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Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for
Spring 2001
"When We Were First Paid" The Blackfoot Treaty, The Western Tribes, And The Creation Of The Common Hunting Ground, 1855
William E. Farr University of Montana, [email protected]
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Farr, William E., ""When We Were First Paid" The Blackfoot Treaty, The Western Tribes, And The Creation Of The Common Hunting Ground, 1855" (2001). Great Plains Quarterly. 2226. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/2226
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. "WHEN WE WERE FIRST PAID" THE BLACKFOOT TREATY, THE WESTERN TRIBES, AND THE CREATION OF THE COMMON HUNTING GROUND, 1855
WILLIAM E. FARR
In mid-October of 1855, Blackfoot Treaty new reservation policy for the West. This "new commissioner Isaac 1. Stevens, governor of order of things," largely designed by Commis Washington Territory and ex-officio its su sioner of Indian Affairs George Manypenny, perintendent of Indian Affairs, and his co hoped to reduce white conflicts with Indians, commissioner Colonel Alfred Cumming, head to prevent, if possible, expensive military ac of the Central Superintendency including Ne tions, and above all to extinguish Indian land braska Territory, finally assembled the Black title by purchase, thereby enabling "legitimate" foot Peace Council just below the confluence white settlement. In doing so, the new policy of the Judith and Missouri Rivers. The federal went well beyond the government's earlier and government through the Office of Indian Af more limited goals of keeping immigrant trails fairs by then had already pieced together a free of hostile Indians and of creating a peace ful, federal dispensation or order on the Great Plains by means of annual compensation.! The Blackfoot Council and the treaty that emerged from it, often termed Lame Bull's KEY WORDS: bison, Blackfeet, Flathead (Salish), Treaty, however, did not fit the new reserva hunting, Indian reservations, Isaac I. Stevens tion policy. It extinguished no aboriginal land title through land sales or cessions, nor did it provide for Indian removal to reservations William E. F arr is the associate director of the where the government could establish schools, O'Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West and Professor in the Department of History at the University hospitals, and mills and provide farming in of Montana. His research has concentrated on regional struction and moral guidance. Nor did the history and the role of Native Americans in the Rocky treaty advance the division of communal lands Mountain West. in order to allot small parcels to individual Indians. It was not a so-called land treaty at all; it was a peace treaty. And it contained a [OPQ 21 (Spring 2001): 131-54l surprise-the federal creation of a common
131 132 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2001
FIG. 1. Isaac Ingalls Stevens (1818-1862). First FIG. 2. Col. Alfred Cumming, Commissioner at Governor of Washington Territory and Commissioner the Blackfoot Treaty. Drawing by Gustavus Sohon . at the Blackfoot Treaty. Courtesy of K. Ross Toole Courtesy of Washington State Historical Society, Archives, The University of Montana. Tacoma.
hunting ground. This designated area was to centered at the headwaters of the Missouri be shared "in peace" by the Blackfoot tribes and Yellowstone Rivers just as they had al and what were termed the "Western Indians," ways done. those who had come from west of the Rocky Where did the Blackfoot Treaty commis Mountains, across the continental divide, from sioners find the precedent for such a common the drainages of the Columbia River. These hunting ground and what lay behind their Western Indians were the Nez Perce, Yakima, willingness to establish it on the buffalo plains? Walla Walla, Cayuse, Kootenai, Spokane, and Could this divergent, if not contradictory, re numerous Salish speakers, most prominently gional determination in the Far West be rec the Flathead and the Pend d'Oreille. onciled with the prevailing federal reservation The formal establishment of such a com policy as determined by the Office of Indian mon hunting ground in October of 1855 flew Affairs? Or was that unnecessary, given that in the face of much of the emergent reserva American reservation policy in the 1850s was tion policy. Instead of being encouraged to by its nature contradictory, little more than a establish fixed and permanent homes, namely series of regional improvisations?2 reservations, for exclusive tribal use, and to Commissioners Stevens and Cumming, of stay put, Stevens's federal recognition and for course, did not actually "create" the common mal establishment of a "buffalo commons" hunting ground. They simply acknowledged stimulated the bison hunters of the Columbia and restructured the reality of a preexisting River drainages to continue their long, sea Indian common hunting ground, a sort of buf sonal migrations to the contested buffalo plains falo commons, that gradually over the years "WHEN WE WERE FIRST PAID" 133
Fig. 3. "Blackfoot Council - 1855." Drawing by Gustavus Sohon. Courtesy of Washington State Historical Society, Tacoma.
had been constructed through war, treaties, bison population, already perceived to be dwin and diplomacy on the part of the tribes them dling on the Northern Plains? selves. Stevens had first encountered this dy namic tribal creation with its shifting * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * boundaries and alliances when he led a con gressionally funded transcontinental railroad Long before Lewis and Clark wrote of the survey through the middle of Blackfoot terri Cakahlarishkit, or the river of the road to tory in 1853. Two years later, not only did buffalo, in July of 1806, Indian tribes west of treaty commissioners Stevens and Cumming the Rocky Mountains had crossed the conti recognize this Indian construction in the treaty nental divide on their way to hunt buffalo on provisions in 1855, they gave it an inordinate the open plains of the upper Missouri, amount of attention. What were their goals Yellowstone, and Musselshell Rivers. There, and expectations regarding the federal defini Western Indians from the distant reaches of tion, limitation, and reshaping of this preex the Columbia Plateau and the tangle of moun isting regional Indian commons? How did these tain ranges that would become Idaho and west purposes relate to possible repercussions for a ern Montana seasonally competed with a 134 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2001
FIG. 4. Map showing the Territory of the Blackfeet and the common Hunting Ground of the Blackfeet and Western Indians as established by the Treaty at the mouth of the Judith, 17 October 1855. Courtesy of National Archives, Records of Bureau of Indian Affairs, RG75, Microcopy T-494, Roll 5, Frame 1093.
