‘Blood on the Marias’ takes on Baker Massacre

“If the lives and property of the citizens of Montana can best be protected by striking Mountain Chief’s band, I want them struck. Tell Baker to strike them hard.” – General William Tecumseh Sherman, Jan. 15, 1870

“Heavy Runner told everyone to be quiet, that there was nothing to fear. He said he would show the whites his ‘name paper’ ... a shot pierced his heart and he fell, clutching the paper to his breast.” – Spear Woman affidavit, 1915

The facts are this: On January 23, 1870, troops of the 2nd U.S. Cavalry attacked a Piegan Indian village on the Marias River near present-day Shelby, massacring women, children and old men afflicted by small pox in an act of revenge carried out against the wrong people, despite warnings these were not a renegade band. It was 40 degrees below zero, and Major Eugene Baker was drunk as he led the soldiers.

In “Blood on the Marias,” author Paul Wylie of Bozeman takes the Baker Massacre back to the actions that set the stage for the massacre – all the way back to Captain Meriwether Lewis’ conflict with Blackfeet – and follows it to the coverup that came later.

The massacre did not start out in obscurity, Wylie found.

“In 1870, shortly after it occurred, it was nationally know and nationally reviled,” he wrote. The New York Times remarked “the slaughter of the Piegans in Montana is more serious and a more shocking affair than the sacking of Black Kettle’s camp on the Washita.”

Chief Heavy Runner knew the Army was after the band led by Mountain Chief for the murder of Malcolm Clarke and other acts but he wasn’t worried, having just met with General Alfred Sully, who promised them they would be protected if they brought in the band. The general gave him a document testifying to the Army’s protection.

Due process of the law in the face of accusations of Clarke’s murder “did not even enter the discussion where the Piegans were concerned” as they would have if a white person had charges filed against him.

And so the soldiers set off through the bitter cold. The way was treacherous. A correspondent for the new Bozeman Pick and Plow newspaper called the march toilsome “and at length reached a mighty ravine, which the guides informed us, had never been passed but by two white men. This was readily believed, for the difficulties it presented were truly formidable.”

Guide Joe Kipp protested that the trail they were on wouldn’t take them to Mountain Chief’s camp but rather to the small pox-ridden camp of Heavy Runner.

“Despite Kipp’s protestations, Baker thought that Kipp was deceiving him and threatened to shoot him if he did not lead as directed,” Wylie wrote. Officers and men were “too long in conference with John Barleycorn” to heed Kipp’s warnings.

Corporal Daniel C. Starr of F Company was with the troops who surrounded the village. They were “ready for the kill. It would have been a perfect time to take prisoners, but that was not an option for Baker and his command.” Lt. Gustavus Doane saw himself on the brink of renown as an Indian fighter.

“Nits make lice” was a motto of Baker’s, and the men knew it meant not to spare the children.

Spear Woman was a young girl who lived through the massacre. She described people in her lodge being “shot mercilessly” until the firing ended and all she could hear was “the moans of the wounded.” From her hiding place, she watched as soldiers checked bodies and “anyone yet alive was shot in the head.”

The slaughter lasted for three hours. Private William Birth, 21, was part of the mounted infantry based in Fort Shaw. He later said the Piegans were too sick or frightened to fight.

“Without much hesitancy, Birth and the other infantrymen started firing into the tents. They had heard the orders of an officer, which Birth thought was Colonel Baker, who ‘said to us you know what to do,’” Wylie wrote. “The soldiers around Birth became emboldened: unafraid of any kind of armed resistance by the Indians, they ‘went up to their tents and took ... butcher knives and cut open their tents and shot them as they lay under their blankets and buffalo robes.’ But that was not extreme enough: Birth and his companions ‘killed some with axes.’”

Doane wanted to be an Indian fighter and ultimately didn’t care that he’d attacked the wrong village. He recalled the date with satisfaction of slaughtering the Piegans and “how it occurred to me, as I sat down on the banks of the Marias and watched the stream of their blood, which ran down on the surface of the frozen river over half a mile, that the work we were then doing would be rewarded, as it has been.”

In 2008, Wylie joined Blackfeet at a commemoration of the 217 who were killed that day (the Army reported 173). He wondered why the Battle of the Little Bighorn is so well known and such scant attention paid to the Baker Massacre.

No physical element keeps it in people’s mind; there isn’t even a good road there.

“I understand it is a sacred place to the Blackfeet, and perhaps it is best not to go there regularly or stay long. That may explain why the nearest sign is a highway marker on Highway 2, around the town of Dunkirk, east of Shelby,” Wylie wrote. “While there has been discussion about seeking national recognition for the massacre site, doing so would open to the public what is hallowed ground for the Blackfeet.”

Reach Tribune Staff Writer Kristen Inbody at kinbody@greatfallstribune.com. Follow her on Twitter at @GFTrib_KInbody.

Book: “Blood on the Marias: The Baker Massacre”

Author: Paul Wylie

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press

Price: $29.95

Pages: 336