Blackfeet
The Blackfeet Confederacy (Niitsitapi), comprising the Piegan (Piikani), Blood (Kainai), and Siksika bands, dominated the northwestern Great Plains from the Saskatchewan River south into present-day Montana, controlling a territory rich in bison. The expedition's only violent encounter with any Native nation occurred on July 26–27, 1806, when Meriwether Lewis and a small party met a group of Piegan Blackfeet along the Two Medicine River; a confrontation over stolen horses and guns resulted in the deaths of two Blackfeet warriors, the only Native fatalities of the entire expedition. Lewis and Clark had learned of the Blackfeet's formidable military reputation during the winter at Fort Mandan, where the Hidatsa described them as aggressive enemies who blocked western tribes from accessing guns and trade goods. This incident inaugurated decades of Blackfeet hostility toward American traders and trappers entering their territory.
Portrait: Wikimedia Commons / Wikipedia: Blackfoot Confederacy
Most Mentioned in Blackfeet-tagged Entries
People
- Capt Lewis (8)
- Drouillard (5)
- Patrick Gass (5)
- Reubin Field (5)
- Joseph Field (4)
- Capt. Clark (4)
- Charbonneau (3)
- Labeech (2)
- Shields (2)
- Thompson (2)
Places
- Missouri River (8)
- Marias River (5)
- Rocky Mountains (3)
- Columbia River (2)
- Rochejhone (2)
- Oregon coast (1)
- Fort Clatsop (1)
- rattlesnake creek (1)
- Starbd Side (1)
- Lard. Side (1)
Biography
The Blackfeet (Niitsitapi) were the dominant military power of the Northern Plains, controlling a vast territory from the Saskatchewan River south to the Missouri headwaters. The expedition’s only violent encounter with Native peoples occurred with a Piegan Blackfeet band on the Two Medicine River in July 1806.
Lewis and a small party encountered eight Piegan warriors and camped together. During the night or early morning, the warriors attempted to steal the expedition’s horses and rifles. In the ensuing fight, two Blackfeet were killed — one stabbed by Reubin Field, one shot by Lewis.
This violent encounter had lasting consequences. The Blackfeet remained hostile to American trappers and traders for decades, and the incident colored U.S.-Blackfeet relations well into the 19th century. Historians debate whether Lewis could have handled the situation differently.
The Blackfeet Confederacy consisted of three allied nations: the Siksika (Blackfoot proper), the Kainai (Blood), and the Piikani (Piegan). Today the Blackfeet Nation is headquartered in Browning, Montana.
Territory & Encounter Locations
Note: the longest gap between tagged appearances is about 10 months (May 30, 1805 → Mar 23, 1806). No journal entries during that window were explicitly tagged with this nation.
Treaties (8)
Tent of Many Voices (8)
47:34
46:28
42:30
48:51
51:03
57:51
37:33
46:24
Journal Entries (17)
Cross-Narrator Analyses
AI-assisted scholarly analyses that cite or discuss Blackfeet — showing 11 of the most recent matches.
Reunion at the Marias: Four Versions of a Single Afternoon
On 28 July 1806, the Corps reunited at the mouth of the Marias after Lewis's deadly skirmish with Piegan Blackfeet. Four narrators…
Four Routes from Camp Disappointment: Divergent Journeys on a Single Day
On 26 July 1806 the expedition's narrators write from radically different positions on the landscape. Lewis departs Camp Disappointment toward a fateful…
Four Pens, Four Rivers: The Expedition Divides on the Plains
On a single July day in 1806, the Corps of Discovery scattered across the northern plains. Lewis pushed up the Marias, Clark…
Two Rivers, Two Captains: Divided Command on the Plains
On July 17, 1806, the expedition's split detachments produce strikingly different journals. Lewis scans the Marias plains for hostile signs while Clark…
Two Captains, Two Continents: The Divided Corps on Divergent Trails
On July 6, 1806, the split expedition pursued separate routes across the Continental Divide. The four journals reveal not only different landscapes…
Charles Marion Russell: The Cowboy Artist and the Lewis & Clark Imagination
Charles Marion Russell (1864–1926) does not appear in the Lewis and Clark journals — he was born nearly six decades after the…
Karl Bodmer: A Note on Absence from the Lewis & Clark Journals
Despite his fame as a visual chronicler of the upper Missouri, the Swiss painter Karl Bodmer does not appear in the journals…
George Catlin in the Lewis & Clark Journal Record
George Catlin, the famed painter of Native American life, does not appear in the Lewis and Clark journals — but his later…
Pierre Cruzatte: Fiddler, Waterman, and the Man Who Shot Meriwether Lewis
Half-French, half-Omaha, blind in one eye and nearsighted in the other, Pierre Cruzatte was the Corps of Discovery's most indispensable boatman, its…
The Blackfeet: Adversaries on the Marias
The Piegan Blackfeet appear briefly but consequentially in the Lewis and Clark journals — culminating in the only deadly violence of the…
Sergeant Ordway’s Ledger: The Steady Voice of the Expedition’s Most Faithful Diarist
Across more than two years and 750 entries, Sergeant John Ordway kept the most unbroken daily record of the Lewis and Clark…
