs operated as a resource to be exploited. The
Assiniboines sometimes attacked the merchants, the Mandan themselves,
and their clients (other northern plains tribes); at other times, they
suspended the warfare with pipes in order to trade themselves. The
competition for access to the villages and the overall flow of goods
became the focus of Assiniboine attention crucial to their own position
in the region. Thereby the Assiniboines attempted to control the lands
between the HBC and the NWC posts on the Assiniboine River and the
Mandan villages, predominately the Souris River Valley.
This presence was successful, but smallpox in 1780-81 and again in
1800-03 began to undermine physically the hold the Assiniboines were
able to maintain. By the 1790’s, Assiniboines already realized that
their western wintering grounds were to be the next regions into which
the European trade would expand. The Lewis and Clark Expedition
(1803-04) provided information that was of primary use to St. Louis
trading companies, traders whose eyes were turned westward. Initial
attempts to extend trade to the Blackfeet failed mostly because of
hatred engendered among the Blackfeet by the Lewis and Clark Expedition
which killed several Blackfeet. Extending forts above Fort Clark in the
Mandan Villages, especially to the confluence of the Missouri and the
Yellowstone, became a goal which took almost 15 years to accomplish.
In 1826, agent for the Upper Missouri River, Peter Wilson, signed many
of the first treaties with upper Missouri groups, one of which was the
Assiniboines, who had come into trade at the Mandan Villages. One year
later, James Kipp built a post at the mouth of the White Earth River to
trade specifically with Assiniboines. The next year the newly formed
American Fur Company began building Fort Union at the confluence of the
two great rivers, also to trade with the Assiniboine. Fort Union became
the major institution serving the Assiniboine bands became fur and hide
producers and roamed the regions between the Saskatchewan River north,
Missouri River branch lands to the south, the Cypress Hills and Milk
River to the west, and the White Earth River the east.
There was little or no non-Indian presence in the region other than what
coalesced around fur trade posts. The coming of the steamboats, railroad
surveys, and eventually gold discoveries initialed migration of the
non-Indians. In 1851, representatives of Assiniboines and some bands of
Sioux gathers at the Fort Laramie Treaty Council and boundaries for land
were delineated between the tribes present and chiefs named the day
lands of the Fort Peck Reservation were included in the Assiniboine
lands as outlined in the Fort Laramie Treaty. Four years later the
government railroad survey expedition of the Washington Territorial
Governor, Isaac Stevens met at Fort Benton and designated the entire
tier of present day northern Montana the “Blackfeet Hunting Ground,” for
the Blackfeet and other Indians. Gros Ventre were present, but
Assiniboine were not. These overlapping designated jurisdictions between
the treaties remained unresolved for many years.
Warfare between Teton Sioux bands and the U.S. evolved into the Great
Sioux War, fought mostly in the Powder River country to the south of the
Yellowstone. The Bozeman Trail forts were removed as a stipulation of
the second Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. The Sioux victory in this
conflict delineated the boundary of the Great Sioux Reservation,
established agencies, and guaranteed annuities to all Teton and Yanktons.
The Sioux bands within the lands of the Milk River Agency, however, had
expanded their hunting grounds north and west as part of the military
assertiveness that accompanied the Great Sioux War. As a result, none of
these peripheral groups wanted to go to agencies in the southeast for
their (in Dakota Territory) annuities. They wanted rations in the region
in which they had come to reside, and could not see what the difficulty
was. During the Great Sioux War (1866-68), the numbers of Yanktonai-Yankton
and Teton in the Red Water and Powder River country south of the
Missouri increased. In 1868, agencies were established for Blackfeet on
the Teton River and all others in the east part of the Blackfeet Hunting
Ground were placed under jurisdiction of Milk River Agency. During this
same time, Yanktonai Sioux were referred to Milk River Agency and tried
to edge themselves into a position to receive rations.