welter of Plains people for hunting access to hunting ground on the plains of what would the immense herds of buffalo. The most im become Montana. Both acknowledgments portant of these Plains tribes were those of the encouraged a more active interest in buffalo Blackfoot Confederacy, consisting primarily hunting and an even greater Western tribal of Blood, Blackfeet proper, and Piegan, along presence east of the Rockies. with their allies, the Gros Ventres, and the The evidence for a buffalo hunting com Crow, Sioux, and Cree.} In the hunting par mons, where rival tribal entities and bands lance of the nineteenth century this was called hunted, clashed, allied, socialized, and traded "going to buffalo." It would be for many of the on the Upper Missouri and Yellowstone drain Western Indians a right and a passion essen ages, is remarkably rich throughout the nine tial to their culture and one they swore never teenth century. As early as in the journals of to give Up.4 Lewis and Clark it was amply documented. In While Indian initiative to "go to buffalo" fact, not only was it recognized, but William would always remain decisive, Governor Clark linked the existence of such a war zone Stevens's 1855 signature treaty solutions in or no-man's-land to the unusual abundance of Washington Territory also came to playa sig big game populations, especially bison, that nificant role. In these treaties Stevens formally the Corps of Discovery encountered there.s recognized the right of the Western Indians to This phenomenon of a contested ground, continue to "go to buffalo" from their newly shared in common by a number of tribes, was established reservations, and with this right, also attested to by the German physician F. A. the de facto existence of a buffalo common Wislizenus. In 1839 he remarked that buffalo- "WHEN WE WERE FIRST PAID" 135 hunting Indians "recognize certain districts, ous personal conversations that each of these where buffalo usually abound, as common tribal enrities maintained that it had done so hunting and war ground." There the various since time immemorial. As a result of that tribes "roam at will, subjecting their conflict personal experience, when Stevens had his ing rights to the test of strength. Between the 1854 "Map Showing the Indian Tribes of tribes there is perpetual warfare."6 Washington Territory and on the Missouri and While portions of the Western Indians had its Tributaries" drawn up and submitted to always gone to buffalo, they did so in increas Washington, D.C., he clearly identified this ing numbers after the arrival of the horse. Buf long-standing neutral territory that was occu falo hunting became a regular activity and pied at various times by all, but controlled by could not be stopped. Both Francois Larocque none, as "Common Hunting Grounds of the in his journal of 1805 and Ross Cox puzzled Blackfeet, Crows, and the Indians of Wash over this preoccupation to go each fall to "the ington Territory." In Stevens's mind there was fork of the Missouri or there about to kill Buf no question about its existence.9 faloes," and both concluded that the only rea By December 1854 and throughout the fol son they could discern for the Western Indians' lowing winter and spring, Governor Stevens willingness to fight constant and losing battles implemented a new federal reservation policy with the Blackfeet and other tribes on the east in western Washington Territory. He did so side of the Rocky Mountains was their love of by means of a series of treaties in which he the buffalo.7 The journals of David Thompson extinguished Indian aboriginal title and re and Alexander Henry the Younger reinforce moved the various tribes and consolidated frag this view and are replete with references to ments to designated reservations. By May 1855 the numerous alliances the Western tribes Stevens had moved his treaty tour east of the constructed in order to compete with the more Cascade Mountains. There, he and his Or numerous and dominating Blackfeet. In the egon counterpart, Governor Joel Palmer, con 1840s Father Nicolas Point, who traveled with ducted at Walla Walla a treaty council with the Flathead and Pend d'Oreille on their an the Plateau tribes on both sides of the Colum nual winter hunting expeditions to the com bia River. Hoping to make the land sales more mon hunting ground, related other firsthand palatable, the two commissioners promised examples of bloodshed, peace delegations, that not only would the treating tribes of Nez horse raids, truces, trading, and hospitality. Perce, Yakima, Walla Walla, and Cayuse re There existed, then, an ongoing "bison diplo ceive government compensation for their macy" between the contending if unequal lands, but also they would be able to conrinue tribes that was vibranr, intensely dynamic, and hunting, gathering, and fishing in the lands nothing like the picture of unremitting and they had sold or ceded-as they had always unrelieved warfare so often portrayed. done. Governor Palmer, attempting to sweeten By the time Governor Stevens reached Fort the agreement, described the policy this way: Owen in the Bitterroot Valley in 1853, he "[W]e buy your country and pay you for it and knew from his own experience that the West give the most of it back to you again."l0 ern Indians, as well as the Blackfeet, Crow, As attractive as that proposal was, Stevens and Shoshoni, all hunted bison around the upped the ante by holding out the promise Three Forks of the Missouri, the Musselshell, that those same off-reservation rights, exer and the upper Yellowstone country . Two years cised in what was phrased "usual and accus later at the Walla Walla Council in 1855 he tomed places," could be extended even beyond told the Yakima and Nez Perce, "I have met the claimed and then ceded territory in ques you in the trail. I saw your people in buffalo tion-in other words, even to the buffalo hunt country. I met your people on the road to buf ing ground beyond the Blue Mountains and falo country."8 He knew as well from numer- beyond the Rocky Mountains, some 400 to 136 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2001
600 miles away from their newly designated Victor, whom he had selected as head chief reservations. This was a remarkable conces for the consolidated three tribes, that he ex sion to local Plateau subsistence patterns. It pected to make "a treaty which will keep the was also a significant departure from Stevens's Blackfeet out of this valley, and if that will earlier treaties. Even more remarkable was not do it we will then have soldiers who will." Stevens's promise that the Columbia River He added that he had been directed to make tribes would be able to do this without having this treaty by the President and that "we hope to constantly fear the harassment of Blackfoot it will forever settle your troubles with the raiders as in the past. With federal support, Blackfeet."13 "Going to buffalo" loomed large Stevens promised there would be equal access in the subsequent negotiations. It even affected and intertribal peace on the buffalo hunting the decision as to which valley west of the ground. Continental Divide was the better choice for the site of the consolidated reservation-the We want you to have your roots and to get Bitterroot favored by the Flathead or the Mis your berries, and to kill your game. We want sion Valley selected by the Pend d'Oreille and you, if you wish, to mount your horses and the KootenaL l4 to go to the Buffalo plains, and we want The long-anticipated Blackfoot Peace more; we want you to have peace there.ll Council was the final stop in Governor Stevens's ambitious treaty tour. Although With a pronounced flourish and knowing scheduled for late September in Fort Benton, full well the predictable response, Stevens trot the council did not actually open until 16 ted out a telling rhetorical question: who had October. It had been put off as a result of been disturbing them on their way to buffalo, numerous delays in transporting critical treaty who had tried to keep them away from their goods up the Missouri. Even the venue had to hunting ground on the Missouri and Yellow be changed. Instead of Fort Benton, the com stone, stolen their horses and murdered their missioners and Indians met 100 miles down men, women, and children'? Was it the whites? stream just below the mouth