The Marias Massacre: U.S. Cavalry Kills 173 Blackfeet in Montana (1870)
Before dawn on January 23, 1870, soldiers of the U.S. 2nd Cavalry attacked a camp of Piegan Blackfeet Indians along the Marias River in Montana Territory, killing 173 people, the vast majority of them women, children, and elderly men. The raid, ordered in retaliation for the killing of a white trader, struck the wrong band entirely—a peaceful group already suffering a smallpox outbreak—making it one of the deadliest and most controversial episodes of the Indian Wars in U.S. history.
A Mistaken Target
The origins of the Marias Massacre trace back to the murder of Malcolm Clarke, a well-known trader and rancher, killed in August 1869 by Blackfeet warriors connected to Chief Owl Child, who was operating under the protection of Mountain Chief's band. Army officials, under pressure from Montana settlers demanding retribution, ordered Major Eugene M. Baker of the 2nd U.S. Cavalry to locate and punish Mountain Chief's camp. In the freezing days of January 1870, Baker's column of roughly 400 soldiers marched into the Marias River valley in search of the guilty band. Instead, scouts led Baker to the camp of Chief Heavy Runner, a Piegan leader who had consistently cooperated with U.S. authorities and even carried a paper from the government attesting to his friendliness. Compounding the tragedy, Heavy Runner's people were in the grip of a smallpox epidemic at the time, weakening the camp and leaving many unable to flee or defend themselves when the attack began.
Did You Know?
Chief Heavy Runner, the Piegan leader killed in the first moments of the attack, was carrying a government-issued paper certifying his band's friendliness to the United States when he was shot—he had reportedly been running toward the soldiers waving it in an attempt to stop the assault.
The Attack at Dawn
At first light on January 23, Baker's troops surrounded the sleeping village and opened fire without warning. Accounts from survivors and later investigators indicate that Heavy Runner ran toward the soldiers waving his identification papers, only to be shot down almost immediately. What followed was less a battle than a slaughter: soldiers fired into lodges, and many victims were shot as they emerged from their tepees or attempted to flee across the icy river. Of the 173 killed, only a small fraction were men of fighting age—most were women, children, infants, and the elderly, many already gravely ill with smallpox. Roughly 140 survivors, mostly women and children, were taken captive, and the camp's lodges, food stores, and horses were destroyed or seized, leaving survivors to face the brutal Montana winter with almost nothing. Baker later claimed his men had struck a hostile camp, but subsequent investigations made clear the tragic error in identification.
Aftermath and National Reaction
News of the massacre spread slowly but ignited fierce controversy once it reached the East Coast. Reformers, missionaries, and members of Congress condemned the killings as an atrocity against a friendly, disease-stricken band, while military leaders including General Philip Sheridan defended Baker's actions as necessary frontier discipline. The public outcry proved significant: it helped derail a congressional proposal to transfer control of Indian affairs from the civilian Bureau of Indian Affairs back to the U.S. Army, reinforcing President Ulysses S. Grant's Peace Policy, which favored civilian oversight and conciliation over military force in dealings with Native nations. For the Blackfeet, the massacre remained a devastating memory of loss and betrayal, symbolizing the vulnerability of Native communities even when they sought peaceful coexistence with the United States. Today, the Marias Massacre—sometimes called the Baker Massacre—is remembered as a stark example of the tragic consequences of mistaken identity, prejudice, and unchecked military force during America's westward expansion.