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The 'Marias Massacre' (also known as ''The Baker Massacre') is a little-known massacre that took place in Montana during the late nineteenth century Indian Wars.
Relations between the Blackfoot Confederacy (comprising the Blackfoot, Blood, and Piegan tribes) and whites had been largely hostile for years ("Piegan War"). Whose law and order the young Piegan men were to be subject to remained somewhat blurred at this point in American expansionism. Many of their own people had recently died from a secret blanket trade introducing smallpox to their winter lodges. Although conflict levels were low, the potential for conflict to increase remained high, raising tensions along several of Montana Territory's front range and creek beds. Different Piegan (now also called Blackfeet in the U.S.A. and Blackfoot in Canada) subchiefs were on different terms with white settlers and soldiers and dignitaries.
Amid what appeared to be low-level hostilities on the surface, sometime in 1869, Owl Child, a young warrior, debatably "stole" several horses from Malcolm Clarke, a white trader. Clarke, by some reports, was able to track Owl Child down and "beat" him in front of some in his camp. While some say Owl Child was simply humiliated, vengeful, and rash, others say that in his earlier act of "stealing horses" and in what was to follow, Owl Child was seeking retribution for Clarke's prior foul mistreatment of his sister, and not mere revenge. Owl Child set off with a small band of "rogue" or equally inflamed Piegans, killed Clarke at his trading post, also wounding his wife and son who joined in the altercation. Owl Child's side of the story is rarely recognized by any but well-scattered Blackfeet accounts. The killing of Malcom Clarke thereby inflamed the public, which caused General Philip Sheridan to send out a band of cavalry (the Second US Regiment) led by Major Eugene Baker to track down and punish the offending party. His orders were to "Strike them hard." However, he would ultimately strike the wrong "them" very surprisingly hard with ghastly results and no apologies, and was subsequently supported by his superiors.
On January 23, 1870, Baker's party received a scouting report that the group of Piegans, led by Mountain Chief, was camped along the Marias River. They attacked the site at Willow Rounds, but Mountain Chief had been warned and left the area, so Baker's men instead ended up attacking the camp of Chief Heavy Runner, who had enjoyed friendly relations with the white men. Although Baker's scouts had reportedly warned him that he was about to attack the wrong camp, he proceeded anyway against the protests of those scouts. As the men of the camp were mostly out hunting, the raid was a massacre of mostly women and children. A hasty count by Baker's men showed 173 dead (mostly women and children) with 140 women and children captured, while only one cavalryman died, after falling off his horse and breaking his leg.
Heavy Runner himself was killed as he left his lodge with his gift of an American flag given to him as a promise for his camp's safety. Winter lodges were falling into flames and burning small children and the oldest ones who were unable to even begin escaping the pre-dawn ambush of bullets. Many survivors hid in the freezing waters of the Marias River. The prisoners were chased onto the prairie and left there. Mountain Chief's band escaped to Canada. Descendants of the victims retell the event through oral histories. Piegan oral histories are the most verifiable evidence of these events today, as Baker left no written accounts of his massacre for government record and no official apology was forthcoming. Which decisions were most rash and destructive remain for any newcomers to decide as they approach only oral histories today and a book called ''Strike Them Hard'' (1970) by Robert J. Edge.
Many blamed and still blame Major Eugene M. Baker, a known alcoholic, for the massacre and failure to capture Mountain Chief's men, and, of course, for the massacre that he failed to report on paper. However, in the subsequent controversy, General Sheridan expressed his confidence in Baker's leadership, and managed to prevent an official investigation into the incident. Conflict between the settlers and the Blackfeet declined after this incident. The Blackfeet Nation, already partially badly weakened by the conquering strategy of smallpox in their lodges, did not have the numbers or support this late in the Indian Wars to respond to this ghastly atrocity.

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See also

External links

See also

★ Indian massacres

★ Fools Crow, a novel written by James Welch, which culminates the Marias massacre.

External links

★ An Uncelebrated Anniversary

★ Witness to Carnage: The 1870 Marias Massacre in Montana

★ Native American Legends: The Marias Massacre