Fort Belknap Reservation

Two signs have stood here with two texts. The first, red wood with routed lettering, was broken across its top by May 2014 and gone by August 2019, its frame standing empty. By July 2022 this printed panel had replaced it, rewritten. The old board said Gros Ventres, then Atsina, and gave A'a'ninin, White Clay People, third; the panel leads with A'a'ninin, Aaniiih in the nation's spelling today, and drops Atsina. It also drops the line calling them close allies of the Blackfeet, and Nakota, glossed The Peaceful Ones on the board, now means Friend or Ally.

What the plaque says

Fort Belknap Reservation The Fort Belknap Reservation was established in 1888 when the A'a'ninin (Gros Ventres), Blackfeet, and Assiniboine tribes ceded 17.5 million acres of their joint reservation to the federal government. The reservation, which once covered northern Montana east of the Rocky Mountains and north of the Missouri River, was divided into three much smaller reservations. The Fort Belknap Reservation is home for the A'a'ninin and Assiniboine people. It was named for William W. Belknap, secretary of war under President U. S. Grant. The A'a'ninin or "White Clay People" once lived in the Red River Valley in what is now North Dakota from about 1100 to 1400 A.D. They moved west, splitting into two tribes around 1730. One group moved southwest and became the Arapaho, the other northwest, ending up in Montana by the early 1800s. Fur trappers misinterpreted the tribe's sign for itself and dubbed it Gros Ventres, French for "large belly" and pronounced "Grow Von." Tradition credits the Assiniboine tribe as separating from the Yanktonai Sioux in the early 1600s. Two of the first ladies of the tribe, wives of leaders, quarreled over an epicurean delicacy, a buffalo heart. The gentlemen chipped in and the tribe split. One faction headed west and became known as the Assiniboine. They call themselves Nakota, meaning Friend or Ally. When the reservation was created, part of the tribe enrolled here and the remainder at Fort Peck, about 180 miles to the east.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Belknap Agency — steps away
  The agency on the Milk River whose water fight gave the West its founding rule of tribal water rights in 1908.
• Bear Paw Battlefield — 22 mi
  The siege ground on Snake Creek where the Nimiipuu war of 1877 ended, and where seven years of exile began.

More markers nearby

• The Vision Quest — steps away