Well mounted, Lord of the Northern Rockies. Painting by Karl Bodmer
The American Mountain Men who penetrated the Upper Missouri River Country in the 1820s in search of beaver pelts called them Bug’s Boys — children of the devil. Well they might, for the warriors of the Blackfoot Confederacy were the ultimate badasses of the Northern Rockies. And they surely gave the Mountain Men nine kinds of hell.
David J. Silverman, in his new book Thundersticks, devotes a chapter to explaining why.
What it boils down to is the Blackfoot dominance of the gun trade, which gave them an edge in armaments over their tribal rivals, mainly the Shoshone, the Crow and the Cree. The Blackfoot worked assiduously to keep their enemies away from sources of arms and the sources of arms away from their enemies.
Maintaining their trade in firearms required peltries, for that was the currency of exchange for guns, powder and shot. They traded extensively with the Hudson’s Bay Company in Canada, the Northwest Company, and eventually with Americans, principally out of Fort Benton. Their enmity with American trappers was primarily based on their entirely rational consideration that the Mountain Men were interlopers and poachers in their territory. The Mountain Men were looting Blackfoot resource wealth, and they weren’t having it.
Inevitably, conflict created a cycle of violence, a feud, essentially of the same nature as their ongoing intertribal battles with other native peoples. Except that killing Americans tended to bring a big haul of furs and firearms…
The Blackfoot’s intertribal battles were no mere showy coup-counting displays of courage, no mere horse raids. One battle with the Cree left 200 of their enemies dead, which puts the fight on the scale of the Little Bighorn Battle.
The Blackfoot were serious, a magnificent, deadly specimen of the mounted gunman filibustering an empire. They roamed and dominated a vast territory encompassing prairie and mountain, in what is now Montana and up into Canada.
Black Tyrone scouted up this Howard Terpning image of two Blackfoot warriors locked in forest combat armed with “White Man Firesticks.”
Combining the constituent tribes, the Confederacy was numerous, constituting some 45,000 in population in their heyday in the 1820s and early 1830s, fully recovered after a smallpox epidemic struck them hard in 1781, an outbreak of that deadly scourge that ran up the Rockies all the way from Mexico City.
It would be smallpox again that toppled the Blackfoot from their lofty throne as masters of the Northern Rockies. In 1838, the disease came up the Missouri River on a trader’s steamboat and ran through the Blackfoot villages like wildfire. By the 1850s, the mighty Confederacy’s population had been culled down to between 9,000 and 13,000 souls. A holocaust; a catastrophe.
They never recovered their military might. Intertribal warfare intensified as the Blackfoot lost their dominance and became vulnerable to rivals who increasingly developed parity in arms. A pernicious whiskey trade further degraded and demoralized the people. By the time Americans invaded their country in large numbers in pursuit of gold during the 1860s, they were in no shape to seriously resist.
But think of them in their imperial heyday, mounted on the finest of horseflesh, armed to the teeth with smoothbore and rifle, lording it over some of the most magnificent country on earth as some of history’s most potent Frontier Partisans.
Matthew says
People think of the American Mountain Men as Western Imperialists, which to at least some extent they were. However, there were Native American Imperialists as well. The Comanche had quite an empire.
It’s also noteworthy that both these empires were brought down by disease more than anything. (Which in someways is more horrifying than human barbarity.) One wonders how American history would be different if not for disease. Would we have an independent Comanche nation in what’s now Texas?
JimC says
Yep. The impact was truly horrific. Comanche went from about 40,000 at the beginning of the 19th century to 1,500 in 1875. Smallpox and cholera.
Black Tyrone says
Well Jim here is that third painting I mentioned . The great Howard Terpning has a print of two Blackfeet in rifle combat. The one in the rear is standing is frantically ramming home his barrel while the one in the foreground is aiming behind cover. Terpning acknowledges they are Blackfeet and their weapons are a result of their vigorous trade in same.
You blog need this pic in same. Good hunting RK
Yes disease is the culprit Do you recall the Huron in the movie The Black Robe? Best Bill
Black Tyrone says
Lastly How do the Partisans rate A B Guthrie’s The Big Sky as representative of its genre? What are the best novels out there? I know this is only opinion but Big Sky surely must be near the top as actual literature. I will probably re read Big Sky again. Best
JimC says
The Big Sky was a world-shaping novel for me. Read it for the first time in junior high school and, of course, I admired Boone Caudill for his badassery and prowess. The theme that men destroy what they love did not really catch up to me till later readings. Guthrie’s Fair Land, Fair Land, which plays out Dick Summers’ story is a lesser novel, but I loved it nonetheless.
JimC says
Excellent tip, Black Tyrone! See revised post…
Black Tyrone says
Thanks Jim Terpning’s work is Top Knotch
wayne says
The Big Sky is the only book I’ve read repeatedly over the decades. Simply the best. I caught the movie version with Kirk Douglas and the wonderful Arthur Hunnicutt on t.v. not long ago. A pretty good job despite the fact that they changed the ending, and therefore the impact of the story as an allegory. For a first hand account of intertribal warfare, I suggest Two Leggings: The Making of a Crow Warrior. by Peter Nabokov.
JimC says
Not familiar with Two Leggings — thanks.
