The Indian Projects: Blackfeet Project

Voggesser, Garrit

The Federal Government initiated the Blackfeet Project as part of a plan designed to extinguish Federal jurisdiction over the Indians by settling them on allotments and providing them with water for irrigated farming. Although good intentions lay behind the Federal program for settling the Blackfeet “Indian Problem,” misunderstandings tainted the undertaking. Federal goals to remake the Indians in the image of white yeoman farmers proved irreconcilable with the views and beliefs of the Blackfeet. As one Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) official later surmised, “These Indians took little or no part or initiative in these events. They did not like the changing times and their attitude was one of resigned acceptance or at most passive resistance.” The conclusion exemplified the difficulty that wrought many of the Indian Projects. Not only did Indians have little interest in becoming assimilated into the white man’s world, but Federal officials failed to consider the needs and desires of the Blackfeet. Work on the project oscillated between activity and idleness as the two cultures struggled to find an ideological middle ground. Clearly, the story of the Blackfeet Project is one of difficulty, discouragement, and disappointment. However, in hindsight, to fully assess the project a historian must try to glean the positive accomplishments as well as its limitations. The success achieved in the Blackfeet Project largely came through providing water for white settlers, some income for Indians, and despite their limited use of it, a preservation of the reserved treaty rights of the Blackfeet to land and water.

The Indian Projects: Blackfeet Project

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