The Piegan are an Algonquian-speaking people from the North American Great Plains. They are the largest of three Blackfoot-speaking groups that make up the Blackfoot Confederacy;the Siksika and Kainai are the others. The Piegan dominated much of the northern Great Plains during the nineteenth century.
Glacier County is located in the U.S. state of Montana. As of the 2020 census,the population was 13,778. The county is located in northwestern Montana between the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains,known to the Blackfeet as the "Backbone of the World". The county is geographically and culturally diverse and includes the Blackfeet Indian Reservation,Glacier National Park,and Lewis and Clark National Forest. The county is bordered by 75 miles of international boundary with two ports of entry open year-round and one seasonal international border crossing into Alberta,Canada.
Browning is a former town and current unincorporated community in Glacier County,Montana,United States. It is the headquarters for the Blackfeet Indian Reservation and was the only incorporated town on the Reservation. The population was 1,018 at the 2020 census.
The Blackfoot Confederacy,Niitsitapi,or Siksikaitsitapi,is a historic collective name for linguistically related groups that make up the Blackfoot or Blackfeet people:the Siksika ("Blackfoot"),the Kainai or Blood,and two sections of the Peigan or Piikani –the Northern Piikani (Aapátohsipikáni) and the Southern Piikani. Broader definitions include groups such as the Tsúùtínà (Sarcee) and A'aninin who spoke quite different languages but allied with or joined the Blackfoot Confederacy.
The Marias Massacre was a massacre of Piegan Blackfeet Native peoples which was committed by United States Army forces under Major Eugene Mortimer Baker as part of the Indian Wars. The massacre occurred on January 23,1870,in Montana Territory. Approximately 200 Native people were killed,most of whom were women,children,and older men.
Rick Jore is an American politician and businessman who served as a member of the Montana House of Representatives from 1995 to 2001 and 2007 to 2009.
The Blackfeet Nation,officially named the Blackfeet Tribe of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation of Montana,is a federally recognized tribe of Siksikaitsitapi people with an Indian reservation in Montana. Tribal members primarily belong to the Piegan Blackfeet band of the larger Blackfoot Confederacy that spans Canada and the United States.
John Patrick Williams is an American Democratic legislator who represented Montana in the United States House of Representatives from 1979 to 1997.
Winter in the Blood is the debut novel of James Welch. It was published by Harper and Row's Native American Publishing Program in 1974. Set on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in north-central Montana during the late 1960s,Winter in the Blood follows a nameless Blackfeet and Gros Ventre (A'aninin) man's episodic journey to piece together his fragmented identity. Welch received praise from such luminaries as Pulitzer Prize-winning Ojibwe author Louise Erdrich,celebrated American novelist Reynolds Price,and Coeur d'Alene author Sherman Alexie. Alexie later produced the film adaptation of the novel,which was released in 2012.
Earl Old Person was an American Indian political leader and the honorary lifetime chief of the Blackfeet Nation in Montana,United States.
Darrell Robes Kipp was a Native American educator,documentary filmmaker,and historian. Kipp was an enrolled member of the Blackfeet Nation in Montana and was instrumental in teaching and preserving the Blackfoot language as the director of the Piegan Institute.
Same-sex marriage has been recognized in Montana since a federal district court ruled the state's ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional on November 19,2014. Montana had previously denied marriage rights to same-sex couples by statute since 1997 and in its State Constitution since 2004. The state appealed the ruling to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals,but before that court could hear the case,the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all same-sex marriage bans in the country in Obergefell v. Hodges,mooting any remaining appeals.
Denise Juneau is an American attorney,educator,and politician from the U.S. state of Montana who served as the state's Superintendent of Public Instruction from 2009 to 2017. She is a Democrat and the first female Native American elected to statewide office in the United States. Her mother is Mandan,Hidatsa,and Arikara,while her father is Blackfoot.
Matthew Martin Rosendale Sr. is an American politician and former real estate developer representing Montana's 2nd congressional district in the United States House of Representatives. A Member of the Republican Party,Rosendale served in the Montana House of Representatives from 2011 to 2013,and in the Montana Senate from 2013 to 2017. From 2015 to 2017,he served as Senate majority leader. Rosendale was elected Montana state auditor in 2016 and held that position from 2017 to 2020. Rosendale ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2014 and for the U.S. Senate in 2018. He was elected to represent Montana's at-large congressional district in 2020. After Montana regained its second House seat in the 2020 census,Rosendale was elected to represent the new 2nd congressional district in 2022.
Joe Read is an American politician and former Republican member of the Montana House of Representatives. He represented House District 15 from 2011 to 2013,and was defeated by Frosty Boss Ribs,who he originally defeated himself in 2010,in the 2012 election. Read received attention in 2011 for introducing a bill that global warming is "beneficial to the welfare and business climate of Montana".
Tom Rodgers is a Native American activist and advocate for tribal issues. Based in Washington,D.C.,Rodgers is an enrolled member of the Blackfeet Nation in Montana,where translated from the Siksikálanguage he is called "One who Rides his Horse East." In 1994,Rodgers founded Carlyle Consulting,a governmental/media/public strategies firm located in Alexandria,Virginia that represents the interests of Native Americans. He was included on Politico's 2023 Recast Power List of 40 most powerful people on race and politics.
Lea Whitford is a Democratic member of the Montana Senate who represented the 8th District from 2015 to 2019. She was previously a member of the Montana House of Representatives for the 16th District from 2013 to 2015. She defeated former representative Lila Evans in 2012 by a margin of 1,823 to 935.
The 2020 United States elections were held on Tuesday,November 3,2020. The Democratic Party's nominee,former vice president Joe Biden,defeated incumbent Republican president Donald Trump in the presidential election. Despite losing seats in the House of Representatives,Democrats retained control of the House and very narrowly gained control of the Senate. As a result,the Democrats obtained a government trifecta,the first time since the elections in 2008 that the party gained unified control of Congress and the presidency. With Trump losing his bid for re-election,he became the first president to have seen his party lose the presidency and control of both the House and the Senate since Herbert Hoover in 1932. This was the first time since 1980 that either chamber of Congress flipped partisan control in a presidential year,and the first time Democrats did so since 1948.
Wendy McKamey is an American politician from Montana. She has served as a Republican member of the Montana Senate since 2023,and previously sat in the Montana House of Representatives from 2015 to 2023.
John Two Guns White Calf (1872–1934) was a chief of the Piegan Blackfeet in Montana. He was born near Fort Benton,Montana,and was the adopted son of Chief White Calf. After the elder White Calf died in 1903,while a guest of President T. Roosevelt in Washington,D.C.,White Calf became the last chief of the Blackfoot Tribe. He died at Blackfeet Indian hospital,of attack of flu according to the Choteau Acantha,however the Indian agency said pulmonary tuberculosis at the age of 63 and is buried in a Catholic cemetery in Browning,Montana.