of the Judith River Of course not. The answer was clear to all-it on the north bank amid the leafless, bare cot was the Blackfeet. "We want that to cease tonwoods. Here at the confluence of the two forever," Stevens said. "If we can agree here, rivers, the Missouri and the Judith, called the this you will be able to say to the Blackfeet Big River and Yellow River by the Blackfeet, and the Blackfeet will say 'We will be friends, Stevens made good his earlier promises to bring we will chase the buffalo together on the plain, together the far-flung tribes and bands of the we will be friends forever.">[2 Stevens had al so-called Blackfoot Nation, the Nitzitapi, who ready laid plans for formal federal recogni straddled both sides of the forty-ninth paral tion-and regulation-of the preexisting lel from the Yellowstone River in the south Indian common hunting ground, a recogni to the Red Deer River in the north. IS He also tion that only confirmed its existence and the brought to the Judith representatives of the entitlement, by prescriptive use, of the W est Plateau and Mountain Indians from across ern Indians to hunt there. the divide in Washington Territory, led by a Given these promises at Walla Walla, it strong, well-armed Nez Perce contingent and was appropriate that in Stevens's next effort, the various elements of the recently created the Hellgate Treaty with the Pend d'Oreille, Flathead N ation. 16 In addition, there was one Flathead, and Kootenai, he would repeat his Plains Cree chief, Broken Arm, already cele pledges to establish an intertribal peace across brated for his efforts at brokering peace be the continental divide in buffalo country. Con tween the Cree and the Blackfeet. Well ducted in July 1855 at the confluence of the traveled, Broken Arm had been to Washing Bitterroot and Clark Fork Rivers, Stevens told ton, D.C., in 1831-32, and in 1851 he had "WHEN WE WERE FIRST PAID" 13 7
attended the Fort Laramie Treaty Council where tribal boundaries on the Northern Plains were "discussed and mapped." Broken Arm, or Maskepetoon, came with the Piegan leader Little Dog bearing tobacco as a delegate for both the missing Cree and their frequent com panions, the Assiniboine.17 The Crow, too, were conspicuously absent, although not by design, as were Shoshoni elements. Even so, the eventual distribution of provisions on the treaty grounds indicated the presence of some 3,295 Indians, who represented a total census of some 15,500. 18 The treaty that emerged from this belated Blackfoot Council, because of its intent to ward peace, was something of a throwback to 1851 and the Treaty of Laramie. Neither had as its purpose the sale or acquisition of Indian lands for white settlement or the extinguish ing of native land title. Nor did either treaty establish small, formal reservations of Indian land that were to become "fixed, permanent homes" for exclusive tribal use as required by the new policy coming from the Indian Of ..... ,.\:0.,., -t...... fice. 19 Instead, both aimed at establishing "per rt."41 -I ~ r" t. ),J;..,....;..- manent relations of peace and amity"- in the case of the Judith Treaty, between the various FIG. 5. "The Broken Arm (Maske-pe-town) , Chief Blackfoot tribes "hunting and trading on of the Cree Indians." Drawing by Gustavus Sohon. Courtesy of Washington State Historical Society, American soil" and the US government. In Tacoma. addition, the Judith River council was to ini tiate intertribal peace between those same Blackfoot bands and tribes and their compet ing neighbors, with a special insistence upon migrants and capital, and he had almost com peace with the Western Indians. pleted his task of clearing Indian title to most The Blackfoot Council, like its earlier coun of the territory's lands, preparing them for terpart for the "nations of the Prairie and extensive settlement. Consequently, when he Mountain Indians" at Fort Laramie, amounted later functioned as a Blackfoot Treaty com to a federal attempt at establishing a peaceful missioner, Stevens was determined to install dispensation on the Northern Plains. Peace the permanent peace his survey and Washing was critical in Stevens's eyes. Two years be ton Territory required. 20 fore, with energy and great organizational skill, Ensuring intertribal peace, in the view of he led the Northern Railroad Exploration and the government and its two resident commis Survey through the heart of Blackfoot coun sioners, rested on two assumptions, both pre try. For this northern route to be competitive viously explored at Laramie. The first was with the other transcontinental railroad sur compensation for Indian losses of game, grass, veys, Stevens felt he had to pacify the Blackfeet and wood; the second was the desirability of and their neighbors. Moreover, his newly cre establishing carefully defined and designated ated Washington Territory was attracting im- tribal territories, with specific boundaries. 138 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2001
on this Laramie pattern, Stevens and Cumming also devised provisions for guaranteed rights of-way, the establishment of military forts, and the creation of telegraph installations. The idea in 1855 was to secure an American peace for this sprawling expanse of high plains, as previous negotiators at Laramie had done. But things had changed. A new federal res ervation policy in 1855 had replaced the Fort Laramie model. Stevens's own treaties, from Puget Sound to Hellgate, had reflected these changes and were certainly preferable, from the government's perspective, to the Laramie example. Nonetheless, Stevens and Cumming returned to the model of 1851, as it was sim ply too early to pursue the new reservation policy with the more nomadic bison hunters of the Northern Plains. This was especially so since no white settlement was contemplated. Consequently, the Indian Office addressed the FIG. 6. "The Bloods Come in the Council, Blackfeet problem of intertribal war and the growing Camp, 1855." Drawing by Gustavus Sohon. Courtesy threat of Indian-white hostilities by simply of'Washington State Historical Society, Tacoma. promoting peace and territorial segregation. Again, as at Laramie, the Indian Office held out the reward of government compensation. Indemnification would make up for the In dian losses of large amounts of grass and These were viewed by government officials as timber and for the ever-declining game popu necessary steps in removing many of the causes lations occasioned by white expansion.23 of intertribal war on the buffalo plains. Both Had the 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty dealt Stevens and Cumming would also insist upon with all tribal lands south of the forty-ninth what the Indians called "lines."21 parallel, US-Blackfoot tribal relations, While the Laramie Treaty had asked tribal whether good or bad, would have already been members to stay within their designated in place. But that was not the case. It was not boundaries, it had not meant they were to "sur addressed because the federal mandate in 1851 render the privilege of hunting, fishing or pass concerned only those tribes and lands south of ing over any of the tracts of country herein the Missouri and north of Texas and New before described."22 The Judith Treaty would Mexico. Rather, it was left to future agree not demand this either-as long as peace pre ments to establish federal relations, to say vailed. Nonetheless, both treaties promoted nothing of peace, in the vast buffalo commons the idea that if the Indians remained in their between the Missouri River and the Canadian own territories, intertribal peace would be border, east of the continental divide. easier to secure. Territorial segregation was Besides failing to have provided the proper the key. It would also allow federal authori purview, the Treaty of Laramie had not even ties, if need be, to identify Indian parties re lived up to its own promises, as Governor sponsible for depredations, even pinpointing Stevens himself was quick to point out. specific bands that ignored the commitments "Tribes, parties to the Treaty of Laramie," of tribal leaders and broke the peace. Building Stevens related, "are now at open war with "WHEN WE WERE FIRST PAID" 139 the Government, and the employment of four Western Indians to "go to buffalo," in other thousand troops, and an