Fort Peck Indian Reservation

The federal government established the Great Sioux Reservation under the Treaty of 1851, encompassing much of the area of West River in what is now South Dakota, as well as portions of North Dakota and Nebraska. As some bands of the Sioux agreed to come into agencies, others chose to resist. Army efforts to bring in the other Sioux (characterized as "hostiles") led to battles in the Rosebud country and culminated in the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876. The United States forces were roundly defeated there.

As the victors dispersed, Sitting Bull led followers north into the Red Water country. The Hunkpapa and assorted Teton peoples gained some supplies from contact with the Sioux at what was then known as the Fort Peck Agency. When military pressure increased in 1877, Sitting Bull led most of his followers over the border into Canada. The federal government increased its military forces in the area in an effort to induce Sitting Bull to surrender.

In 1878, the Fort Peck Indian Agency was relocated to its present-day location in Poplar, Montana, because the original agency was located on a flood plain, which flooded every spring. The current Camp Poplar (located at Fort Peck Agency) was established in 1880. That year, Presbyterian missionary Rev. G.W. Wood, Jr. came from Northern Michigan with his family to lead the Poplar Creek mission. Without supplies and barely tolerated by the First Nations peoples in the area of present-day southern Saskatchewan, who we're dealing with limited resources, Sitting Bull returned to the United States. He surrendered at Fort Buford on July 19, 1881. Some of his Hunkpapa stragglers intermarried with other Native Americans at Fort Peck and resided in the Chelsea community.

By 1881, the wild American bison had been hunted to near-extinction by commercial hunters. By 1883/84, more than 300 Assiniboine died of starvation while forcibly incarcerated at the Wolf Point sub-agency. Rations were insufficient, and the suffering reservation-wide was exacerbated by particularly severe winters.

In 1884, Wolf Point was suffering from extreme poverty and starvation, so the Indian Rights Association convinced Congress to make a special appropriation for them.[6] In the spring of 1884, residents built a dam to enable irrigation. From 1885 to Montana Statehood in 1889, the tribes participated in agreements with the US government to re-drawing the Fort Peck reservation boundaries in exchange for federal subsidies.[7]

Also in 1887, Congress passed the Dawes Act, which provided the general legislation for dividing the allegedly tribally-owned Indian reservations into parcels of land under individual titles. Around the start of the 20th century, non-Indians continued to violate the Reservation boundary areas, then encroached into the prime grazing and farmland areas within the Reservation territories. As more and more homesteaders moved into the surrounding areas, pressure was placed on Congress to open up the Fort Peck Reservation to homesteading.

On May 30, 1908, Fort Peck Allotment Act was passed by Congress. The Act called for the survey and allotment of lands now embraced by the Fort Peck Indian Reservation and the sale and dispersal of all the surplus lands after allotment. Each eligible Indian was to receive 320 acres (1.3 km²; 0.50 sq mi) of grazing land in addition to some timber and irrigable land. Parcels of land were also withheld for Agency, school, and church use. Land was also reserved for use by the Great Northern (Burlington Northern) Railroad. All lands not allotted or reserved were declared surplus and were ready to be disposed of under the homestead's general provisions, desert land, mineral, and townsite laws.

In 1913, approximately 1,348,408 acres (5,456.81 km²; 2,106.888 sq mi) of unallotted or tribal unreserved lands were available for settlement by the non-Indian homesteaders. Although provisions were made to sell the remaining land not disposed of in the first five years, it was never completed. Several additional allotments were made before the 1930s.

Educational history on the Reservation includes a government boarding school program that was begun in 1877 and finally discontinued in the 1920s. Missionary schools were run periodically by the Mormons and Presbyterians in the first decades of the 20th century, but with minimal success. The Fort Peck Reservation is served by five public school districts, which are responsible for elementary and secondary education. In addition, an independent post-secondary institution is located on the Reservation: Fort Peck Community College, which offers nine associate of arts, six associate of science, and ten associate of applied science degrees. In recent years, the quality of education delivered to the Reservation's children has become a matter of scrutiny.[8]

Fort Peck Reservation is home to two separate Indian nations, each composed of numerous bands and divisions. The Sioux divisions of Sisseton/Wahpetons, the Yanktonais, and the Teton Hunkpapa are all represented. The Assiniboine bands of Canoe Paddler and Red Bottom are represented. The Reservation is located in Montana's extreme northeast corner, on the north side of the Missouri River.

The Reservation is 110 miles (180 km) long and 40 miles (64 km) wide, encompassing 2,093,310 acres (8,471.3 km²; 3,270.80 sq mi). Of this, approximately 378,000 acres (1,530 km²; 591 sq mi) are tribally owned and 548,000 acres (2,220 km²; 856 sq mi) are individually allotted Indian lands. The total of Indian owned lands is about 926,000 acres (3,750 km²; 1,447 sq mi). There are an estimated 10,000 enrolled tribal members, of whom approximately 6,000 reside on or near the Reservation. The population density is greatest along the southern border of the Reservation near the Missouri River and the major transportation routes, U.S. Highway 2 and the Amtrak routing on the tracks of the Burlington Northern Railroad.

The Fort Peck Tribes adopted their first written constitution in 1927. The Tribes voted to reject a new constitution under the Indian Reorganization Act in 1934. The original constitution was amended in 1952 and completely rewritten and adopted in 1960. The present constitution remains one of the few modern tribal constitutions that still includes provisions for general councils, the traditional tribal type of government. The official governing body of the Fort Peck Tribes is the Tribal Executive Board, composed of twelve voting members, plus a chairman, vice-chairman, secretary-accountant, and sergeant-at-arms. All members of the governing body, except the secretary-accountant, are elected at large every two years.