Orin T. Hatton papers, 1989

The Fort Belknap Indian Reservation is located in north central Montana. The reservation is the homeland of the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre people. Established in 1888, the reservation is what remains of the vast ancestral territory of the Blackfeet and Assiniboine Nations. The Gros Ventre, as members of the Blackfeet confederacy, and the Assiniboine Nation signed the Fort Laramie treaties of 1851 and 1855 with the United States Government establishing their respective territories within the continental United States. The Fort Belknap Reservation is part of what remains of these two nations ancestral territory that included all of central and eastern Montana and portions of western North Dakota. The Blackfeet, and Fort Peck Indian Reservations are also part of this territorial boundaries.

The Assiniboine refer to themselves as Nakoda , meaning “the generous ones”. This tribe split with the Yanktonai Sioux in the seventeenth century and migrated westward onto the northern plains with their allies, the Plains Cree. "Assiniboine" is a Chippewa word meaning, "One who cooks with stones." The Assiniboine are located on both the Fort Belknap and Fort Peck Indian Reservations in Montana and on several reserves in Saskatchewan and Alberta.

(Source: Fort Belknap Indian Community , “History” web. Date Accessed: 02/16/23)