Blackfeet Sorrow Introduction

Blackfeet Sorrow Crooked Agents, Whiskey

Traders, and Land Grafters

Introduction

Hollywood has done a great injustice to the

American Indians by their portrayals of Indians

in the 19th century as savages and early 20th century

as ignorant, backward people holding up the civilization

of America. The United States Government and State

of Montana have also done the Indians an injustice by

brainwashing Indian children in public schools, and

government schools by distorting Indian history.

The documented truth is contained in this account

of the Blackfeet Indians, who signed a treaty in 1855

to allow passage of settlers to Oregon Territory through

Blackfoot Confederacy lands, and opened the door to

hell.

The body count alone is staggering; at the beginning of

the colonization of North America it is estimated there

were 10 million Native people living on the continent,

and by the year 1900 there were only 250,000 Indians

left alive. I hope to make the account a human story

of a forward thinking people who had a regular socio-

political-religious organization when they met the

white people. We must keep in mind that entire tribal

groups have been exterminated.

The Blackfeet [Piegans] tried hard to get along with

their white neighbors, who pillaged and plundered the

Indians and their resources at every opportunity. The

scalping of Indians and taking the scalps to town was a

custom in Montana Territory by the gold miners, who

invaded Blackfoot Territory set aside for the Indians in

the 1855 Treaty. The gold is what drew the miners to

Blackfoot Territory but it was the land and water that

kept them. Settlers, stockmen, farmers, government

agents, traders, contractors, politicians, pimps and

whores made up frontier civilization, but few of its

virtues and all of its vices followed the whites to

Blackfoot Territory.

The border-whites were and are the Indians great nemesis

since they view the Indians land and resources as "legitimate

prey" and decided to take it by any means available, including

manipulating the plenary powers [absolute] of Congress over

the Indians and their resources. That is what is behind the

federal Indian policies of extermination, removal, assimilation,

and land cession bills of the Montana politicians.

Incredibly the Blackfeet Indians still have land and mineral

claims that are in the process of adjudication and negotiations

that will ultimately decide the fate of the Blackfeet Indians.

It is my hope that the reader will take away from this publication

a new respect for the courage and intelligence of the Blackfeet

Indians, who have survived a holocaust. The next stage of

Blackfoot development is to put the reservation and tribe

back together again, to find our common destiny.