The Blackfoot (also called Blackfeet) group of Native North Americans includes the Piegan, the Blood, and the Blackfoot proper (also called Northern Blackfoot). At their height in the early 19th century, the Blackfoot controlled a vast territory in the United States and Canada from Montana to Alberta and Saskatchewan. As warriors they were feared by Indians and non-Indians alike.

Society and culture

The Blackfoot, who were named by other tribes for the color of their moccasins, probably once lived in eastern North America. They most likely moved west on foot, using dogs to haul their possessions. By the early 18th century, they were living on the open grasslands of the Saskatchewan Valley. They obtained most of their food by hunting buffalo, which they killed by driving herds off cliffs.

Sometime before 1750, the Blackfoot obtained two goods that changed their world—horses and guns. On horseback, Blackfoot men could travel long distances in search of buffalo. Once they found a herd, they could get close enough to kill the animals using bows and arrows or guns.

Like other Plains Indians, the Blackfoot lived in portable cone-shaped tepees made from a wooden frame covered with buffalo hides. Women cleaned the hides and sewed them together to make the tepee covers. Men then painted them with sacred pictures of animals and heavenly bodies.

The Blackfoot spent most of the summer on buffalo hunts. They also hunted deer, elk, and antelope. The rest of the year, they ate dried meat and wild plants, such as turnips, onions, and berries.

History

The Blackfoot first encountered non-Indians when traders came to their territory in the late 18th century. The Indians were friendly to these newcomers until 1806. In that year, the Lewis and Clark Expedition came to explore their territory and killed two of their warriors. For 25 years afterward the Blackfoot considered Americans to be their enemies, and attacked traders, miners, and settlers as they traveled on Western trails.

As more and more Americans came to their lands, the Blackfoot began suffering a series of epidemics of Old World diseases such as smallpox. Non-Indians further weakened the Blackfoot by slaughtering nearly all the buffalo of the Plains. The Blackfoot, who did not want to be farmers, were left without their most important source of food. Nearly 600 died in 1883–84 during what they called “starvation winter.”

Beginning in 1855, the Blackfoot signed a series of treaties with the United States and Canada. Unable to live as buffalo hunters, they agreed to move to reservations. By the end of the 20th century, about 32,000 Blackfoot lived in the United States, mostly in Montana. Another 12,000 lived in Canada, primarily in Alberta.