expenditure of, say, words, for the various bands and intertribal two million dollars is the price now being paid alliances to access the rich buffalo hunting by the Government for the management of ground they had shared in war and in peace the Indian, in a comparatively small portion across the Rocky Mountains. of the jurisdiction of the western superinten Innovation may have been needed at the dency."24 Blackfoot Council, but the portents were not The situation in 1855 on the Northern auspicious. Contention between Governor Plains was somewhat analogous to the pre Stevens, whom the Blackfeet called "Short Laramie-treaty conditions. Land sales were not Man," and his equally strong-minded co-com called for and tribal territories prior to both missioner, Colonel Cumming, reigned from treaties remained largely undefined, with the the beginning.25 Only with difficulty could they tribes migrating, mingling, fighting, and com agree upon anything, certainly anything hav peting in what appeared to be a chaotic free ing to do with their respective official respon for-alL Yet the differences were significant. sibilities, logistical support, or levels of treaty New initiatives were clearly needed. From the compensation. The official bickering contin perspective of the Indian Office in Washing ued over the character of the Blackfeet and ton, D.C., and of treaty commissioners like the essential nature of the country they occu Stevens and Cumming, the major difference pied. It was a surprise, then, to have both com was that they now recognized all too well that missioners agree upon a rough determination war had to be prevented. Military solutions of Blackfoot and Crow tribal boundaries, ones were too expensive. A more economical an significantly different from those set down at swer had to be found-even if that meant Laramie. It was even more astonishing to have greater concessions. them issue a joint determination to designate It was unlikely that a treaty consistent with a "common hunting ground" along the lines the newly emergent reservation policy could Stevens had already acknowledged and ex be concluded with the militarily powerful plored at Walla Walla and Hellgate.26 Blackfeet, Crow, Gros Ventre, and Assini Their proposed solution was to formally boine. These nomadic hunters had been un define, by way of natural landmarks and geo willing to sell their land. It was doubtful metric lines, a buffalo commons south of the whether they would compromise their free Missouri, north of the Yellowstone, and east dom by acquiescing to definite boundaries of the Continental Divide. This was arguably to being penned in-or to a white-brokered one of the richest, most contested game are peace. Concessions would have to be negoti nas of the Northern Plains. In doing so they ated with the tribes in the form of increased clearly overturned and redrew the tribal annuities, greater recognition of home terri boundaries contained in the 1851 Laramie tories, and more support for federal aid in the accords. More creative and imaginative yet form of agencies, schools, missions, shops, was the insistence that in this "open" arrange hospitals, and yearly presents of useful goods ment, the subscribing tribes and provisions. There needed to be some thing akin to a reservation treaty with an should all live in peace, stay home when expanded agency plant, but one that would not hunting or trading and that the retain significant regional freedoms appro Blackfeet collectively should agree and con priate to a nomadic, buffalo-hunting people. sent that what had been defined as Blackfeet Another consideration pushing innovation territory in the Laramie Treaty of 1851 was the promises Stevens had made on the should become a common hunting ground part of the government at Walla Walla and for 99 years where all the signers, east and Hellgate to ensure the continued right of the west, shall enjoy equal privilegesY 140 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2001
Article III of the eventual treaty had the near the mountains, along the Marias, Two Blackfoot Nation as a whole consenting and Medicine, Belly, and Oldman Rivers. In late agreeing spring, with the return of the green grass, many of them moved east into the area immediately that all that portion of the country recog west of the Cypress Hills. If the buffalo were nized and defined by the Treaty of Laramie scarce in that quarter, they might decisively as Blackfoot territory, lying within lines move farther east, skirting around the Cypress drawn from the Hell Gate or Medicine Rock Hills. But if their scouts determined that the Passes in the main range of the Rocky Gros Ventre or Assiniboine were in that area, Mountains, in an easterly direction to the they stayed away. Likewise, the Kootenai and nearest source of the Muscle Shell River, Salish would often slip over the mountains to thence to the mouth of Twenty-five Yard move in behind the Blackfeet after they had Creek, thence up the Yellowstone River to left their wintering grounds for the high plains its northern source, and thence along the in May. They would take their chances in what main range of the Rocky Mountains, in a they hoped would be vacant land. On still northerly direction to the point of begin other occasions the tribes asked permission to ning, shall be a common hunting ground hunt, relied on adopted relations, or negoti for ninety-nine years, where all the nations, ated a temporary peace between local bands.29 tribes and bands of Indians, parties to this The common hunting ground was not un treaty, may enjoy equal and uninterrupted visited or uninhabited land. It was not an privileges of hunting, fishing and gathering empty land, as has been portrayed by Paul fruit, grazing animals, curing meat and dress Martin and Christine Szuter for an earlier pe ing robes. riod, although at any given time it may have looked like one.30 Nor was this arena just a This common hunting ground did not con war zone. Numerous times the martial web form or agree with the boundaries of what traced by the comings and goings of war par Laramie had erroneously described as "Black ties and horse raiders collapsed. Temporary foot Territory."28 treaties and awkward truces were forged, after The Blackfoot treaty proposals in fact de which carefree hunting, peaceful socializing, fined the lands between the Missouri and the and intertribal trade reigned. Stevens recog Yellowstone Rivers correctly for the first time. nized this fundamental fact of tribal reality Use of the territory in question did not belong and, together with Cumming, designated and exclusively to the Blackfeet, however defined, described the territory for what it was-a com nor did they overwhelmingly and convincingly mon hunting ground founded upon multiple occupy it, possessing it in the sense of control tribal movement and multiple use. ling either the sweeping grasslands themselves Such places and practices, while seldom or access to them. This had been and would exact, were not uncommon.3l These often sur remain something of a war zone-contested, faced without design, as terrain became more neutral, and therefore common ground on or less neutral, more or less dangerous, and which the competing and always moving tribes particularly if it was geographically large, shifted about like chess pieces as they wished poorly defined, or only sporadically defended. or dared. Sometimes they cropped up as buffer zones Through their deliberate actions and di between or within shifting tribal occupations. plomacy, the nomadic camps and alliances had In other cases, there were conscious efforts to created a territory that was controlled by none establish neutral zones or common hunting but hunted and used by all at various times in grounds. So, for example, following the the ebb and flow of tribal movements. The Laramie Treaty of 1851, the Crow and the Blackfoot tribes, for example, usually wintered Miniconjou Sioux, for their mutual benefit, "WHEN WE WERE FIRST PAID" 141
FIG. 7. Map of the area between the Missouri and Arkansas Rivers and northwestward to the Columbia River showing various Indian tribes, to Col. D. D. Mitchell by P -J. DeSmet, S.]., 1851. Records of the Department of Interior, Office of Indian Affairs , RO 75, Map No . 251. Courtesy of the Mansfield Library, University of Montana 040501851 .US.
