Tribes and Trappers: A History of Montana, Volume I: Montana History Series, #1

By Greg Strandberg

Montana’s history is rich, colorful, and full of excitement in this fully-illustrated volume. 

See how Jedediah Smith and Jim Bridger blazed trails and made their names under the Big Sky. Read about the day John Colter ran naked for his life, Blackfeet Indians fast on his heels. 

Watch as Hugh Glass is mauled by a grizzly before being left to die alone by his ‘friends.’ Have a toast with rowdy Mike Fink before he shoots a tin cup of whiskey from your head. And meet James Beckwourth, a former slave who became at home in the mountains of Montana.

Discover how the Native American tribes were pushed from their lands by westward expansion, first by Europeans and then Americans. Find out how Montana’s Indian tribes shook off their settled ways of life to become nomads of the Great Plains, hunting buffalo, stealing horses, and encountering whites and each other for the first time. 

Learn of the Blackfeet, and their warrior ways. Discover the peaceful Shoshone, and how they were pushed from their lands. And find out about other, lesser known tribes like the Kootenai, Pend d’Oreilles, Gros Ventre, and Assiniboine. 

Montana comes alive from the time of the dinosaurs to the mid-19th-century in this exciting first volume of the state's history, Tribes and Trappers. Start the journey to find out how Montana came to be what it is today. Continue that journey in Priests and Prospectors and then Braves and Businessmen. Keep it going into the 20th-century with Hustlers and Homesteaders and get ready for a new volume in March 2015.

What are you waiting for? Montana awaits!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Greg Strandberg
• Release date: Apr 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301626458

Greg Strandberg

Greg Strandberg was born and raised in Helena, Montana. He graduated from the University of Montana in 2008 with a BA in History.When the American economy began to collapse Greg quickly moved to China, where he became a slave for the English language industry. After five years of that nonsense he returned to Montana in June, 2013.When not writing his blogs, novels, or web content for others, Greg enjoys reading, hiking, biking, and spending time with his wife and young son.

Book preview

Introduction to 2nd Edition

Montana has a long history, even if most of it isn’t recorded. The earliest people to the state came 10,000 years ago or even before, and many tribes that call the state home today can trace their roots back to that time. Several others, however, came to Montana from the East, pushed by white encroachment on their lands first by Europeans and later by Americans. Many of those tribes had no qualms about pushing the indigenous tribes of Montana from their lands, either west across the Continental Divide or south into other areas.

It wasn’t until the first whites began to arrive in the 18th century, however, that the area started to find mention in correspondence, reports, and journals. When the Louisiana Purchase was made in 1803 most of what is today Montana came under the purview of the United States. The Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1804-6 worked its way through the state, informing the world of the wonders to be found there.

More than any other factor, the Lewis and Clark Expedition opened the floodgates to the early exploration of Montana. Their reports of majestic mountains, raging rivers, and an abundance of game intrigued those back East, and encouraged an influx of fur trappers and mountain men to the area.

While this may have been good for them, it often wasn’t seen that way by the Indian tribes that called Montana home. Many fought back, enraged by encroachments on their land, and when the whites reciprocated in kind, matters only escalated. The attacks on the Indians by those coming to Montana for furs did much to begin the 19th century’s Indian Wars in the West. And both groups would help shape the course the state would follow in later years.

A Journey to Statehood

The state’s course was long and arduous, and for the entirety of this book, Montana wasn’t even a state. Montana didn’t become a territory until 1864 and it wasn’t a state until 1889.

When we think of Montana before then, it’s therefore best to think of it in terms of the Upper Missouri River.

You see, before that point Montana was broken up.

– From 1805 to June 1812 Montana was part of the Louisiana Territory.

– In 1812 the Missouri Territory was organized, and that meant the Upper Missouri region of the Louisiana Territory became part of the vast swath of Unorganized Territory in the country.

