Living Law,
Living LandSupport land rights

Nation

Blackfeet (Pikuni)

Not yet reviewed by this nation. What follows comes from public records and research. It does not speak for the nation.

Region
Plains

In the record

The United States made one treaty or agreement that names Blackfeet (Pikuni) as a party: Lame Bull Treaty (Blackfeet), 1855.

C. C. Royce’s 1899 schedule records 5 cessions of land from Blackfeet (Pikuni): about 28 million acres by this atlas’s estimate, counting overlaps once. 3 of them came through executive orders. The largest was Reservation of the Blackfoot, Blood and others in Montana (area 565), about 20 million acres, ceded under Lame Bull Treaty (Blackfeet), 1855.

The atlas records 1 broken treaty promise involving Blackfeet (Pikuni): Blackfeet and Glacier National Park: the 1895 agreement and the 1910 park. One court case turned on its rights: Montana v. Blackfeet Tribe.

Today, Blackfeet Tribe of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation of Montana carries this history, as their own pages or research records say.

Written from the records linked here; open any of them for its sources. This is what the United States’ treaty record says, not the nation’s own account.

Treaty or agreementExecutive orderShapes from the 1899 federal record: approximate, not legal boundaries.

The record over time

178018001850190019502000todayTreatiesLame Bull Treaty (Blackfeet), 1855 (1855)Land takenLand of the Blackfoot, Blood and others in Montana, ceded 1874 (area 574) (1874)Land of the Blackfoot, Blood and others in Montana, ceded 1880 (area 622) (1880)Land of the Blackfoot, Blood and others in Montana, recorded 1875 (area 623) (1875)Land of the Gros Ventre and Piegan in Montana, ceded 1888 (area 692) (1888)Promises brokenBlackfeet and Glacier National Park: the 1895 agreement and the 1910 park (1895)In courtMontana v. Blackfeet Tribe (1985)

Circles are land the United States recorded as ceded, sized by acres and colored by how it was taken. Bars are treaties, broken promises, court cases and land returns.

Names

Each name shows where it comes from. A nation’s own name is shown as the nation writes it.

Self-names

Official names

Names in treaties and records

Peoples within this name

Land recorded as ceded

Blackfeet (Pikuni) About 28 million acres recorded as ceded by the end of 1894
  • Treaty or agreement4 million
  • Executive order24 million

Estimate from Royce’s maps; overlapping cessions counted once. Not a survey or legal measure.

5 cessions. Follow Blackfeet (Pikuni) through the years on the map

Who is doing the work

This history belongs to living nations. Start with them:

Native legal and land defense, nationally

Gifts go straight to each organization; this atlas takes nothing. Listing is not endorsement: how organizations are listed.

Connections

These links were matched automatically by name or date and have not yet been reviewed by a person.

Land recorded in this nation’s name 5, as named in the 1899 record

Named in 2

Party to 1

Present-day governments that carry this history 1

Sources

  1. tribalnations.mt.gov/Directory/BlackfeetNationreference work
    There are three branches of the Blackfeet peoples-the Northern Blackfeet (Siksika), the Blood and the Piegan or Pikuni.
  2. muse.jhu.edu/book/17910reference work
    Written in collaboration with Blackfoot tribal historians and educators, Amskapi Pikuni: The Blackfeet People
  3. plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclopedia/doc/egp.na.014.htmlreference work
    consists of the Siksikas (Blackfoot proper), Kainahs (Bloods), Northern (Canadian) Piegans, and Southern Piegans (or Blackfeet, as they came to be known)
  4. govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-01-30/html/2026-01899.htmprimary record
    Blackfeet Tribe of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation of Montana
Kind
Nation
Confidence
Medium
Nation review
Not yet reviewed by this nation

Correct this record