Blackfeet Indians

[Carl]

Can anyone tell me why the Blackfeet did not participate in the Little Bighorn Battle ?

Thanks

[shatonska]

Guest-Carl said:

Can anyone tell me why the Blackfeet did not participate in the Little Bighorn Battle ?

Thanks

blackfeets where enemies of the lakotas and in those years they where out of the western history for about 40years !
the blackfeet lakota instead , one of the senven part of the lakota nation , where in small numbers at the little big horn fight ,
somewhere i read that Crawler was a blakfeet lakota chief, but i have dout about it , anywhere blacfeet lakota where always togheter with the more numerous hunkpapas !
can someone be more clear ?

[Don Blake]

The Blackfeet proper were, generally speaking, enemies of the Lakota and Cheyenne, and, for good measure, were continually at loggerheads with the Crow, although attempts at rapprochment were made, notably when Sitting Bull moved to Canada following LBH. The Piegan Blackfeet of Montana had suffered badly at the hands of the army in 1870 and beyond occasional raiding, never really threatened the whites. The Blackfeet as a powerful confederacy were much more in evidence in Canada, but even there, the glory years of holding sway over the Canadian Prairies and attempting to 'control' white access to the fur trade were long behind them, thanks to the inevitable outbreaks of European epidemics that spread across the west in the 1830s.

[sonofacavalryman]

The Blackfeet were Lakota, why were they enemies of the Sioux?

[shatonska]

sonofacavalryman said:

The Blackfeet were Lakota, why were they enemies of the Sioux?

The Blackfeet (siksika)you usually hear about are not the blackfeet lakota ( one of the seven division of the lakotas) , The Blackfeet are of algonchian language , were a powerfull nation in the early 1800, enemy of almost every other plain tribe

the blackfeet lakota (shio sapa)were a small division of the sioux , so , different language , different people , these were at the lbh fight

[sonofacavalryman]

Thank you Shatonska, I did not know there were two tribes with the same name. Where were the Algonquian Blackfeet located, especially in relation to the Lakota of the same name.

Son of a Cavalryman

[shatonska]

the classical Blackfeet occupied the northern plains (since 1600 ) much before the lakotas arrived (1800), they were positioned north of the missouri river until alberta in canada , they were a powerfull nation (20.000 ) divided into three divisions , piegan blood and blackfeet , piegan lived in montana , still have a reserve in montana i think , were allied to the atsina gross ventrees ( related to arapahoes) and were enemy of all other nations (crows , shoshones , assiniboine , hidatsa (gross ventrees related to the crows) mandan and others)
they got horses from raids against the shoshones and rifles from canadian traders so they became the terror of the plains but two major smallpox epidemies (1780,1838 ) destroied ther power and influence in the northern plains
blackfeet indian is associated to this tribe

blackfeet lakota is a small division of the lakota (sioux) , only in books about lakotas you can find the explanation of the lakota divisions with the name blackfeet , the name lakota or sioux is used to define the whole nation

[Diane Merkel]

I was very excited because I found that we have transcriptions of the 1907-08 census of the Blackfeet, and I knew that some Blackfeet had been at LBH. I wrote to Ephriam about it, and he broke the news to me (gently, kind soul) that the census I had was for the other Blackfeet, who were in central Montana near the mountains, not the Lakota.

It is confusing . . . .

[Dark Cloud]

Wasn't the way that was settled was to refer to the Lakota tribe as Blackfoot Sioux, and the separate tribe as Blackfeet? I thought that was how it shook out.

[Diane Merkel]

That would be helpful, if true. It seems that it's a common confusion. The following is from the Omaha Public Library. They couldn't even keep the name straight for the first sentence (emphasis added), and it seems they have a subject-verb agreement problem. By the end of the paragraph, they've switched again!

The Blackfoot Tribe

The Siksika, or Blackfeet, are an important tribe numbering about 6000. At one time they ranged from Yellowstone to the North Saskatchewan. Nineteen hundred of them are now gathered on a reservation in Montana, the rest being in the adjacent Canadian province. Associated with them are two smaller tribes, the Arapaho Grosventres and the Sarsi. The Blackfoot tribe sent 22 delegates to the congress.

Source: www.omaha.lib.ne.us/transmiss/congress/blackfoot.html

I thought they were called Blackfeet whether used in singular or plural case (or is that Blackfoot)?

[sonofacavalryman]

Thanks to all for your explanations...I think. ;D I find the different tribes and their origins quite interesting.

Son of a Cavalryman

[weaselfat]

Jan 23, 2005 11:14:01 GMT -6 shatonska said:

Guest-Carl said:

Can anyone tell me why the Blackfeet did not participate in the Little Bighorn Battle ?

Thanks

blackfeets where enemies of the lakotas and in those years they where out of the western history for about 40years !
the blackfeet lakota instead , one of the senven part of the lakota nation , where in small numbers at the little big horn fight ,
somewhere i read that Crawler was a blakfeet lakota chief, but i have dout about it , anywhere blacfeet lakota where always togheter with the more numerous hunkpapas !
can someone be more clear ?

[noggy]

While few in numbers at LBH (smallest of the Lakota bands, I think?), they had the guy with the coolest name; Kill Eagle. I mean, come on...you can't beat that.

As for confusion regarding names:
"Sihásapa is the Lakota word for "Blackfoot", whereas Siksiká has the same meaning in the Blackfoot language. As a result, the Sihásapa have the same English name as the Blackfoot Confederacy, and the nations are sometimes confused with one another."


Noggy