– In 1818 the British ceded a large portion of the northern Dakotas and Minnesota region to America with the Treaty of 1818. America also ceded some area to the north of today’s Montana. This was done to set the boundaries between the two countries at the 49th parallel.

– In 1833 Michigan Territory came about and took the eastern portion of the Dakotas as its own. Wisconsin Territory was created in 1836 and then took the Dakotas over.

– Oregon Territory was created in 1848 and took what would become western Montana as its own.

– In 1849 Minnesota Territory came about and the Dakotas went to it.

– Washington Territory came about in 1853 and took most of today’s northwestern spur of Montana.

– The Nebraska Territory came about in 1854 and took the western-portion of the Dakotas.

– In 1859 Oregon became a state and the northwestern spur of Montana would become part of Washington Territory.

– Colorado Territory came about in February 1861 due to the gold rushes in the region.

– The next month, in March 1861, the Dakota Territory was formed. This took the eastern Dakotas from the Minnesota Territory and most of today’s Montana from the Nebraska Territory. The reason for the faster pace of territorial formation during this time was the Civil War. More appropriately, it was the dismissal from Congress of all those that had opposed state expansion due to the slavery issue. Now all states would be free.

– In March 1863 the Idaho Territory was created. This took the northwestern spur of Montana as its own. It also took most of today’s Wyoming and the rest of the state of Montana.

– Then, in May 1864 Montana Territory was created, taking the shape it still has to this day.

That’s the course Montana took. Now, to the course this book will take.

The 2nd Edition

I wrote this book back in the spring of 2013 while I was living in China. By summer I’d moved back to Montana and finished the second volume, Priests and Prospectors.

Several more volumes would come over the next two years, though I always felt there was a lot missing from that first book. That’s why I went back in late-2015 and did a lot more research on the fur trade on the Missouri River and up into Montana. You’ll find a detailed timeline of that trade in the Appendix.

I looked a lot more at international affairs for this second edition, as well as what was happening in Washington. Mainly, I tried to give this first volume of the state’s history a more national and international perspective, as that’s the approach the later volumes in this series take.

When I started this history nearly three years ago I knew that I could never tell a complete account of Montana’s recent history without first coming to grips with its earliest. I felt that I had to go back nearly to the dawn of time to get the story right, if only for myself. It soon became apparent that the task was large, much larger than I’d originally set out to write.

And so I began researching the geologic changes that made Montana the beautiful state that it is today. The dinosaurs naturally followed, and then the first peoples. As I began to write about the Indians that called the state home, I finally felt that I was just beginning with my task, even though I had several chapters written. It wasn’t until my work on the first whites to the region began, however, that I truly felt the state’s history beginning to unfold.

The result is Tribes and Trappers: A History of Montana, Volume One. This volume covers the earliest history of the state up to the 1840s. It’s difficult to find a lot of information about this period, so most of the state will be told through biographical sketches of the two main groups that called Montana home: the Indian tribes and fur trappers. Many of those fur trappers and mountain men had stories that stretch beyond this 1840 limit, however, though we’ll tell those stories in their entirety.

Throughout this volume Montana will routinely be referred to as a ‘state.’ This is primarily for convenience, even though Montana didn’t become a state until 1889 as we saw. It wouldn’t even become a territory until 1864, and both of those events are covered in the second and third volumes of this history, Priests and Prospectors and Braves and Businessmen. Montana’s journey continues into the 20th-century in Hustlers and Homesteaders and right up to the 1960s in the fifth volume of this history, Feds and Farmers. With any luck I’ll have us up to the 1990s by the fall of 2016.

But that’s still a ways off. For now we have to go back to the dawn of time to see how Montana became what it is today.

Part I - Prehistory

Many people around the world think of Montana and they think of dinosaurs. It’s true that the state had its fair share, and they’re being dug up by professional and amateur diggers to this day.