agreed to share and use jointly the seam of rupted current animOSIties in the pursuit of territory between their Laramie-designated mutual self-interest. For Indian peoples that boundaries. Referred to as the "Neutral interest could be access to Euro-American Grounds," age-old enmities were set aside in trade goods or the goodwill or gifts of the fur order to enjoy the benefits of safe hunting and traders in charge who desired to foster re of passage through each other's territory to gional peace, so necessary for success. Advan expand trading opportunities.32 tages and disadvantages were weighed and Then, too, there were sacred places such as m'inutely calculated on the part of the bands Medicine Mountain, where a shared common and communities. Traders used their posts as spiritual purpose created a zone of neutrality. neutral sanctuaries as they sought to broker or In such terrain hostilities and bloodshed were mediate peace.34 Sometimes common ground to be set aside. Otherwise the sacred character emerged along river or mountain corridors, of the immediate landscape would be violated avenues of passage that could not be avoided to the detriment of the offender.33 In other and were therefore unavoidably shared. As cases fur trade posts functioned as a form of with the buffalo commons, it was common common or neutral ground where band or only in the sense that these corridors were tribal entities momentarily set aside or inter- used by all, at different times, but alertly, 142 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2001 quickly, and preferably in large numbers. The right or liberty to hunt on the trail down the Blackfoot treaty provision for a common hunt Musselshell. ing ground or a buffalo commons was not a The second provision created an additional concept foreign to tribal experience. common hunting ground on the eastern edge Moreover, almost any landscape, even those of the Blackfoot territory where it abutted the thought of as specific to a single tribe, could country of the Assiniboine. regularly be penetrated or subject to shared expedient use. This did not mean the Indian Provided also, that the Assiniboines shall tribes would take regular turns using this land have the right of hunting, in common with and exploiting its resources. It did not mean the Blackfeet, in the country lying between there would be orderly spheres of influence or the aforesaid eastern boundary, running a free-for-all in which the strongest prevailed. from the mouth of the Milk River to the And while Stevens and Cumming did not use forty-ninth parallel, and a line drawn from the term "common" to qualify the privileges the left bank of the Missouri River, oppo they described in the common hunting ground site the Round Butte north, to the forty provision, they did insert "common" in the ninth parallel. 38 identifying label of the Indians' destination "the common hunting ground." In the opin So, the Blackfoot Treaty recognized not just ion of the commissioners, in order for this one preexisting common hunting ground but hunting ground to be durable and truly com two. Yet of the two, it is the one with the mon, peace among the tribes would have to Indians to the west, across the Rocky Moun prevail. 35 From the time of Walla Walia, tains, that dominated the Blackfoot Council Stevens had proclaimed, "My heart said peace discussions. Objections immediately came in the buffalo country, peace here, peace is from the Western tribes and not from the here now, peace between yourselves, peace Assiniboine, who, although a party to the between US."36 treaty, were not present. These objections re Over and against this n'ow designated and veal much about the character of the tribal delineated common hunting ground, the links to the bison grounds both inside and Blackfoot Treaty in Article IV called for a outside of the treaty-designated common hunt Blackfoot reservation of territory within the ing ground. United States that was to be theirs alone. Alexander, the Pend d'Oreille chief who Neither this land nor its resources were to be had been so effective in the Hellgate Treaty shared or held in common with any other tribe. negotiations, bitterly protested the restricted In the parlance of the new reservation policy, routes over the divide to the buffalo, as well as which Stevens was anxious to adopt, if not the proposed limitation to hunt only within actually replicate, this land was to be exclu the common hunting ground. "A long time sively theirs-"excepting as may be otherwise ago our people, our ancestors, belonged in this provided in this treaty." There were two stipu country ... around the Three Buttes," he said, lations that did provide otherwise. The first meaning the Sweetgrass Hills on the Cana was the establishment of a ten-mile buffer dian border, smack in the middle of Blackfoot zone or neutral or demilitarized strip that ran country. "We had many people on this side of north of the common hunting ground bound the mountains. When my father was living he ary and parallel to the Musselshell from its told me that was an old road for our people."39 source to its mouth on the Missouri River. His second criticism was not unlike that which Within this ten-mile zone there could be no he had made at the Hellgate negotiation: permanent villages and the Blackfeet would not have or exercise "any exclusive rights."3? We Indians were all well pleased when we They had given to the Western Indians the came together here in friendship. Now you "WHEN WE WERE FIRST PAID" 143
point us out a little piece of land to hunt ground" included all Blackfoot territory south our game in. When we were enemies I al of the forty-ninth parallel, why should they ways crossed over there, and why should I agree to a limited and smaller commons, even not now when we are friends .... Which with government guarantees? of these chiefs [pointing to the Blackfeet] Given the vociferous objections, Little Dog, says we are not to go there? Which is the chief of the Black-Patched Moccasin band of one?40 the Piegans, retreated, saying "Since he [Alexander} speaks so much of it, we will give Little Dog allowed that he had raised the is him liberty to come out in the North."44 Com sue, not because he wanted to be unfriendly missioner Cumming, using a map, tried to but because "the North Blackfeet might make make Alexander understand that the whole of a quarrel if you hunted near them. Do not put the territory had been designated as belong yourself in their way."41 Such sparring was a ing to the Blackfeet at the Fort Laramie Treaty further reminder that each band, to say noth and that the commissioners were now being ing of the various tribal elements in the most generous in transforming the southern Blackfoot confederacy, acted independently portion into a federally broke red "common and that the whole of the country was at times hunting ground." Stevens chimed in with an a "war zone," although it was penetrable un other rationale: der the right circumstances and therefore part of the Indian commons. In making this division we looked to the Alexander would not let it drop. He wanted Indians obtaining their living. The West to continue travel to the buffalo hunting ern Indians have enough in