How did the shirts get to the Pitt Rivers Museum?
The five Blackfoot shirts in Oxford were acquired in the summer of 1841 during Governor Sir George Simpson's inspection of the Hudson's Bay Company's western fur trade posts, but we have little specific information on when and how they were collected. Simpson and his secretary, Edward Hopkins, arrived at Fort Edmonton in late July. What we know of their visit comes principally from an essay Simpson wrote about the Blackfoot while he stayed there, and from the published Narrative describing his journey around the world. For July 26th 1841 he reported:
On the third day after our arrival, the firing of guns on the opposite side of the river, which was heard early in the morning, announced the approach of nine native chiefs, who came forward in advance of a camp of fifty lodges, which was again followed by another camp of six times the size. These chiefs were Blackfeet, Piegans, Sarcees, and Blood Indians, all dressed in their grandest clothes and decorated with scalp locks. I paid them a visit, giving each of them tobacco....Our nine visitors remained the whole morning, smoking and sleeping; nor would they take their departure till they had obtained a present for each of the chiefs that were coming behind them (Simpson, 1847: 104).
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