1978 Shane Pictorial Map of Fort Peck Indian Reservation, Montana

From Encounters with Lewis and Clark to Oil Production.

This 1978 Ralph M. Shane pictorial historical map of Montana's Fort Peck Indian Reservation connects the Assiniboine and Sioux homeland's history of dispossession with its continuing cultural and economic life. Alongside accounts of military encounters, vanished buffalo herds, and reservation allotment, Shane records oil production, tribal government, rodeos, and annual celebrations. The map belongs to Shane's broader educational project, developed outside his professional work as a Bureau of Indian Affairs road engineer, to document the history and present conditions of various Native American peoples.

A Closer Look

Rendered throughout in blue, the map follows the Missouri River from Fort Peck Dam eastward to Fort Union and the Montana-North Dakota boundary. Towns, waterways, roads, railroads, county boundaries, and a rectilinear grid provide the geographical framework for densely lettered historical accounts. Illustrations occupy both margins and the mapped landscape, including those of a Métis freighter and Red River cart, grazing buffalo, a mounted hunter, dancers beside tipis, a locomotive, and a Missouri River steamboat, giving visual form to the subjects discussed nearby.

The Missouri River serves as a historical axis. Dated stopping places trace the Lewis and Clark expedition's passage in 1805 and return in 1806, interspersed with trading posts, steamboat wrecks, and later infrastructure. Other illustrations depict forts, Indian agencies, and the arrival of new modes of transport, such as locomotives.

Tragedies and privations inflicted on the native inhabitants are also mentioned. Near Fort Union, Shane describes the smallpox epidemic of 1837 - 1838; near Wolf Point, he records the starvation winter of 1883 - 1884, linking the deaths of more than 300 people to the destruction of the buffalo and the failure of supply arrangements. Elsewhere, he recounts how traders diverted annuity goods intended for distribution to tribal members into trading-post merchandise.

Land tenure receives substantial space along the upper border. Shane transcribes the reservation's boundary description and explains individual allotments and the opening of remaining lands to homesteaders. These annotations address the mechanisms through which communal territory became divided and opened to non-Native settlement. The Fort Peck Allotment Act of May 30, 1908, authorized this process; by 1913, approximately 1.35 million acres of unallotted or unreserved land were available for settlement.

Oil, Celebration, and Cultural Continuity

A tall oil derrick at top-center introduces the reservation's modern resource economy. Its caption dates the oil discovery to 1951 and reports both cumulative production and oil's contribution to tribal income. An illustrated passage describes Poplar's Oil Discovery Celebration and the selection of its princess, who went on to compete for (and in one case win) the title of Miss Indian America (a pageant run from 1953 to 1989). Other sections discuss contemporary events and celebrations, connecting the past and present of the Assiniboine and Sioux peoples on the reservation.

Publication History

Ralph M. Shane originally prepared and published this map in 1971; this example is the 1978 second edition. Scarce in both editions, the 1978 printing is held by the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection, the University of Arizona, Denison University, and Pennsylvania State University.

Cartographer

Ralph M. Shane (1910 - July 12, 1984) was an artist and U.S. government engineer. Born near Edelstein, Illinois, Shane's parents moved the family to Pipestone, Minnesota, where he attended public school. After high school, Shane attended the University of Colorado before transferring to the South Dakota School of Mines, where he graduated in 1935 with a B.S. in engineering. He found work with the South Dakota State Highway Commission and drafted strip and right-of-way maps. In November 1936, Shane joined the Bureau of Indian Affairs as an engineering draftsman. He was promoted to junior road engineer the following year. The Bureau transferred him to Sacramento, California, in January 1939 to work as chief of a road survey party. Shane worked as a road engineer for the Bureau of Indian Affairs across the western United States through the 1940s and 1950s, except for a four-month furlough in 1943 when he served as a Navy ensign. He left the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1955 and bought a newspaper in New Town, North Dakota, which he edited for two years before returning to the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He retired from the Bureau in 1979. Shane was married twice. First to Jeanette Wildman, whom he married in 1936, then to Carolyn Mae Hodgkinson, whom he married on July 14, 1944. He had four children.   Further Details...

Condition

Fine.

References

Rumsey, 13658.000. OCLC 31895967.