Black Tyrone says
Wayne,
Ah yes Arthur Hunnicutt , American character actor. I seem to recall he was in John Wayne’s Alamo BUT I may be mistaken. If he was not he should have been ! Ha Ha. If anyone could play a Tennessee frontier man, It would have been he.
ps I know Chill Wills was present but Arthur?
deuce says
That scene in JEREMIAH JOHNSON where the Blackfeet warriors are riding through the trees and snow blew my young mind. I really enjoyed this post, Jim.
JimC says
Thx amigo.
Black Tyrone says
Deuce I keep thoughts of “Skin this Pilgrim and I will get you another one!” Through the burial ground remains vivid also. Best
JimC says
That panic in the burial grounds scene freaked me out badly as a kid.Still does, kinda…
Black Tyrone says
Jim I kept saying to myself in the theater , keep moving keep moving . Yes it was a bit wracking. Glad to contribute though I am not a hunter. I was a civil War reenactor with my son and do keep repros of era Enfield and 1863 Springfield on my man cave wall. Actually went to local quarry to load and fire several times.I do how ever, own a Remington Army revolver but I am more academically inclined in terms of military History {European Colonial and US Western} Sorry, but I do like to contribute to the Partisans. Just deal if you will, with some of my quirks. Best to all. Black Tyrone.
Botha Thone
JimC says
Keep it coming.
Russell Wagner says
Read the book Liver eating Johnson, it was what the movie was created from. Great book unreal man. Its as close to the way it was as they can get it
john roberts says
This brings us to the vexing question: What is the proper plural of “Blackfoot?” Is it “Blackfeet” or “Blackfoot?” I’ve always used the latter but some prefer the former. What do the actual Blackfoot/feet prefer? Or do they call themselves something else entirely, as Indians usually do?
JimC says
I went with Silverman’s usage, since I was using his material. Apparently there’s no set standard. Some Blackfeet/Blackfoot apparently don’t like Blackfeet because it’s an Anglisized — most accept both usages. Of course, the constituent peoples of the Blackfeet/Blackfoot Confederacy have a variety of names, some native, some French , and only one is properly known as Blackfoot.
I’m sure that clears it all up.
Matthew says
Okay, is it Native American or Indian or American Indian or First Peoples or their tribe name which as you show is in itself complicated?
JimC says
I pretty much roll with Indian.
john roberts says
I live in New Mexico, where we have more Native Americans per capita than any other state. They’re fine with “Indian.” As one Indian political leader said: “I’m just glad Columbus wasn’t looking for Turkey.”
Breaker Morant says
I ran across a book today “No Friends But The Mountains” that should hit the Frontier Partisan wheelhouse.
Per the Blackfeet, History is what it is and the Blackfeet went down hard, and not on their own terms. However, more than any other tribe, I can’t help thinking that they missed their destiny in some way and did not get to go down hard, but largely on their own terms as the Comanche, Sioux and Apache did to the best of their capabilities.
James Schultz wrote extensively on the Blackfeet in his time. He is on my pile-but I have not got to him.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Willard_Schultz
JimC says
My Life As An Indian is a seminal text. You’ll dig it.
Rick Schwertfeger turned me on to “No Friend But The Mountains.” Have the library on it.
lane batot says
Gawd, how I can harangue on about the Blackfeets! Three main divisions–the “Blackfeet” proper, then the “Bloods”, both of which tended to rove north of the Canada/U. S. border, then the “Piegans” south of the border(who called themselves “Pikuni”). And Lord YES! ANYTHING James Willard Schultz wrote!!! As a teenager, he ran away from a strict New England society, fell in with a trader to the Piegans, then married one of the Piegan women, and wrote some of THE BEST firsthand accounts of such a wild, free, roving life EVER!(WHY none have been filmed yet is beyond my reckoning!) “Start With “My Life As An Indian”, and get “Why Gone Those Times” too–one story in “Why Gone Those Times” titled “To Old Mexico”(YES! A Canadian border tribes’ revenge raid all the way down to Mexico! Incredible!) is absolutely EPIC–an epic film just waiting to be scripted and filmed! LOTS of Schultz material available reasonably on Amazon. Also McClintok’s account(what was the title? “Old North Trails”? something like that….), and “Blackfoot Lodge Tales” by George Bird Grinnel ALL excellent! MY copy of “The Big Sky” was a gift given to me by some resident Montanans when I was out there(one of my first trips away from home ever!) on a wolf study program. I also got to attend a Blackfoot/Flathead pow-wow on a 2nd trip to Montana. So some special, fond memories of them thar Blackfeets for me! Just to REALLY confuse everyone, the Lakota had a clan referred to as “Blackfeet Sioux” too! Totally unrelated linguistically or otherwise to the Algonquian Blackfeet……
Betty says
The well-mounted Lord of the Northern Rockies in the Bodmer image sits a decidedly Arabian steed. Hm.
JimC says
Little artistic license on the part of the German I guess.
Black Tyrone says
Sure appears so. I would have thought a German Warm Blood more to the artist’s liking.
Lane Batot says
Well heck yeah it mighta been one a uh them ‘Rabians–them Blackfeet could steal horses out from under ANYBODY! Which reminds me of the cross-cultural comment(even if not historically potentially accurate) that I love and have mentioned on this blog before(so you old timers bear with me!), of the Nez Perce Indian kid stuck in a Mission School back in the day, after hearing about Jesus’s triumphant entry into Jerusulem on the back of a donkey, couldn’t help but blurt, “Well, if he’d been on an Apaloosa, they never woulda caught him!”