A devastating outbreak of smallpox had reduced the strength of the Blackfoot, and a Cree war party had come south in late October 1870 to take advantage of that weakness.
After several hours of trading shots, a Blackfoot party gained the high ground and made the Cree positions untenable.
More significant than the outcome of the battle, is the fact that it is perhaps the best-covered inter-tribal fighting of all time given the number of eyewitnesses it produced.
[2] The clash does not refer to a single organized engagement but consists of many scattered encounters in the valley of the Oldman River.
In January 1871, just months after the fight the Cree extended an olive branch to the Blackfoot with a gift of tobacco and an informal peace.
The battle marked the end of inter-tribal warfare and the beginning of a new era of cooperation between the First Nations, a peace that has lasted to this day.