The Atsinas

In 1772, Hudson’s Bay employee Mathew Cocking met the Atsina at the forks of the Saskatchewan and called them the Waterfall Indians. The captains, in their “Estimate of the Eastern Indians,” identify these people as the “Falls Indians.” Today, they are known as the Atsina or Gros Ventre, but their names in the historical literature—Big Bellies, Gros Ventre and Minnetares—cause confusion even to this day. These names are given to two very different tribes, the Hidatsa of the northern plains, and the Atsina of north central Montana and Saskatchewan. The terms “Gros Ventres of the Prairie” (Atsina) and “Gros Ventres of the Missouri” was adopted in the 19th century to avoid confusion.

On 28 May 1805 Clark calls them “Minetaries of Fort de Prarie.” Patrick Gass begins his 28 July 1806 re-telling of Lewis’s fight on the Two Medicine by calling the young thieves “Prairie Grossventres.” In fact, the expedition never did meet any Atsina People. The boys were Blackfeet, close allies with the Atsina.^[2]For the dangers of this portion of the expedition, see The Marias River Risk. Perhaps the lack of Atsina presence on the Lewis and Clark route was due to smallpox epidemics in 1780 and 1801.^[3]Loretta Fowler and Regina Flannery, Handbook of North American Indians: Plains Vol. 15, Raymond J. DeMallie, Ed. (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institute, 1978), 677–67.

The presence of the Atsina did, however, have a profound effect on the way several tribes interacted with the expedition. The British traded arms with the Blackfeet, Atsinas, and Assiniboines giving those people an advantage over their southern neighbors, the Nez Perce, Salish, and Lemhi Shoshone had difficulty obtaining Trade Guns. Neither could the disadvantaged tribes obtain arms from the Spanish who refused on policy. When asked for weapons, the captains could only give the Nez Perce, Salish, and Lemhi Shohone little more than promises and assurances.

Much of the poverty the captains witnessed while among the Lemhi Shoshone were due to recent raids by the Atsina. When Lewis met Cameahwait on 13 August 1805, they smoked a pipe in the only leather lodge they had. The rest had been stolen in an Atsina raid:

these people had been attacked by the Minetares of Fort de prarie this spring and about 20 of them killed and taken prisoners. on this occasion they lost a great part of their horses and all their lodges except that which they had erected for our accomodation; they were now living in lodges of a conic figure made of willow brush
—Meriwether Lewis

On the return trip, Lewis had to cross the Continental Divide without Nez Perce guides. They would not accompany him on the Road to the Buffalo that crosses present-day Lewis and Clark Pass. As Lewis described it, the “Nez Perce refused to continue for fear of the ‘Pahkees.’ Pahkee is likely from the Shoshone /pakihï’ï/ meaning rawhide armor, a reference to the tribe’s enemies: the Blackfeet, Atsina, Arapahoe, and Assiniboine.^[4]Moulton, Journals, 8:90n9; William Bright, A Glossary of Native American Toponyms and Ethnonyms from the Lewis and Clark Journals, University of Colorado, accessed on 28 April 2020, … Continue reading

Today, the Atsina identify as Gros Ventre, but are also known as Aaniiih, A’aninin, Haaninin, and White Clay. Many are members of the Fort Belknap Indian Community, a federally recognized tribe from Montana that also includes Assiniboine People.^[5]“Gros Ventre,” Wikipedia accessed on 24 November 2020, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gros_Ventre.