FORT BELKNAP HISTORY
The Belknap Reservation is home for both the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre tribes, which have different historical backgrounds. The Assiniboine were the northern most group of the seven divisions of Yanktonai Sioux that resided in the region between the Mississippi River and Lake Superior. It is believed that they split from the other divisions into a separate tribe in the late 1500's or early 1600's and went to live in Lake of the Woods and lake Nipigon country of Canada. From there, they allied with the Cree and like most of the other plains tribes, began to move slowly westward, displacing the Blackfeet in the Lake Winnipeg country of the northern prairies. The tribe then temporarily divided, with one group going to northern Canada to trap furbearers and the other staying on the prairies to hunt bison with the Cree.
Before 1774, the Assiniboine divided again, with some staying in the area west of Lake Manitoba and others going south and west up the Missouri River. This second division was much more settled than the first, and the establishment of the U.S.-Canada boundary in 1818 helped it. By 1820, the Assiniboine were firmly established in northwestern North Dakota and northeastern Montana where the Yellowstone River met the Missouri. The deadly smallpox first ravaged the Assiniboine in 1780, and in 1838 the tribe was reduced again, from 1200 lodges (or families) to 400 lodges. It was a much smaller tribe of Assiniboine who stayed north of the Montana portion of the Missouri River.
Their small population encouraged them to ally with the Cree because of their common enemy, the Blackfeet, who had been joined by the Gros Ventre. By the mid-1500's, the Assiniboine had established themselves as adaptable Plains people who were excellent Buffalo hunters and horsemen. Their small numbers, though, did not permit them to be a powerful tribe on the Northern Plains, and they quickly agreed to the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851, which have them standing with the federal government and provided territory in which to hunt buffalo.
The Gros Ventre are an offshoot of the Algonquian Speaking Arapaho believed to be the northernmost group of five related Arapaho Tribes. They were also known as the Atsina--the Gros Ventre of the Prairie. The term Gros Ventre means the 'belly' or 'gut' people. The Blackfeet and the Shoshone also had similar names for the Gros Ventre, but there is no evidence anywhere to explain the name.
In the late 1600's the Gros Ventre split from the Arapaho tribes. Whites first met the Gros Ventre in the upper reaches of Saskatchewan River in the Eagle hills country of the northern prairies. No one is certain what happened with the Gros Ventre for the next hundred years, but by the late 1700's they were found with the Blackfeet on the northern plains. Many whites, including Lewis and Clark, actually thought that they were Blackfeet because most by then spoke Blackfeet as well as their own language.
The Gros Ventre were decimated by smallpox, having first contacted in 1780. Shortly thereafter, following a major confrontation with the Cree and Assiniboine, the small tribe was forced from its extensive northern plains territory to a region that included the south fork of the Milk River and nearby portions of the Missouri. To claim their new home, the (Gros Ventre had to displace the Shoshone, Kootenai Flathead and Pend d'Oreille.
By the 1820's the Gros Ventre split, with one group remaining within the Milk River basin and the other traveling south to join their Arapaho relatives in the Southwest. Only five years later, the southern splinter group returned. On there return in 1832, they participated in major skirmish with fur traders in Pierre's Hole on the west side of the Teton's, in which three Gros Ventre Chiefs were killed.
Smallpox again devastated the Milk River Gros Ventre in 1829. When the northern plains people contracted smallpox again in 1838, the Gros Ventre weren't affected because they had built up immunity. By 1833 the two Gros Ventre divisions were united again. By 1840, with so many Plains tribes incapacitated by smallpox the Gros Ventre found themselves with the Blackfeet in control of the eastern Montana plains, their only enemy being the Crows to the south. They roamed across the plains in the 1840's and 1850's with the buffalo as their primary source of food and the center of their culture.
In 1855 the Gros Ventre signed, as part of the Blackfeet nation, the Treaty of Friendship with Isaac Stevens. This was the beginning of a different life for the Gros Ventre. The treaty called for annuities to be distributed at Fort Benton, and the agency there became their focal point. After 1859, when the first steamboat arrived bringing trade goods and whiskey, their subsistence culture on the plains waned quickly. Alcohol soon ravaged the tribe and warfare ensued between the piegans(Blackfeet) and the Gros Ventre. By 1861 the Gros Ventre and Blackfeet were becoming bitter enemies and in 1867 the Gros Ventre lost a battle with the Blackfeet. The Gros Ventre were on their own and they began to form alliances with the River Crow and Assiniboine. By 1870 the Gros Ventre and Assiniboine had become allies and were living together primarily in the Milk River Country.
After 1867 the Gros Ventre never returned to the Fort Benton area because of the Blackfeet. Their annuities were distributed downstream on the Milk River at the newly created Fort Belknap Agency, named after President Grants Secretary of War. A few years later the federal government tried to move the Gros Ventre to Fort Peck, but the tribe refused. By 1878 the Gros Ventre had settled near the Fort Belknap Agency and south in the Little Rockes, relying almost entirely on federal rations and distributions since the buffalo had nearly disappeared.
