Marias Massacre - The Massacre

The Massacre

On January 23, 1870, Baker's party received a scouting report that the group of Piegans, led by Mountain Chief, was camped along the Marias River. They attacked the site at Willow Rounds, but Mountain Chief had been warned and left the area, so Baker's men instead ended up attacking the camp of Chief Heavy Runner, who had enjoyed friendly relations with the white men. Although Baker's scouts had reportedly warned him that he was about to attack the wrong camp, he proceeded anyway against the protests of those scouts. As the men of the camp were mostly out hunting, the raid was a massacre of mostly women and children. A hasty count by Baker's men showed 173 dead (mostly women and children) with 140 women and children captured, while only one cavalryman died, after falling off his horse and breaking his leg.

A Blackfoot scout counted 217 corpses after the massacre; the number 173 given by the army was counted by drunken army personnel.

Heavy Runner himself was killed as he left his lodge with an American flag given to him as a promise for his camp's safety. Winter lodges were falling into flames and burning small children and the oldest ones who were unable to even begin escaping the pre-dawn ambush of bullets. Many survivors hid in the freezing waters of the Marias River. The prisoners were chased onto the prairie and left there. Mountain Chief's band escaped to Canada. Descendants of the victims retell the event through oral histories. Every Native American man who was massacred was thrown into a fire. One of the men was cut in half with a bayonet.