Assiniboin People

Guide to  ancestry, family history and genealogy: birth records, marriage records, death records, census records, parish registers, and military records.

See also Fort Belknap Indian Agency (Montana).

Alternate Names: Assiniboine, Nakoda

Tribal Headquarters
Fort Belknap Indian Community RR1, Box 66 101 Tribal Way Harlem, MT 59526 Phone: 1-406-353-2205 Fax: 1-406-353-4541 Official Website: www.ftbelknap-nsn.gov

Fort Peck Assiniboine Sioux Tribes PO Box 1027 501 Medicine Bear Road Poplar, MT 59255 Phone: 1-406-768-5155 Fax: (406) 768-5478 Official Website: www.fortpecktribes.org

History
Originally part of the Yanktonai Dakota (Nakota), they separated in the early 1700s and settled in the area between the Saskatchewan and Missouri Rivers. In 1780 their population was estimated at 10,000.

Inter-tribal warfare forced the Assiniboin to migrate from Great Lakes to Minnesota, where the tribe came in contact with non-Native Americans in the 1800s. They migrated during the 1830s to "Montana," where Fort Union was built by the American Fur Company.

A smallpox epidemic de-populated the tribe by 4,000 in 1836.

During the mid-1840s and into the 1850s, emigrants were traveling west across the country in pursuit of silver, gold and land. In 1851 the tribe signed a treaty agreeing not to attack those traveling on the Oregon Trail, and the tribe was assigned land in western Montana.

In the 1870s the tribe settled on reservations in the United States - Fort Belknap Reservation (with Grosventre Tribe) and Fort Peck Reservation (with Sioux Tribes) - and in Canada - tracts of land in Saskatchewan and Alberta (with Sioux, Cree and Chippewa). Reservation living was difficult at best.

The logistics of providing food for the tribes was not efficient. When supplies failed to arrive, disappointed and hungry leaders sometimes confronted the government and military officials, which sometimes developed into warfare.

Fredrick W. Hodge states that in 1904, there were 644 Assiniboins living at Fort Belknap Agency and 535 at Fort Peck Agency.

Brief Timeline

 * Early: Forced from Great Lakes area to Minnesota area by tribal warfare
 * 1658: Living near Lake Superior they encountered non-Indians and began trading with them
 * 1800-1837: Several Assiniboin bands moved into "Montana" and the American Fur Company built Fort Union
 * 1824-66: Tribe under the jurisdiction of the Upper Missouri Agency.
 * 1836: Smallpox epidemic killed about 4,000
 * 1851: Treaty at Fort Laramie -- they promise not attack settlers traveling the Oregon Trail and are assigned land in western Montana.


 * 1851 September 17, at Fort Laramie, with Sioux. The treaty establishes the territory of the Assiniboin Nation.


 * 1855: Tribe referred to in treaty with the Blackfeet
 * 1864-80: Tribe under the jurisdiction of the Montana Superintendency.
 * 1866: The tribe agreed to move to Fort Buford, in "North Dakota"
 * 1867-70: Tribe under the jurisdiction of the Fort Berthold Agency.
 * 1870's: Settled on reservations in the United States - Fort Belknap Reservation (with GrosVentre Tribe) and Fort Peck Reservation (with Sioux Tribes) - and in Canada - tracts of land in Saskatchewan and Alberta (with Sioux, Cree and Chippewa)
 * 1873: A massacre of Assiniboin band lead by Little Soldier, at Cypress Hill, inititated the establishment of Northwest Mounted Police by Canada.
 * 1874: Fort Belknap was established for the GrosVentre and Upper Assiniboin.
 * 1877: Treaty Seven is signed by the Blackfoot Confederacy and by the Stoney (Canadian) Assiniboin
 * 1877: Fort Peck (Montana) became the agency for the Lower Asasiniboin and the Yanktonai Nakota and Sisseton-Wahpeton (Dakota) Sioux
 * 1883-1884: In the winter living at Fort Peck, the rations failed to arrive and hundreds of Assiniboin perished due to starvation.
 * 1887-1934: General Allotment Act (1887) began land allotment; land allotment of Assiniboin territory discontinued in 1934.