the piece given ground through the northern passes, those them in proportion to their numbers .... north of the treaty-sanctioned Hellgate Passes, The Western Indians are only one fourth as by which he meant principally Marias and Cut numerous as the Blackfeet. Let Alexander Bank. "The Chief [Stevens] tells us that we think of this. He does not get all his food are all, all of us Indians, to eat out of the from the Buffalo. He has farms and cattle. same plate, one plate. Now you tell me to quit The Blackfeet have none. 45 (Stevens crossing in the North. I wonder how this can thought the Blackfeet to number in excess be?"42 Why were they, the Kootenai and the of 11,000.) Pend d'Oreille, to say nothing of the others, to be restricted? Alexander's fellow tribesman Finally, the Piegan Chief Lame Bull, also Big Canoe concurred. He wanted no restric called Nee-ti-nee or "The Only Chief," re tions at all: "I thought our roads would be all minded everyone in attendance, especially the over this country. Now you tell us different." Salish and Nez Perce so proud of their Big Canoe must have been referring to how longstanding friendship with the whites, that Stevens, as "soldier chief," had promised the it was not the Blackfeet who had sought out Salishe and Kootenai government protection this treaty nor had they written it. and help against the Blackfeet so that they could hunt buffalo east of the mountains. It is not our plan that these things are going The implication had been, at least from their on. I understood that what the White perspective, that they could hunt wherever Chiefs told us to do, we were to do both they wanted. Big Canoe recognized the con sides. It is not we who speak. It is the White sequences. "Supposing that we do stick to Chiefs. Look at those tribes (pointing to gether and do make a peace .... Now you tell the Western Indians), they are the first to me not to step over that way. I have a mind speak, making objections this morning. We to go there."43 Both Big Canoe and Alexander intend to do whatever the Government had a point. Since their "common hunting tells US.46 144 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2001
Stevens should have anticipated these Flathead and the Nez Perce resorted to felling Salish and Nez Perce concerns. Anything that cottonwood trees along the small watercourses altered the subsistence round generated anxi to feed their horse herds.48 Farther south, other ety, especially changes in the way the bands Nez Perce hunting parties, finding "few buf hunted buffalo. However reasonable from the falo and small game scarce," split up, with some government's perspective, the geographical traveling as far south and east as below the limitations, the restriction on their liberty to confluence of the Big Horn and Yellowstone go where they wanted or dared, as represented Rivers into Crow country.49 As for the Black by designated common or exclusive ~pheres, feet themselves, Bad Head, or "Father of Many was a palpable sacrifice. It was like a big-city Children" as he was known when he signed politician gerrymandering voting districts to the Judith Treaty, designated 1854 in his win suit his own self-interest. The federal govern ter count as "Itaomitaohoyop," or "when we ment was attempting to engineer a precisely ate dogs"-a disastrous condition. 50 drawn new world order, to reshape use-rights Bison were mysterious animals. 51 Their lo in an Indian-created buffalo commons, and cation and movement were never to be taken the Pend d'Oreille did not like it. The Nez for granted. Frequently they seemed propelled Perce and Flathead probably did not like the by spirits or offended by humans; they were situation either, but there is no record that subject to various levels of hunting pressure, they objected. More likely, they decided to to weather and climate changes, to grass fires save their words and do what they wanted, as and blackened prairies, to changes in winter they always had. If the treaty could replace a forage, and who knew to what else. If buffalo war-zone commons with a peaceful, govern were not presently to be found in the common ment-designated, common hunting ground hunting ground, when would they return? If that offered better hunting and other advan they drifted on and off a particular and bounded tages, they could reconsider. The key issue landscape willy-nilly, what logic was there to was the condition of peace. Although limited restricting tribal hunting to a limited and par and circumscribed, a peaceful commons might ticular tract of land, especially one so small be truly preferable to the larger commons and restricted? where warfare was a constant. The Salish verb Stevens and Cumming could be rather cava for "going to war" meant "stealing horses." In lier about buffalo hunting. Along with a good the new peace of the federal common hunting many others, they did not believe that either ground, the Blackfeet duly promised the Salish buffalo or Indian buffalo hunting had a bright "they would go home on as good horses as they future. In his preamble to the treaty, even came on."47 Possibly there were advantages to before the various articles were read and trans peace. lated, Stevens had set out the government's But what if the buffalo were uncooperative hope and vision for the future. and would not stay put in the common hunt ing ground? What if the buffalo could not be We want to establish you in your country found in sufficient numbers within the desig on farms. We want you to have cattle and nated "lines," as was the case that very year, raise crops. We want your children to be 1855? The tribal parties from west across the taught, and we want you to send word to mountains had just experienced real want, if your Great Father, through us where you not actual starvation, as they assembled in or want your farms to be .... This country is near what would be named the common hunt your home. It will remain your home. And ing ground, preparatory to the council. Severe as I told the Western Indians we hoped ... drought dominated in every direction. Bison the Blackfeet would not live on poor Buf had not been seen in the Musselshell country falo Meat but would have domestic Cattle for over six weeks. Grass was so scarce that the for food. We want them to have Cattle. "WHEN WE WERE FIRST PAID" 145
You know the Buffalo will not continue forever. Get farms and cattle in timeY
