Before the Medicine Line

Abstract

This article argues that Blackfoot people played a central role in the emergence of the northwest plains as a vibrant borderland between British and U.S. fur trade empires. When the British Hudson’s Bay Company monopolized the northern fur trade in 1821, Blackfoot traders abandoned their previous opposition to American expansion and deliberately encouraged U.S. trading companies to expand onto the Upper Missouri River. In so doing, the Blackfeet forced fur trading companies to compete for their favor and gained crucial economic and political advantages over their neighbors. This episode reveals the centrality of indigenous agency to early western geography, sheds new light on the ways Indian people understood and created borderlands relationships, and underscores the importance of linking early U.S. and Canadian history.