The area was a prime spot for dinosaurs, situated as it was on a large inland sea. This Western Interior Seaway would eventually lessen and become Glacial Lake Missoula, a massive lake that covered 3,000 square miles. When it ruptured it spilled water all down through Idaho and into Eastern Washington, etching out the Columbia River Gorge in the process.

It was quite the event, and one that people were lucky enough not to be around to see. They would come later and give rise to the various Indian tribes of the state.

1: Montana’s Geological History

Montana has a widely diverse and geologically challenging environment. From the western mountains that were lifted up millions of years ago by plate tectonics and then shaped by glaciers, to endless eastern plains that stretch for hundreds of miles and were overlain millions of yeas ago by glacial till before being shaped by wind and water, you’ll see just about every geologic phenomenon when you visit the state.

Paleozoic Era

Things really began to heat up in Montana 2.7 billion years ago, and the basement rocks of the area metamorphosed into their current state. The end of this Paleozoic era was also when the huge supercontinent of Pangea broke up and the continents began to drift to their current positions.

Going-to-the-Sun Road

Things slowed down for a while, but then 1.5 billion years ago, sediments began to accumulate and would continue for 600 million years as hot rocks pushed up through the Earth’s mantle and split the North American continent, thus allowing an ocean to form. The coastline for this ocean stretched from today’s northeastern Washington state south to the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California. The coastline would remain that way until just 100 million years ago, and is the reason why Montana has such a vast amount of sedimentary rocks.

Mesozoic Era

As a result of this ocean, large areas of Montana were under water for most of the Mesozoic era. Shorelines continually shifted, causing land that was dry to become wet and then dry again. By the time the Mesozoic era began, the Rocky Mountains had been formed.

The Earth really became turbulent beginning 175 million years ago, and lots of buried rock deep down began to melt and form magma. This rose between 90 and 70 million years ago, causing large batholiths to form. The Boulder Batholiths between Helena and Butte formed during this time, as did the Elkhorn Mountains.

A large 10-mile section of the Idaho Batholiths broke off and slowly moved into western Montana. This Sapphire Block’s path cut and formed the Garnet, Pintler, and Flint Creek ranges and left the Bitterroot Valley in its wake.

Cenozoic Era

Things again became quiet after that, but only for 20 million years. That’s when another smaller continent collided with the North American continent around 50 million years ago. The collision was as violent as they come, and caused the smaller continent to completely crumble and form the Northern Cascades of Washington and the coastal mountain ranges of British Columbia. The Absaroka and Gallatin ranges are to this day littered with the volcanic rock debris that resulted.

Starting 55 million years ago the inland sea retreated, and 40 million years ago the climate became very dry, something that would last all they way through the Oligocene era and into the Miocene. Ground water dried up and sediments accumulated in force on the plains of eastern Montana. Examples of this are the Renova Formation in the west and the White River Oligocene beds in the eastern portion of the state.

Miocene Era

Starting 20 million years ago, things got quite interesting in Montana as the whole area became lush and tropical, and stayed that way for 10 million years. We know this because laterites have been found in the top layers of earth, which contains aluminum and iron ores. These laterites are only formed in tropical environments.

But things didn’t last for long, and Montana soon became hot and dry again, becoming a desert until the Ice Age came 2.5 million years ago. Many animals lived during those arid Pliocene and Pleistocene days, and their fossils can be seen to this day for anyone willing to look. After all, most of eastern Montana still looks like that today, without the wheat fields.

Animals of the Miocene Era

Pleistocene Era

Montana really began to take on the shape that we associate the state with today beginning in the Pleistocene era, 2.5 million years ago. Our current rivers and steams began to take shape in the western portion of the state and the glaciers formed that would do so much to sculpt and shape Montana. And then the Earth was done, and Montana could rest. That is until people began to arrive in our current Holocene Era.

2: Montana’s Western Interior Seaway

It’s amazing to think of Montana as having been covered with water, but that’s exactly how it was for millions of years. And what an interesting place Montana was back then, too. The climate and environment resembled something we’d be more apt to see in Florida than in Montana, and the residents were even more colorful than they are today.