Indians were not so sure. The Blackfeet had indeed complained that "the buffalo are not as plenty as formerly, we have to eat too many old bulls. "53 And in 1851 an Assiniboine chief, The Bear, lamented to Father DeSmet, "I see the buffaloes decrease every year. "54 Bad Head's winter count for 1854 graphically reinforced this perception. Yet not all Blackfeet or oth ers were convinced that the losses were irre versible. After all, even amid the general lack of buffalo numbers in the drought-stricken summer of 1855, Stevens had reported large counts between the Marias and the Milk River. Maybe the bison would return in some equally mysterious way. It was an open question.55 Stevens hammered away on this point the buffalo cannot subsist forever. Whatever Stevens's sincerity, he was not alone. A de cline in bison numbers had become a general ized prediction since the 1840s.56 The idea of ..w. t_wa.,. .. . ~ rl..tf the disappearance of the buffalo as a major ... source of Indian subsistence sometime in the ,J ,~kJ. _.I.' ."" '-, . .l.. - future was not confined to federal authorities "':1- r~ or missionaries pushing a pacific or agricul FIG. 8. "Ne-tannay, The Only Chief' or "Stam tural agenda or hoping to establish a buffalo yekh-sas-ci-cay, Lame Bull," Piegan Chief, 8 October commons in an effort to ease an Indian transi 1855. Drawing by Gustavus Sohon. Courtesy of tion to civilization. With considerable sarcasm Washington State Historical Society , Tacoma. the writer of the Fort Benton Journal, in Sep tember 1855, advised visiting native hunters: "[Glo to it while you are young for when you 'get old' you will have no buffalo to kill as previously so numerous, had experienced an Gov. Stevens' railroad hands will consume alarming drop in numbers and had not recov them all."57 ered. "War, intoxicating liquor, small pox and Times were troubled and difficult, for not similar gifts presented to the people by the only were bison numbers in decline, tribal white man," had reduced them, Point said, to populations were as well. Smallpox had rav "a' third of what they had been a quarter of a aged the Blackfeet, the Blood and the Piegan century before."58 The September 1853 report with particular intensity in 1837. The journal of Blackfeet agent Alfred). Vaughan also re of Lieutenant Bradley, relying on informa ported "recurring waves of smallpox, measles, tion from Alexander Culbertson, reported and cholera, causing population losses."59 The that "among these three tribes not less than consequences of this level of depopulation and six thousand perished, or about two-thirds of the continuing threat of epidemics altered their whole number-the very flower of the band sizes, marriage patterns, hunting strate tribes." Father Nicolas Point, writing a decade gies, as well as alliances and political leader later, concurred observing that the Blackfeet, ship.60 146 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2001
Blackfeet leaders groped in the changing noon, the chiefs and headmen reviewed the circumstances of population loss, bison scar tribal boundaries with "the aid of a map and a city or its threat, and the intensified intru rough sketch of the country drawn on a buf sions of other tribes-Cree, Crow, Metis, and falo skin." The written proceedings register SiOUX. 61 They willingly resorted to diplomacy, only compliance. No objections were recorded; to treaties, to giving peace and diplomacy a if there were any, they disappeared or were chance-even if that meant confinement of a swallowed. sort.62 Hudson Bay Company officials reported In its final form the Blackfoot treaty con that the Piegan, for instance, sent peace del tained sixteen articles. In addition to Article egations to Edmonton in September 1855, III recognizing common hunting grounds with where a Piegan-Cree peace treaty emerged. its three provisos and Article IV defining the Later, fearful that the fragile peace would be territory over which the Blackfeet tribes would broken, tribes made new efforts at concilia "exercise exclusive control," the most impor tion-this time to include wider involvement tant issue was how to get to the "common by more tribes of the Blackfeet Confederacy.63 hunting ground." This was taken up in Article The Blackfeet seemed desperate for peace. V. It provided detailed regulations limiting Peace would allow them to replenish their the entry points the Western tribes were to be numbers, to regain their equilibrium, and to confined to as they journeyed east. "They will secure their territories against the ever more not enter the common hunting ground, nor aggressive assaults. Treaties are often signed any part of the Blackfeet territory, or return when leaders see no other choice. In like home by any pass in the main range of the fa.shion, the Metis, Sioux, and Chippewa Rocky Mountains to the north of the Hell reached "a great treaty of peace" in July 1858 Gate or Medicine Rock Passes." This com when they agreed that the Cheyenne River ported with Stevens's assertion that the West was to be a dividing or boundary line between ern Indians "use certain passes. The Medicine their hunting territories. Should buffalo or Rock, the Big Hole, and others further south." game become scarce on either side, the tribes Article VI completed the treaty discussion should "have the privilege of crossing over of the common hunting ground by reminding said dividing line ... and should be welcomed the signers that, when not hunting in the com by said neighboring tribes." Indians did not mon hunting ground or going to it or return need federal white brokers to establish "com ing from it, the tribes consented "to remain in mon hunting grounds."64 They did it them their own respective countries, except ... when selves. visiting each other for the purpose of trade or On Wednesday, 17 October 1855, after social intercourse." The reason for this, ex lengthy discussions of what the Blackfeet were plained Commissioner Cumming, was "only giving up "in their desire for peace and friend to preserve their hunting grounds distinctly ship," especially in granting the Western In apart .... The whites make these lines to show dians the liberty to hunt on the trail down the where each must hunt so there shall be no Musselshell to the Yellowstone, the Pend quarrels. "66 d'Oreille and others agreed to the new bound The remaining articles hollowed out or ary lines.6s The Blackfeet Council thereby lopped off considerable elements of tribal avoided what had promised to be another independence. Although important to the treaty stalemate, with bouts of acrimony and commissioners, these losses were of little sig posturing. Once again, as at Walla Walla and nificance to the Indian signers of the 1855 Hellgate, Indian opposition in public to treaty treaty. After all, there was nothing terribly proposals quickly, miraculously, inexplicably threatening or conspicuous about the conces evaporated. When Commissioners Cumming sions demanded of the Indians by the govern and Stevens reconvened the great council at ment. They would keep their lands or at least "WHEN WE WERE FIRST PAID" 147 their rights to access the resources of those promoting their civilization and Christian regions, and after all, that was all they had ization." Bad Head's winter count reinforced ever had. The chiefs and headmen of the bands the importance of the annuities and the and tribes would retain their conventional changes they signified when he recorded that authority. If anything, that authority would 1855 was the year "when we were first paid."68 be intensified and extended. Tribal leaders After a theatrical and idealistic last presenta could see no danger of an imminent invasion tion by Commissioner Cumming, the com of great numbers of whites such as the country missioners signed the treaty, according to the to the south bordering the Oregon Trail had record kept, and were followed by the chiefs, experienced. In all the territories held by the headmen, and delegates. "Great satisfaction participating tribes at the council, white oc prevailed and every