The Fort Belknap Agency, having come into existence in order to protect the Gros Ventre and the Assiniboine from more powerful tribes soon served a huge geographic area and was embroiled in many intertribal issues. Since the Agency was unable to protect the assigned tribes, Congress in 1866 authorized the Northwest Indian Commission to negotiate with the Sioux, Assiniboine, Gros Ventre, and Blackfeet to persuade them to give up their land, which stretched from the Continental Divide to the eastern border of Montana Territory, south to the Missouri and north to the Canadian Border. With no buffalo, the federal government wanted the tribes to lead a farming life and to make their domain available for homesteading. A treaty was ratified in May 1888 from which the Gros Ventre and the Assiniboine received $1.5 million and the “opportunity” to live on the same reservation encompassing 840,000 acres of prairie and foothills. A new agency was established down river at Fort Belknap Agency’s present location. At the time there were approximately 1,000 to 1,200 Gros Ventre and between 800 and 1,100 Assiniboine.
The Next major assault on the Gros Ventre and Assiniboine land base began in 1884, when gold prospectors explored the Little Rockies on the southern end of the reservation. A succession of Fort Belknap agents in the 1880’s realized that there was no way to keep these trespassers out. At the same time the agents saw farming programs on the reservations failing. No one seemed much interested in planting crops and the weather was abominable. Besides, whiskey had completely altered the lives of both tribes.
By 1895 with the federal program completely failing the tribes the government appointed a three-man commission, headed by George Bird Grinnell to negotiate with the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre for a small piece of land seven miles long and four miles wide in the Little Rockies. This was land the commission believed the Indian couldn’t use anyway because they didn’t have the capability to mine the gold found there. Although the commission met resistance the tribes eventually gave in and the government stole this parcel of land for $360,000. This agreement was ratified in June 1896.
An important footnote to this agreement was that the Grinnell Commission asked if the tribes wanted the reservation allotted and the resounding response was “no”. The answer delayed allotment on the reservation until 1924.
The 1893 land sales monies didn’t go directly to the tribes but to the Bureau of Indian Affairs to help make reservation improvements. Over the next seven years, notorious Indian Agents who dominated tribal affairs through the spoils system did nothing to help the tribes of Fort Belknap but succeeded in consuming the money set aside for the Indians.
In 1904 conditions began to improve, partly as, a result of the new agent. Major William R. Logan, who convinced the combined tribes to develop a government. A few years later, the Supreme Court handed down The Winters Doctrine decision, which focused on the Fort Belknap tribes’ Milk River Water rights. The Winters Doctrine stated that the federal government owned the land and water on Indian reservations, therefore was responsible for Indians and for helping them make good use of their water. This doctrine established an Indian water rights precedent that is still followed throughout the country.
Acculturation through agriculture continued as the government policy. Finally in March 1921 an allotment plan for the reservation was put forth by the tribes and the local BIA agent but wasn’t approved by the Washington office of the BIA until 1924. When it was passed, each Indian allottee received 40 acres or irrigable land and 320 acres of non-irrigable land. Timberland and some recreational sites on the edges of the Little Rockies remained tribal property. The latter included the headwaters of Big Warm Creek, Mission Canyon, and The Snake Butte Spring country in the middle of the reservation. No surplus lands were put up for sale to non-Indians.
The same year that the Merriam Report was published Montana Senator Burton Wheeler visited the reservation in 1928. He was appalled at the poverty, malnutrition, disease, and it is reported that this visit motivated him to co-sponsor the Indian Reorganization act of 1934. Meanwhile, attempts were being made to retrieve some of the Jefferson National Forest that had been given away in 1888 and 1895 agreements with the U.S. government. The Regional Forester of the U.S. Forest Service objected on the grounds that gold mining could best continue under Forest Service ownership and not under that of the tribes.
The Fort Belknap tribes drifted into the Depression years. The St. Paul’s Mission School in Hays Burned in 1931 and the only educational facility that remained was the boarding school at Fort Belknap. Depression relief programs did help people improve range and forest conditions, but huge fires in 1936 destroyed much of the timber reserves and most of the grazing lands.
Two Indian Livestock associations were established in the 1930’s and the government purchased cattle to build the herds. The rage fires and drought decreased the herds by 60%, with only 2,400 animals remaining in 1938. In spite of these hardships, federal relief programs and the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act brought relative prosperity to Fort Belknap compared to previous decades.
From 1940 to 1960 some tribal lands were irrigated, but with little long-term success. Ranching was emphasized, but most of the allotted tribal lands continued to be leased to non-Indians, a situation that continues to this day. The Termination Era didn’t affect Fort Belknap. There were approximately 729 Assinibione and 1,013 Gros Ventre in1947 and practically all of them were on some form of relief. Blaine and Phillips counties didn’t want any form of termination; officials feared it would bankrupt them. Further, Fort Belknap lands were not seen as significantly income-producing.
Throughout the ‘60s and ‘70s, tribal leadership at Fort Belknap was preoccupied with unemployment and the lack of a major natural resource.