Additional References to the History of the Tribe

 * Frederick Webb Hodge, in his Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, gave a more complete history of the Assiniboin tribe, with estimations of the population of the tribe at various time periods.
 * Additional details are given in John Swanton's The Indian Tribes of North America
 * David Bushnell's Villages of the Algonquian, Siouan and Caddoan Tribes West of the Mississippi.
 * Fort Belknap Indian Community website has a page of Assiniboine history
 * For additional history of the tribe, read more....
 * A history of the Assiniboin living on or near the Fort Peck Reservation is available on the Poplar, Montana website.

Reservations
Reservations are tracts of land set aside for the occupation and use by Native Americans.


 * Fort Belknap Reservation in Montana
 * Fort Peck Reservation in Montana

Records
The majority of records of individuals were those created by the agencies. Some records may be available to tribal members through the tribal headquarters.They were (and are) the local office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and were charged with maintaining records of the activities of those under their responsibility. Among these records are:


 * Allotment records
 * Annuity rolls
 * Census records
 * Correspondence
 * Health records
 * Reports
 * School census and records
 * Vital records

Agency Records
The following agencies of the Bureau of Indian Affairs had jurisdiction over the Assiniboin for the time periods indicated. BIA agencies were responsible to keep such records as census rolls, allotment (land) records, annuity rolls, school records, correspondence, and other records of individual Indians under their jurisdiction. For details, see the page for the respective agency.

The agencies and Superintendencies which had jurisdiction over a major portion of the Assiniboin in the United States were:

Upper Missouri Agency, 1819-1864 Fort Berthold Agency, 1864-1869 Fort Belknap Agency, 1873-present Fort Peck Agency, 1874-present St. Peters Agency


 * Montana Superintendency
 * St. Louis Superintendency Central Superintendency of Indian Affairs
 * Central Superintendency
 * Minnesota Superintendency
 * Dakota Superintendency

Census
The Bureau of Indian Affairs compiled annual Indian Census Rolls on many of the reservations from 1885 to 1940. They list the names of individuals, their age, and other details about each person enumerated. For more information about these records, click here.

The following table lists the census rolls for the Assiniboin Indians:

Correspondence
There are several sets of correspondence between the supervising offices of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the local offices -- agencies, subagencies, etc. The correspondence is often historical in nature, including reports of the conditions among local groups of Indians, hostilities, plans for building facilities, activities of traders or missionaries, etc. Occasionally, there will be names of individuals but little detail about them. For more information about Native American correspondence, click here.

The following table lists some of the correspondence records relating to the Assiniboins:

Treaties
During the latter part of the 18th Century and most of the 19th Century, treaties were negotiated between the federal government and individual tribes. The treaties provide helpful information about the history of the tribe, but usually only include the names of those persons who signed the treaty. For more information about treaties, click here.

Treaties to which the Assiniboins were a part were:


 * 1851 September 17, at Fort Laramie, with Sioux. The treaty establishes the territory of the Assiniboin Nation.
 * October 17, 1855, Referred to in Blackfeet treaty

Tribal Office Records
The Tribal Office is responsible for enrollment records, vital records, tribal police records, tribal court records, employment records and many others. They are an entirely different set of records from those kept by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Most of them remain in the Tribal Office. For details, contact that office at the address for the Tribal Headquarters listed above.

Vital Records
Prior to the Indian Reorganization Act, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, through their agencies, may have recorded some vital events. Some were recorded on health forms, such as the "Sanitary Record of Sick, Injured, Births, Deaths, etc." Others were recorded as supplements to the "Indian Census Rolls." Some were included in the unindexed reports and other correspondence of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Some vital records for the Assiniboin Indians include:


 * Fort Peck Agency, M595, Births and Deaths 1925-1932,

Important Websites

 * Reservation website for the Fort Belknap Indian Community, including both the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre Indians
 * State Office of Indian Affairs article on the Fort Belknap Assiniboine and Gros Ventre Tribes
 * State Office of Indian Affairs article on the Fort Peck Tribes
 * Wikipedia article on the Assiniboine Indians

Assiniboin

 * Carlson, Paul H. The Plains Indians. College Station, Texas: Texas A&amp;M University Press, c1998.
 * Denig, Edwin Thompson. Five Indian Tribes of the Upper Missouri: Sioux, Arickaras, Assiniboines, Crees, Crows. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, c1981. The Civilization of American Indian Series:059..
 * Lowe, Robert H. The Assiniboine. Washington [D.C.]: Microfilmed by the Library of Congress Photoduplication Service, 1989. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, Vol. 4 pt. 1..

General
See For Further Reading.