Forgotten History: The 1870 Massacre of the Blackfeet In Montana Territory

Jan. 23, 1870, Major Eugene Baker didn’t much care whether the Blackfeet people in the camp his men were surveying were warriors or not, whether they were peaceful or not, “That makes no difference, one band or another of them; they are all Piegans [Blackfeet] and we will attack them.” 

Baker was a fast-rising senior officer in the northwest and on this day he was in charge of three companies of cavalry, while there had been hostility between the Blackfoot Confederacy, comprised of the Blackfoot, Blood, and Piegan tribes, and the white settlers in the past and the recent killing of a White trader named Malcolm Clarke had inflamed settlers, while there was at this time no open hostilities. General Philip Sheridan had ordered Baker to take his men to find the killer of Clarke, a Blackfoot named “Little Owl’.

In the hunt for Little Owl scouts led Baker to a semi-permanent camp on the Marias River (also known as the Bear River). Little Owl and other known mountain chiefs were not in the camp, and the scouts informed Baker of this but he still had his men spread out along a ridge with the high ground for shooting, When the leader of the camp, Heavy Runner saw them he approached Baker with papers from Sheridan stating the band was peaceful and to be left alone. Baker promptly had Heavy Runner shot by the scout Joe Cobell and ordered his men to fire on the camp.

This assault caught the Blackfeet in the camp completely unprepared and they were defenseless. The shooters hailed down bullets penetrating the lodges, then the men rode in and set fire to the lodges. They shot everyone they could find or trapped them in the lodges and set them on fire.

The cavalry captured some 140 of Heavy Runner’s band and stole 300 horses. They set fire to the entire camp and destroyed as many supplies as possible.

Baker then discovered the survivors had smallpox and released them without food or shelter in the terrible winter conditions, reported to be minus 30 degrees, and in the end, there were few survivors. By historical investigation, it is estimated 90 women and 50 children were killed in the attack and with starvation and hyperthermia another 140 died.

The massacre was generally unreported in the newspapers for over two months, and then it was given scant coverage. Other reports did reach Washington D.C. and there were calls for investigation; however Commanding General of the Plains William Tecumseh Sherman deflected a public inquiry by silencing the protests of General Alfred Sully, the Bureau of Indian Affairs superintendent of Montana Indians, and Lieutenant William Pease, the Piegan Indian Agent who had reported the damning body count.

With little reporting and a complete whitewash by superiors, Baker stayed in command for another decade and the massacre got buried until indigenous people began to press for true history.

For many years, students and faculty from Blackfeet Community College have held an annual memorial on January 23 at the site. One year they placed 217 stones at the site to commemorate the victims as counted by Joe Kipp.

In 2010, the Baker Massacre Memorial was erected at the site.

 Photo: 

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/soldiers-massacre-the-wrong-camp-of-indians

https://www.legendsofamerica.com/na-mariasmassacre/

https://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/sunday/blackfeet-remember-montana-s-greatest-indian-massacre/article_daca1094-4484-11e1-918e-001871e3ce6c.html