Distinctly Montana Magazine

88 D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA N A M A G A Z I N E • FA L L 2 0 2 3 researcher in this field, discovered that the Rocky Mountain Fur Company incurred 70 fatalities "from 1822 to 1829 inclusive." That total, according to Chittenden, certainly would approach one hundred if trappers who lost their lives during the compa- ny's last operational years were taken into consideration. Those figures are corroborated by the work of historian David Wishart. From July 1826 until late December 1829, "Smith, Jackson, and Sublette lost forty-one men to the Indians, which amounted to one-third of the company's average employment. More than three-quarters of the fatalities occurred in the disastrous 1827- 8 season." In August 1829, the RMFC's management partners concluded that Piikáni territory then comprised the only untapped opera- tional theatre. The "Blackfoot brigades" that they subsequently dispatched to this fiercely contested zone averaged 70 men, a force large enough to discourage pitched battles. However, com- petition over access to this region increased when the American Fur Company formally entered the fray in 1830. George Catlin learned, in 1832, that the AFC lost "some fifteen or twenty men annually, who fall by the hands of [the Blackfeet] people." In a communique to General William Clark, dated July 26, 1833, Indian Agent John F. A. Sanford concluded similarly that "The Blackfeet have Killed only 18 or 20 the last winter.… This does not surprise me at all,—as long as Whites are trapping in their Country it will be the case." Despite ongoing hostilities, three events during the 1820s clearly indicate that Piikánis had begun to entertain the prospect of commerce with Americans. Their previously staunch opposi- tion was blunted by the forced merger of the Hudson's Bay Com- pany and Montreal-based North West Company in 1821, which stripped the Blackfeet and other First Nations of the leverage they had exercised in negotiations with Canadian traders on the North Saskatchewan River. A Piikáni headman named Mi'ksskimmisoka'simi, or Iron Shirt, made the first Blackfoot peace overture on May 18, 1823. While visiting the encampment of trappers employed by the Missouri Fur Company, Iron Shirt invited them to build a trading post at the mouth of the Marias River. The significance of this event unfortu- nately was ignored in the aftermath of the Kainai attack on Immel and Jones's party, which occurred only 12 days later. In 1827, a short-lived peace accord between the Blackfeet and Flathead provided the opportunity for Kainai and Piikáni leaders to meet American trappers in Flathead territory. Once again, the Blackfeet extended an invitation to "establish a branch post in their country," but renewed intertribal hostilities soon prevented further access to trappers who plied beaver streams west of the Continental Divide. When peace was finally brokered and commercial ties forged between the Piikáni and American fur traders, it was achieved through the entrepreneurial vision of Kenneth McKenzie and the diplomatic efforts of Jacques Berger, a man whom Chittenden described as more eminently qualified for this particular mission • EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) • BLS CPR/AED (Provider and Renewal) • CPR/AED/First Aid (Pediatric & OSHA-compliant) • Wilderness First Aid • Narcan • AVERT (Active Violence Emergency Response Training) • CPR Instructor • Youth and Adult Mental Health First Aid We are proud to now offer non-emergency transportation across town, to the other side of Montana, and to other states. 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