Blackfoot

Blackfoot

The Blackfoot Confederacy or Niitsítapi (meaning "original people") is the collective name of three First Nations bands in Alberta, Canada and one Native American tribe in Montana, USA.

Historically, the member peoples of the Confederacy were nomadic bison hunters, who ranged across large areas of the northern Great Plains of Western North America, specifically the semi-arid short-grass prairie ecological region. They later adopted horses and firearms acquired from European-descended traders and their Cree and Assiniboine resellers. With these new tools the Blackfoot expanded their territory at the expense of neighbouring peoples. Through the use of horses, Blackfoot and other Plains peoples harvested bison at a much accelerated rate. However it was the systemic commercial bison hunting by European-American hunters that permanently changed the paradigm of the Great Plains. Periods of starvation and deprivation for the Blackfoot followed. They were then forced to end their nomadism and adopt ranching and farming, settling on small pieces of their former lands. This was the result of treaties with the United States and Canada, mostly signed in the 1870s, which the Blackfoot signed in exchange for food and medical aid and help with farming. Since that time the Blackfoot have worked to maintain their traditional language and culture in the face of assimilationist policies of the North American nation-states.