Land area
Land of the Gros Ventre and Piegan in Montana, ceded 1888 (area 692)
- 1888
Ceded to the United States
The 1899 record: “Ratifies and confirms agreement with said Indians by which they cede to U. S. all lands in the Gros Ventre, Piegan, Blood, BLackfoot, and River Crow reservation not reserved”
In the record
Ceded in an 1888 agreement ratified by Congress, in which the Gros Ventre, Piegan and others gave up the northern Montana reservation lands outside their new, separate reservations. The area covers about 18 million acres in what is now Montana.
The 1899 record names Blackfeet (Pikuni) and Gros Ventre (Aaniiih) as the people of this land.
Today, Blackfeet Tribe of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation of Montana and Fort Belknap Indian Community of the Fort Belknap Reservation of Montana carry the history of the people named here.
Written from the records linked here; open any of them for its sources.
Shapes come from C. C. Royce’s 1899 maps as georeferenced by the US Forest Service. They are approximate and are not legal descriptions of land. Royce recorded land the United States treated as ceded; the shape does not show a nation’s territory.
Who is doing the work
Land return and Native-led work nearby
- Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) Nation government National Bison Range restoration (about 18,800 acres) Website
- Potlatch Fund Native-led Native philanthropy and grantmaking to Native individuals and Native-led organizations Give on their site Website
Native legal and land defense, nationally
- Native American Rights Fund (NARF) Native-led Litigation and legal advocacy for tribal sovereignty, treaty rights, land and resources Give on their site Website
- NDN Collective (LANDBACK Campaign) Native-led LANDBACK campaign (launched 2020; Mount Rushmore closure and return of Black Hills public lands), Indigenous… Give on their site Website
- Indian Land Tenure Foundation (ILTF) Native-led Land recovery and control by tribes and individual Indian landowners Website
- Decolonizing Wealth Project (Indigenous Earth Fund; California Tribal Land Return) Native-led Reparative philanthropy Give on their site Website
Gifts go straight to each organization; this atlas takes nothing. Listing is not endorsement: how organizations are listed.
Connections
Links marked “suggested” were matched automatically by name or date and have not yet been reviewed by a person.
Nations named for this land 4
- Blackfeet (Pikuni)as named in the 1899 recordsuggested
- Blackfeet Tribe of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation of Montanamatched by the Forest Service, under reviewsuggested
- Fort Belknap Indian Community of the Fort Belknap Reservation of Montanamatched by the Forest Service, under reviewsuggested
- Gros Ventre (Aaniiih)as named in the 1899 recordsuggested
Located in 1
Sources
The record’s fields
- Area number in the 1899 record
- 692
- Dates in the 1899 record
- 1888-05-01
- Kind of instrument
- Executive order
- Peoples as named in the 1899 record
- Gros Ventre; Piegan
- States
- MT
- Counties
- Blaine; Chouteau; Daniels; Hill; Liberty; Phillips; Sheridan; Toole; Valley
- Map sheets in the 1899 record
- Montana 2
- Geometry
- Approximate shape from Royce’s 1899 maps
Research notes
geometry_role is 'cession' for every USFS feature: no field in the source distinguishes cessions from reservations.
- Kind
- Land area
- Confidence
- Medium