Marias Massacre

Marias Massacre
Conflict	Marias Massacre
Partof	Indian Wars
Date	January 23, 1870
Place	Marias River region, Montana Territory
Result	Destruction of a Piegan Blackfeet camp; disputed casualty figures
Combatant1	United States Army
Combatant2	Piegan Blackfeet
Commander1	Major Eugene Baker
Commander2	Heavy Runner (absent)
Strength1	~200
Strength2	~200 (noncombatants)

Marias Massacre

The Marias Massacre was an 1870 attack by a detachment of the United States Army led by Major Eugene Baker on a Piegan Blackfeet camp in the Marias River region of the Montana Territory. The engagement, which occurred during the broader series of conflicts collectively known as the Indian Wars, resulted in the deaths of many Piegan people, including women, children, and elders, and provoked national debate involving figures such as President Ulysses S. Grant and institutions like the War Department. The event has been the subject of contested casualty counts, contemporary press coverage in outlets like the New York Herald, and ongoing historical reinterpretation by scholars and tribal historians.

Background

In the late 1860s and 1870s the Piegan Blackfeet lived amid escalating tensions with Euro-American settlers, Fort Benton, and Fort Shaw as transcontinental migration accelerated along routes tied to the Mormon Trail and the northern Pacific Railway Surveys. Treaties such as the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 and subsequent 1860s treaty negotiations failed to stabilize relations, while episodes like the Marias River skirmish and raids in the Milk River valley intensified calls in Washington, D.C. for punitive expeditions. Regional actors including R. I. Dodge and civilian agents at the Office of Indian Affairs reported raids and sporadic killings that shaped military responses ordered from the Department of Dakota and relayed through the War Department and commanders at posts such as Fort Shaw.

Prelude and Causes

The immediate pretext for the expedition was the killing of Malcolm Clarke’s brother and other isolated incidents reported by settlers and traders operating near Cut Bank and along the Milk River. Army reports and communications involving officers like Captain William H. Powell and Major Baker emphasized retribution and "pacification," reflecting policies advocated by congressional committees and press editorials in publications including the St. Louis Globe-Democrat and the New York Tribune. Misidentification of a friendly Piegan band, intelligence failures by scouts often drawn from Crow people and civilian guides, and a climate shaped by the aftermath of engagements such as the Battle of the Little Bighorn era tensions contributed to the decision to pursue and attack a camp thought to be responsible for frontier depredations.

The Massacre (Event)

On January 23, 1870 Major Eugene Baker led approximately 200 soldiers from posts including Fort Shaw and Fort Ellis into the Marias country. Guided by Indian scouts and militia, the column struck a winter camp on Starvation Flats believed to be hostile. The soldiers attacked at dawn, encountering a group led nominally by Chief Heavy Runner, who was not present; the camp was associated with Blackfeet leaders such as Chief Piegan and families tied to the Badger Creek band. Contemporary dispatches from Baker and his subordinates, as well as eyewitness accounts recorded by journalists and engineers from surveying parties, described rapid cavalry charges, volleys from infantry, and the burning of lodges—actions paralleling other punitive expeditions in the Great Plains like operations led by General Philip Sheridan in earlier years.

Immediate Aftermath and Casualties

Army returns and later investigations produced widely divergent casualty figures, with Baker’s report minimizing numbers while survivors, tribal oral histories, and some journalists reported higher counts including a substantial number of women and children from the Piegan Blackfeet community. The St. Paul Pioneer Press and other newspapers published casualty estimates and narratives that fed Congressional inquiries led by committees concerned with Indian affairs. Survivors fled toward agencies such as the Blackfeet Reservation near Browning, Montana and sought assistance from agents of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, while tribesmen engaged with leaders including Chief Joseph and other Plains figures in the fraught regional politics of the era.

Legal and Military Responses

The incident prompted correspondence between the War Department, President Ulysses S. Grant, and territorial officials; formal court-martial action against Major Baker did not occur, though public outcry produced investigations by Congressional committees and scrutiny from advocates like Carl Schurz and journalists associated with the New York Tribune. Military doctrine and frontier policy debates in the period involved figures such as Secretary of War William W. Belknap and impacted subsequent orders governing expeditions from units stationed at posts including Fort Keogh and Fort Buford. Civil suits and legal remedies were largely unavailable to the Piegan survivors within the legal architecture shaped by rulings from courts such as the United States Supreme Court in Indian affairs cases of the era.

Long-term Impact and Memory

The massacre contributed to long-term dispossession and demographic decline among the Piegan and broader Blackfeet Confederacy, influencing federal policy toward reservations, annuities administered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and assimilationist pressures associated with institutions like Carlisle Indian Industrial School. Memorialization efforts have included tribal remembrance, commemorative markers near Marias River, and scholarship linking the event to patterns of violence epitomized by other incidents such as the Sand Creek Massacre and the Washita Massacre. Local histories in Pondera County, Montana and works by historians at institutions like the Montana Historical Society have kept the incident in regional memory, while descendants and tribal historians continue cultural preservation through oral history projects and tribal archives.

Historiography and Controversies

Historiography has evolved from 19th-century military reports and sensational newspaper accounts to revisionist scholarship by historians such as Ely S. Parker-era commentators, tribal scholars, and academics publishing in journals affiliated with universities like University of Montana and Montana State University. Debates center on casualty figures, intent versus accident in Baker’s orders, and the role of intelligence failures and settler rhetoric; works contrast primary sources including Army returns, letters from officers, Congressional testimony, and tribal oral traditions preserved by elders of the Blackfeet Nation. Controversies also involve public commemoration, the naming of battle sites, and interpretive authority shared among tribal governments, state agencies, and federal institutions such as the Smithsonian Institution and the National Archives and Records Administration.

Category:1870 in Montana Territory Category:Massacres in the United States