Piegan Blackfeet
The area around Fort Shaw was a hotbed of conflict between Native Americans and white settlers in the late 1860s. A series of Piegan Blackfeet and Sioux raids between 1865 and 1869 left several whites dead. In mid-1869, two innocent Piegan Blackfeet were killed in retaliation in broad daylight in the town of Fort Benton, Montana, about to the northeast of Fort Shaw. One of them was the brother of the Piegan leader Mountain Chief, who initiated a series of reprisals which killed about 25 white settlers. In response, General Philip Sheridan ordered Major Eugene Baker to take two companies of the 2d Cavalry Regiment from Fort Ellis and two companies of infantry from Fort Shaw and attack Mountain Chief's band of Piegans. Baker attacked the Piegans on the morning of January 23, 1870. Unfortunately, he attacked the wrong band: The Piegans were led by Heavy Runner, a Piegan Blackfeet who had signed a peace agreement with the United States. When Heavy Runner rushed out of his camp with his peace treaty in hand, he was shot dead. In what became known as the Marias Massacre, more than 173 Piegean Blackfeet (including 53 women and children) were murdered.