Fort Peck Reservation

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Lore & Background

The Fort Peck Reservation was established through a series of treaties and acts, beginning with the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 which created the Great Sioux Reservation. After the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, Sitting Bull led followers north into the Red Water country, where the Hunkpapa and Teton peoples gained supplies from contact with the Fort Peck Agency. 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. Sitting Bull surrendered at Fort Buford on July 19, 1881, and some of his Hunkpapa stragglers intermarried with other Native Americans at Fort Peck, residing in the Chelsea community. By 1883–1884, more than 300 Assiniboine died of starvation while forcibly incarcerated at the Wolf Point sub-agency, with rations insufficient and suffering exacerbated by severe winters. The Fort Peck Allotment Act was passed by Congress on May 30, 1908, calling for survey and allotment of lands, with each eligible Indian receiving 320 acres of grazing land. In 1913, approximately 1,348,408 acres of unallotted lands were available for settlement by non-Indian homesteaders.

In Their Own Story

In June 2015, the Department of Interior sent offers to buy back land worth $230 million to nearly 12,000 individual owners at the Fort Peck Indian Reservation and the smaller Fort Belknap Indian Reservation. This was under the Land Buy-Back Program for Tribal Nations, established as part of the federal government's settlement of the landmark Cobell v. Salazar suit over federal mismanagement of revenues due Indian landowners under the trust program. In March 2012, 63 American bison from Yellowstone National Park were transferred to the Fort Peck Indian Reservation prairie, to be released to a 2,100-acre game preserve 25 miles north of Poplar. Native Americans celebrated the move, which came over a century after bison were nearly wiped out by hunters and the government. In November 2014, an additional 136 American Bison from Yellowstone National Park were transferred to the reservation.

Reader's Guide

The Fort Peck Reservation is located in Montana's extreme northeast corner, on the north side of the Missouri River. The Reservation is 110 miles long and 40 miles wide, encompassing 2,093,310 acres. Of this, approximately 378,000 acres are tribally owned and 548,000 acres are individually allotted Indian lands, totaling about 926,000 acres of Indian owned lands. 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 near the Missouri River and major transportation routes, U.S. Highway 2 and the Amtrak routing on the tracks of the Burlington Northern Railroad. The Fort Peck Tribes is the largest employer on the reservation and in the region with over 350 employees. The official governing body is the Tribal Executive Board, composed of twelve voting members, plus a chairman, vice-chairman, secretary-accountant, and sergeant-at-arms. The Tribal Headquarters are located in Poplar, widely viewed as the capital of the Reservation. The Bureau of Indian Affairs has the Fort Peck Agency located in Poplar.

Did You Know?

• The Fort Peck Indian Reservation is the ninth-largest Indian reservation in the United States, with a total land area of 2,094,000 acres.
• In 1883–1884, more than 300 Assiniboine died of starvation while forcibly incarcerated at the Wolf Point sub-agency.
• The Fort Peck Allotment Act of May 30, 1908, granted each eligible Indian 320 acres of grazing land.
• In March 2012, 63 American bison from Yellowstone National Park were transferred to the reservation, one of the very few herds not cross-bred with cattle.
• The Fort Peck Tribes adopted their first written constitution in 1927 and rejected a new constitution under the Indian Reorganization Act in 1934.