History
French trappers found the area in the late 18th century peopled by Native American tribes such as the Blackfoot, Northern Cheyenne, Sioux, Assiniboine, Gros Ventre (Atsina), Crow tribe, Plains Cree and Plains Ojibwa. (The Crow name is Xuáhcheesh Annáppiio, "Where the Crow warrior Skunk was killed.")
The Lewis and Clark Expedition passed through the breaks in 1805 and were the first to document the region through notes and drawings, and their sighting and documentation of bighorn sheep in the breaks region was the first time this species was recorded in North America by white explorers. Much of the Breaks region has remained as it was when Lewis and Clark's party first saw it. "The confluence of the Judith and Missouri Rivers was the setting for important peace councils in 1846 and 1855. In 1877, the Nez Perce crossed the Missouri and entered the Breaks country in their attempt to escape to Canada. The Cow Island Skirmish occurred in the Breaks and was the last encounter prior to the Nez Perce's surrender to the U.S. Army at the Battle of Bear Paw just north of the monument."
Read more about this topic: Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“What you don’t understand is that it is possible to be an atheist, it is possible not to know if God exists or why He should, and yet to believe that man does not live in a state of nature but in history, and that history as we know it now began with Christ, it was founded by Him on the Gospels.”
—Boris Pasternak (1890–1960)
“No matter how vital experience might be while you lived it, no sooner was it ended and dead than it became as lifeless as the piles of dry dust in a school history book.”
—Ellen Glasgow (1874–1945)