Late Cretaceous Period

Montana was once almost entirely covered with water. During the mid-to-late Cretaceous period a large sea formed, and it teemed with life. Several different marine vertebrates called the area home, including reptiles, sharks, and Xiphactinus, a large bony fish that would be any fisherman’s worst nightmare today. And dinosaurs thrived along the lush shorelines of the sea, and we still find their fossils in the state today.

Extent of the Sea

The Western Interior Seaway covered nearly all of the state except for a small portion along the border with Idaho. The sea cut the North American continent into two distinct landmasses, Appalachia to the east and Laramidia to the west. It stretched all the way from the Gulf of Mexico in the south to the Arctic Ocean in the north, and was 2,500 feet at its deepest, 600 miles at its widest, and more than 2,000 miles in length.

Seaway in Cretaceous Period

Carbon deposits from the areas where the sea was tell us that the surrounding land was warm and tropical, a far cry from what we know it as today. The sea didn’t last through the Laramide orogeny, a period of intense mountain building that ended 35 to 55 million years ago.

The sea wasn’t always there, however. The Cretaceous period of the Mesozoic Era only lasted about 80 million years, from 145 to 65 million years ago, a time that saw the continents drift more or less into their current positions. The land bridge of the Bering Straight formed, making animal migration possible, and common. The Western Interior Seaway was only in place for half that time, and toward the end of the period when the dinosaurs that used to thrive on its shores became extinct.

The Sea’s Movements

When the sea expanded toward land and away from what’s now the Pacific Ocean, it’s called a transgression. When the sea moved back toward the Pacific Ocean and off of land, it’s referred to as a regression. This expansion and contraction of the Western Interior Seaway happened again and again during the Cretaceous period, and the proof exists in the rocks still seen in the hills today..

The Sea’s Treasures

There were two major marine transgressions when the sea was in place, and they left a lot of evidence behind. Large amounts of sandstone with marine fossils can be found on the central and eastern extent of the sea’s location, and in the western portions there are plentiful amounts of volcanic sediment, which made lithologic, or easily discernable, features on rocks.

Xiphactinus Fossil and Artist Rendition

In eastern Montana and the Dakotas especially, the evidence for this is found in the Pierre Shale, a geologic formation that occurred during the Cretaceous period and covered much of the Great Plains and parts of the Rocky Mountains. Fossils of clams, oysters, and many other marine denizens can still be found by intrepid school children or itinerant explorers, and they give proof to the Western Interior Seaway. And people will probably be digging them up for some time to come; the deposits near Fort Benton alone stretch nearly 100 feet below the surface.

3: Dinosaurs in Montana

Dinosaurs were plentiful in Montana, and more of their fossils have been found in the state than any other place in America. And for good reason; Montana during the late Cretaceous period was quite a different place from what we think of it today. Lush jungle-like forests covered much of the dry land, which wasn’t really that much compared to today, what with the Western Interior Sea in place for most of the period.

The dinosaurs that called Montana home ranged from the small Ornithomimids, or bird mimic dinosaurs, all the way up to the king of dinosaurs, the Tyrannosaurus Rex. Many others of all shapes and sizes existed between, whether plant-eating herbivores, or meat-eating carnivores.

Early Creatures

The dinosaurs at that time were quite pitiful, and little more than lizards with longer legs than usual. A mass-extinction event at the end of this period wiped out most of the dinosaurs that were evolving, and ushered in the Jurassic Period, which lasted from 213 to 145 million years ago.

Jurassic Period

The Jurassic period saw the giant supercontinent of Pangea begin to split apart into two distinct landmasses, and the changes also brought about interesting climate changes for Montana. Lush jungles would have covered much of what we know as arid regions of the state, prime stomping grounds for dinosaurs.

