ABSTRACT
The Blackfeet are among the oldest residents of the Northern Plains. They also were the most powerful Indian people north of the Missouri River. The nation consisted of three tribes, the Blood and Blackfeet who lived far to the north and the Piegan who lived south of the present forty-ninth parallel. The Blackfeet lived with a proprietary sense on the plains as buffalo hunters and fur traders, the buffalo both charting the territory of the Blackfeet and influencing their political organization. Blackfeet Indian Agent John Wood initiated governmental change in 1875, encouraging the tribesmen to elect reservation representatives to leadership positions. The Blackfeet government today under the 1935 tribal constitution is dominated by the nine-member Business Council. The fragmented nature of Blackfeet government has been further enhanced by the activism of the agency superintendent, the Interior Department's representative on the reservation. The essential weakness of the Blackfeet government stems from the Council's formal status and its mode of operation.