This period in which the Assiniboines attempted to broker access for
Sioux willing to meet their conditions. At this same time, some
Assiniboines returned the Flat Pipe to the Gros Ventres which resulted
bound upper Assiniboines to their former enemies. One report indicated
that Assiniboines gave women at the time the alliance was formed access
to the horses of the Gros Ventres kinsmen, the Arapahoe. This is the
same time in which Swing Thigh’s Yanktonias and more of the Sisseton
Wahpeton became intermarried with several Assiniboine bands. These
alliances represented the results of so many different Indians being
within a single agency’s jurisdiction, each competing for attention and
favor. By the spring of 1871, 500 lodges of Sioux were competing with
other resident Assiniboines, Gros Ventre, and River Crow already under
jurisdiction of the Milk River Agency. Badgered by the Yankton into
warfare with upper Assiniboine bands, Standing Buffalo was killed in
1871; a proportion of is followers migrated on into Canada, while some
stayed among the Assiniboine. Since most of the Sioux would not leave,
the annuities available were not enough to go around. The Superintendent
of Indian Affairs for Montana requested that a delegation of Sioux be
sent to Washington for the purpose of effecting their removal from the
Agency’s jurisdiction. In June of 1872, Agent Simmons took Sioux
delegation down the Missouri and off to Washington.
Before departing, Simmons was able to initiate the move of part of his
charges to a new agency at Fort Peck, with others sent to a sub-agency
at Fort Belknap, abandoning Fort Browning, which had been the location
of the Milk River Agency (outside present day Chinook, Montana.) A total
of 8,412 individuals were relocated to the vicinity of Fort Peck Agency,
and 5,089 to Fort Belknap.
The new Fort Peck Indian Agency consequently was established in 1871 to
serve the Assiniboine and Sioux Indians. The Agency was located within
the old stockade of Fort Peck, purchased from traders Durfee and Peck.
The fate of the Indian people within the Agency with little ability to
protect its charges, however, was evidenced in the atrocities by
non-Indians against Indians. In the Cypress Hills in 1872 forty lodges
of Assiniboine were massacred by wolf and hide hunters. Although the
action was condemned, the massacre’s perpetrators were never tried. This
created an atmosphere in which Indians, other than in occasional war
parties set against their traditional Indian enemies, kept close to
their agencies. In 1878, the Fort Peck Agency was relocated to its
present day location in Poplar because the original agency was located
on a flood plain, suffering floods each spring.
Attempts by the U.S. Government to take the Black Hills and bind the
Sioux to agencies along the Missouri in the 1820’s resulted in warfare,
reopening the issues that had been central to the Great Sioux War
(1866-68). As part of the Sioux agreed to come into the agencies, part
chose to resist. Army efforts to bring in the other Sioux war (1866-68).
As part of the Sioux agreed to come into the agencies, part chose to
resist. Army efforts to bring in the other Sioux (characterized as
“hostiles”) led battles in the Rosebud country, and culminated in the
battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876. As the victors dispersed, Sitting
Bull led followers north into the Red Water country, where contact with
the Sioux of the Fort Peck Agency kept the Hunk papas and assorted
Tetons supplied. When military pressure increased, Sitting Bull led most
of his followers into Canada in 1877. The military presence increased in
an effort to induce Sitting Bull to surrender. Camp Poplar (located at
the Fort Peck Agency) was established in 1880. Finally, without supplies
and barely tolerated by Indians in the area of present day southern
Saskatchewan, Sitting Bull came in to surrender at Fort Buford on July
19, 1881. Some of his Hunk papa’s stragglers intermarried with others at
Fort Peck and resided in the Chelsea community.
The early 1880’s brought many changes and much suffering. By 1881, all
the buffalo were gone form the region. By 1883-84, over 300 Assiniboine
died of starvation at the Wolf Point sub-agency when medical attention
and food were in short supply. Rations were not sufficient for needs,
and suffering reservation-wide was exasperated by particularly severe
winters. The early reservation traumas were complicated by frequent
changes in agents, few improvements in services, and a difficult
existence for the agency’s tribes. Negotiations the winter of 1886-87
and ratified in the Act of May 1, 1888, established modern boundaries.