Ornithomimid Fossil

Huge dinosaurs dominated the land, while the seas teemed with marine reptiles, aquatic invertebrates, and plankton. The sky saw quite a bit of activity as well, for the first birds were beginning to evolve from their smaller reptilian ancestors, and giant flying reptiles called Pterosaurs roamed about in search of prey.

Artist Rendition of Western Interior Seaway Sea Life

The Berriasian epoch was a period of cooler temperatures during the latter part of the Jurassic period. The era can really be divided in two parts. During the first, snow was very common in higher altitudes and glaciers formed. Near the end of the period temperatures warmed considerably due to the increased and intense amount of volcanic activity that was beginning to take place. Carbon dioxide was released into the atmosphere, further warming temperatures, and the continual amounts of magma that were drying and forming new land were causing the sea levels to rise.

Tyrannosaurs Rex

Cretaceous Period

The Cretaceous period saw the end of the dinosaurs, but not until they had had more than 80 million years to cement their dominance of the Earth. During this period, that lasted from 145 to 65 million years ago, the continents drifted more or less into their current positions. The land bridge of Beringia began forming and reforming through glaciations where the current Bering Straight is located, making migration common. Birds became much more plentiful, and the first flowering plants began to appear.

Beringia

And dinosaurs were kings. Their reign wouldn’t last forever, and by the end of the period half of all animal and plant life on the planet was wiped out. The only living relative of the dinosaurs to survive was the crocodile, although their legacy lives on in books, films, fossils, and our imaginations.

4: Types of Dinosaurs in Montana

Montana, as we’ve seen, had many types of dinosaurs. The Western Interior Seaway that covered the majority of the state was an ideal environment for dinosaurs big and small. Duckbilled hadrosaurs were a common group that thrived in the area at that time, and a fine example of one that was especially fond of Montana was the Maiasaura, which in Greek translates as caring mother lizard. The Maiasaura lived about 74 million years ago in the state, and adults reached thirty feet in length from head to tail.

Duckbilled Hadrosaur

The first person to discover the dinosaur in Montana was Laurie Trexler near the Two Medicine Formation by Choteau. In all, more than 200 Maiasaurus’ have been discovered, as well as nests of their eggs, and since they were older than hatchlings, it was proof for the first time that giant dinosaurs raised and fed their young.

In fact, many of the dinosaurs that roamed Montana have been found near the Two Medicine Formation, which formed over a period of about 65 million years, beginning 70.6 million years ago. Dinosaurs were first discovered there in 1977 by Marion Brandvold, a rock shop owner from Bynum, Montana. His discovery was so rich in dinosaur eggs that the place has forevermore been called Egg Mountain.

Other interesting dinosaurs that have been found in the area include the Rubeosaurus, a quite intimidating looking beast, having large pointed horns that make a Triceratops look tame.

Rubeosaurus

The Daspletosaurus, which means frightful lizard, was quite the sight as well, and a cousin to the larger T-Rex. It had a short span of existence, however, only living between 77 and 74 million years ago, mainly in Montana and Alberta. And like the T-Rex, it had lots of sharp teeth, two small arms, and quite the long tail. It was the king in Montana, but for just a short 3 million years.

Daspletosaurus

A name that is particularly likable is that of the Saurornitholestes, which is easier to say as lizard-bird thief. These dinosaurs, that were most likely feathered, were carnivorous, as one look at their sickle-clawed feet will attest. They weren’t discovered in Alberta until 1974, and shortly thereafter in Montana as well.

Saurornitholestes

The Montana Dinosaur Trail

If you are really into dinosaurs, or just eastern Montana, make sure you check out the Montana Dinosaur Trail, a group of fourteen museums, attractions, and state parks that are devoted to dinosaurs and span twelve communities.

Montana Dinosaur Trail Locations

The trail was set up in May 2005 and became an instant success, attracting 196,000 visitors in its first year alone. The number of visitors each year now approaches 300,000, and guests are encouraged to have their Prehistoric Passport stamped at each of the fourteen locations on the trail.

It’s really a great way