Native American Tribes: The History of the Blackfeet and the Blackfoot Confederacy

By: Charles River Editors

Narrated by: Jack Chekijian

They call themselves "Niitsitapi" ("Original People"), but in the United States, they are known as the Blackfeet. In Canada, they are known by their more particular band names, one of which is Blackfoot, but regardless of the name, they are a tribe of Native American peoples ("First Nations" in Canada) who, until the modern time period, lived in small, decentralized bands and hunted the bison on the northern Great Plains. Stories vary, but the name "Blackfeet" or "Blackfoot," applied to them by others, may have come originally from their practice of dying their moccasin soles black. That said, their use of an Algonquian language group may indicate that they were relatively recent newcomers to the region from somewhere in the Northeast.

The territory of the Blackfeet, at its greatest extent, encompassed a vast area from the eastern Rocky Mountains of Alberta and Montana and extending several hundred miles out onto the Great Plains, around the upper reaches of the Saskatchewan River and its tributaries in Alberta and the upper reaches of the Missouri River and its tributaries in Montana. The area of the land most sacred to the Blackfeet is the Sweet Grass Hills, which are located just south of the Canadian border in the central part of Montana. These are a group of buttes forested with balsam firs rising several thousand feet above the surrounding plains and which can be seen for a considerable distance. This was also Napi's favorite resting place in the mythology of the Blackfeet. Young Blackfeet went up into the Hills on their vision quests and, as their predecessors had done for several thousands of years, left inscriptions and petroglyphs on the surface of the tall sandstone cliffs. Many of the stories told by the Blackfeet take place there.

©2012 Charles River Editors (P)2015 Charles River Editors

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Pretty short and concise. Gives good information in a shortened fashion. I learned some things.

Worth the time

tool a chance on this one based on reviews and am glad I did, the only complaint I have is that the end seems to be done with little thought of how rushed it seemed.

presents truth without cheap drama

while I've known for a long time that the policies toward First Nation Peoples were routinely based on extermination , this book presents a plain and honest picture of an honorable society and its complete
and utter destruction by another society based on greed and self-serving attitudes.

Eminently readable it kept me engrossed throughout without the over the top chest-beating dramas so often found in other "histories".

Despite my prior reading I was frankly surprised at how quickly this destruction was accomplished. The author's plain and simple descriptions of the facts left me profoundly disturbed by what we have lost.
I highly recommend it for anyone interested in this part of our history.

People of the Northwest Territory

This is one entry of a series on the indigenous tribes of North America. While brief, it seems well researched and presented, and does provide a number of references and documentation. As expected, Charles River Editors have done a creditable job once again.
The audio is narrated by Jack Chekijian, who is well known for excellence in this capacity.

Very informative

This book is great for telling a quick history of the Blackfoot nation, it’s great for helping to understand what people went through, good and bad. Everyone in the country should read this to understand some of the incredible injustices that were committed in our country‘s history