Also in 1887, Congress passed the Dawes Act, which provided the general
legislation for dividing the hitherto tribally-owned Indian reservations
in to parcels of land to be given to individuals. During the turn of the
century, as the non-Indian proceeded to inhabit the boundary areas of
the Reservation, the prime grazing and farmland areas situated within
the Reservation drew their attention. As more and more homesteaders
moved into the surrounding area, pressure was placed on Congress to open
up the Fort Peck Reservation to homesteading. Finally, the Congressional
Act of May 30, 1908,
commonly known as the Fort Peck Allotment Act, was passed. The Act
called for the survey and allotment of lands now embraced by the Fort
Peck Indian Reservation and the sale and dispersal of all the surplus
lands after allotment each eligible Indian was to receive 320 acres of
grazing land and addition to some timber and irrigatable land. Parcels
of land were also withheld for Agency, school and church use. Also, land
was reserved for use by the Great Northern (Burlington Northern)
Railroad. All lands not allotted or reserved were declared surplus and
were ready to be disposed of under the general provisions of the
homestead, desert land, mineral and town site laws. In 1913,
approximately 1,348,408 acres of unalloted or tribal unreserved lands
were available for settlement by the non-Indian homesteaders. Although
provisions were made to sell the remaining land not disposed of in the
first five years, it was never completed. Several allotments were made
before 1930’s.
Educational history on the Reservation includes government boarding
school program which was begun in 1877 and finally discontinued in the
1920’s. Missionary schools were run periodically by the Mormons and
Presbyterians in the first decades of the 20th century, but with minimal
success. The Fort Peck Reservation is served by five public school
districts, which are responsible for elementary and secondary education.
In addition, one independent post-secondary institution is located on
the Reservation. The Fort Peck Community College (FPCC), which offers
courses of study leading to an Associate of Arts/Science degree in
General Studies, distance learning degrees offer Baccalaureate Degrees
in Applied Business Management, Elementary Education, and Information
technology; also offered is the Master’s Degree in Education. FPCC was
granted accreditation by the Northwest Association of Schools and
Colleges, Commissions on Colleges, in December of 1991. Education is a
high priority for the Fort Peck Tribes with a tribally operated
Headstart program, a tribal scholarship program and Fort Peck Community
College.
Fort Peck Reservation is home to two separate Indian nations, each
composed of numerous bands and divisions. The Sioux divisions of
Sisseton/Wahpetons, the Yanktonais, and the Teton Hunk papas are all
represented. The Assiniboine bands of Wadopana (Canoe Paddlers) and Red
Bottom are represented.
The Reservation is located in the extreme northeast corner of Montana,
on the north side of the Missouri River. The Reservation is 110 miles
long and 40 miles wide, encompassing 2,093,318 acres (approximately
3,200 square miles). Of this, approximately 378,000 acres individually
allotted Indian lands. The total of Indian owned lands is about 926,000
acres.
There are an estimated 10,000 enrolled tribal members, of whom
approximately 6,000 reside on or near the Reservation near the Missouri
River and the major transportation routes, U.S. Highway 2 and Amtrak
routing in the tracks of the Burlington Northern railroad. Fort Peck
Tribes adopted their first written constitution in 1927. The Tribes
voted to reject a new constitution under the Indian Reorganization Act
in 1934. The original constitution was amended in 1952, and completely
rewritten and adopted in 1960. The present constitution remains one of
the few modern tribal constitutions that still include provisions for
general councils, the traditional tribal type of government.
The official governing body of the Fort Peck Tribes is the Tribal
Executive Board, composed of twelve voting members, plus a chairman,
vice chairman, secretary-accountant, and sergeant-at-arms. All members
of the governing body, except the secretary-accountant, are elected at
large every two years. The secretary-accountant appointed for a two-year
term by the twelve member board.
Since the 1950’s the Fort Peck Tribes have undertaken extensive
industrial and mineral development. The Tribally owned Assiniboine and
Sioux Tribal Industries (ASTI) is the largest private employer in
Montana. Fort Peck was the first of the United States tribes to develop
jointly and wholly owned oil wells.
The Fort Peck Tribes are constantly building for a better future in the
21st century. |
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