Qualla: Fort Peck Indian Reservation

Fort Peck Indian Reservation: Introduction

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Department of the Interior. Bureau of Indian Affairs. 9/17/1947, Public domain. Sitting Bull surrendered at Fort Buford on July 19, 1881, ending years of resistance that had taken him from the Little Bighorn to the plains of Canada and back. Some of his Hunkpapa followers drifted to Fort Peck rather than follow him into captivity, intermarrying with the Assiniboine and Sioux already living along the Missouri. Their descendants still live in the Chelsea community today. This northeastern Montana reservation, the ninth-largest in the United States, carries the weight of that history while writing new chapters about bison restoration and tribal sovereignty.

Image: Department of the Interior. Bureau of Indian Affairs. 9/17/1947 | Public domain

Fort Peck Indian Reservation: Two Nations, One Land

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kmusser, CC BY-SA 2.5. Fort Peck Reservation is home to two distinct peoples speaking related Siouan languages. The Assiniboine bands of Canoe Paddler and Red Bottom share this land with Sioux divisions including the Sisseton-Wahpeton, Yanktonai, and the Teton Hunkpapa who arrived with Sitting Bull's s...

Image: Kmusser | CC BY-SA 2.5

Fort Peck Indian Reservation: The Starvation Years

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Thayne Tuason, user name:Biscuitroot, CC BY-SA 4.0. By 1881, commercial hunters had slaughtered the wild bison nearly to extinction, eliminating the foundation of Plains Indian life. The consequences at Fort Peck were devastating. During the brutal winter of 1883-1884, more than 300 Assiniboine died of starvation while forcibly he...

Image: Thayne Tuason, user name:Biscuitroot | CC BY-SA 4.0

Fort Peck Indian Reservation: Governing Their Own

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Department of the Interior. Bureau of Indian Affairs. Forestry Division. 9/17/1947-ca. 1961, Public domain. The Fort Peck Tribes adopted their first written constitution in 1927, seven years before the Indian Reorganization Act offered a federal template that the tribes voted to reject in 1934. Their current constitution, rewritten and adopted in 1960 under Chairman Austin Buckles, rem...

Image: Department of the Interior. Bureau of Indian Affairs. Forestry Division. 9/17/1947-ca. 1961 | Public domain

Fort Peck Indian Reservation: The Bison Come Home

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Yellowstone National Park, Public domain. In March 2012, 63 American bison from Yellowstone National Park arrived at Fort Peck, the first of what the tribe hopes will become a self-sustaining herd of 1,000 animals. These are not ordinary bison. The Yellowstone herd is one of the very few in North America not crossbred wi...

Image: Yellowstone National Park | Public domain

Fort Peck Indian Reservation: Living on the Land

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Thayne Tuason, CC BY-SA 4.0. The reservation stretches 110 miles long and 40 miles wide across Montana's northeastern corner. Population clusters along the southern border near the Missouri River and the transportation routes that follow it: U.S. Highway 2 and the Amtrak line running on Burlington Northern t...

Image: Thayne Tuason | CC BY-SA 4.0