General Discussion

sheshe2

(83,883 posts) Mon May 3, 2021, 08:18 PM May 2021

This is what true Americans do.

They were the First Americans. We treated them poorly. There heart is full of love, healing and forgiveness.

Link to tweet

The Blackfeet Nation in Montana gifted their surplus COVID-19 vaccines (750 doses) to nearby residents in Alberta, Canada. People drove for hours and lined up for miles on the highway to be vaccinated at a mobile clinic set up at the border crossing.

History:

The Blackfeet settled in the region around Montana after 1600 CE. Previously, they resided in an area of the woodlands north and west of the Great Lakes. Pressure exerted by British traders at James Bay in present day Canada on the Algonquin-speaking tribes in the area drove the Blackfeet out onto the Northern Plains. They eventually acquired firearms and horses, and became a formidable example of the classic Plains Indian culture. They were a powerful force, controlling an area that extended from current day Edmonton, Alberta Province, nearly to Yellowstone Park, and from Glacier Park to the Black Hills of South Dakota. The Badger-Two Medicine area is a significant sacred site for the tribe.

In the late 19th century, Blackfeet territory was encroached on by European Americans and Canadians, and various branches of the people were forced to cede lands and ultimately move to smaller Indian reservations in the United States and reserves in Canada.[4] Adjacent to their reservation, established by Treaty of 1896, are two federally controlled areas: the Lewis and Clark National Forest, set up in 1896, which contains the Badger-Two Medicine area, an area of 200 square miles (130,000-acres); and Glacier National Park, both part of the tribal nation's former territory.

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Culture:

The tribe has an oral history of 10,000 years in this region. It recounts the sacred nature of their central place, the Badger-Two Medicine area, known as their site of creation and origin.

In 2002, the Department of Interior declared roughly two-thirds (almost 90,000 acres) of the Badger-Two Medicine area along the Rocky Mountain Front as eligible for listing as a Traditional Cultural District in the National Register of Historic Places.[6] This was a recognition of its importance to the Blackfeet. They used an ethnographer to document their oral history of use and practices, and in 2014 used this information to negotiate with stakeholders over leases for drilling rights that had been made in the area.[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackfeet_Nation