chief of any importance cupation was negligible. Nor was that expected signed the treaty."69 to change. If there was an erosion of tribal The Blackfoot agent Edwin A. C. Hatch authority and independence, it was insidious leveled a more realistic assessment. Not long invisible to the stressed tribal leaders. after Commissioners Cumming and Stevens In essence, there were two visions of the had left to return to their posts, Hatch con future represented at the council. The white fided to his diary one saw the inevitable decline of the buffalo, the continued, spiraling drop in Indian num A man arrived from the Yellowstone (Fort bers, the coming of a general peace with the Union) last night with a letter dated Oct. establishment of isolated and permanent In 7th. Sioux threaten to besiege Fort Clark dian reservations, and a mixed but asymmetri so we here are between two fires, the Sioux cal Indian and white society amid the below and the combined tribes west of us establishment of a transcontinental railroad and we are quiet in the center of the most and territorial growth. Opposing this was an warlike and heretofore the most hostile Indian vision featuring very limited change, tribes on the continent, vis. the Blackfeet. 70 coupled with federal guarantees of continuity. Above all, this Indian perspective would al * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * low for the continued but peaceful tribal mo bility across and within ceded lands and even Although the collected Blackfeet had an beyond into a shared Indian landscape, the ticipated a treaty of peace and amity to emerge common hunting groundY Dogged persis from the Blackfoot Council, they were ini tence, a willingness to engage in endless if tially unprepared to bargain in land, which intermittent skirmishes, and an irregular tribal the common hunting ground provision re diplomacy had created that situation histori quired. By September, however, rumors began cally. With federal help this older Indian com to emanate out of Forts Benton and Campbell mons could be reshaped, limited, redefined, on the Missouri indicating that something to and blessed with peace. The implications of do with territory was afoot. James Doty, secre such actions in terms of either human or bison ta~y for the Treaty Commission, while on the numbers were not formally considered. Bow River in early September attempting to In return for the Indian concessions, the drum up interest in the Blackfoot Council, United States agreed to spend $20,000 annu was asked whether it was true that the ally for ten years on goods and provisions, the Blackfeet would be asked to give up their lands so-called annuities, for the tribes of the and hunting grounds south of the Missouri Blackfoot Nation. In that same period an ad River to "the Flatheads, Pend Oreilles and Nez ditional $15,000 would be spent annually on Perce for a home." The story, Doty reported, farms and agricultural instruction, in edu was much discussed within the various camps, cating children, and "in any other respect and although Doty did his best to allay their 148 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2001 fears, a number of leaders decided to stay By recognizing a public area in Washing away.7l If the headmen were not there, they ton Territory to be shared "in common" by reasoned, they could not be a part of any land Indian and white alike-until claimed by white transaction. Although the rumors and leaks colonizers-Stevens explored new ground. It did not get the details exactly right, the es was also a model that he thought could be sence of the message was accurate-the US adapted to the sprawling Indian commons or government was going to give to the Western war zone that constituted the buffalo country Indians, in recognition of their longstanding of the Northern Plains beyond the continen use, land east of the divide, and this would be tal divide. done at the Blackfeet's expense. It may not In line with his novel reservation policy, have been the rumored "home," but it was Stevens decided to acknowledge an exclusive close to it, a kind of home away from home, in territory for the American Blackfeet. Unlike the territory that had been previously assigned the small parcels on Puget Sound, however, to the Blackfeet alone by the Fort Laramie this reservation would closer resemble the Treaty. pastoral examples of the Plateau, only bigger. Although both Commissioners Stevens and In fact, the Blackfeet Territory could be huge. Cumming had obviously agreed on the com Whites were not clamoring for lands there and mon hunting ground provision, Stevens ap Congress could easily justify such a large res pears, from the treaty discussions and promises ervation as politically acceptable. Adjacent made at Walla Walla and Hellgate, in addi to this exclusive territory defined by the tion to his 1854 map, to have had the concept Blackfoot treaty, Stevens established, as in of a common hunting ground in mind for some Washington Territory, a limited commons time-certainly more so than did either his the "common hunting ground." It was defined colleague Cumming or the Indian Office in as "open and unclaimed" and would be held Washington, D.C. "in common" for both the Blackfeet and the Further evidence for Stevens's principal Western Indians. These on-reservation and responsibility for the common hunting ground off-reservation rights together formed a tidy designation can be found in the similarities package designed to resemble the new federal between the treaty provisions of his Washing reservation policy enough to be reconcilable ton treaties and those in the Judith Treaty. with it, and yet to dovetail with the customary The central feature of those earlier treaties buffalo hunting provisions of the treaties of was the establishment of a fixed and perma Walla Walla and Hellgate. Promises had been nent home-a reservation of a small portion made. Promises had been kept. of their former lands-that was to be exclu Again, Stevens did not have to create a sively theirs. This policy had come out of the common hunting ground; all he had to do was Indian Office under Luke Lea, Charles E. Mix, to recognize its de facto existence, structure it and George W. Manypenny. It did not repre by means of imposing boundaries and guaran sent Stevens's personal initiative. Stevens's tees, and define the nature and kinds of activi contribution, however, did surface when he ties that would take place there. It would not conceded to the Indians "rights of access to be organic or dynamic as in former times. There the open and unclaimed lands" they had just would be an artifice to this federal creation it sold or ceded into the public domain. These could not escape; its parentage was known. rights to hunt, fish, and gather as they always But this federal child, however limited, would had would now be exercised "in common" with permit the continuation of equestrian buffalo the citizens of the territory. It was this key hunting for both the Blackfeet and the West combination of Indian uses, exclusive and ern Indians. In many respects the common shared, that became the stamp of Stevens's hunting ground was a human and moral con innovative regional approach. cession to previous treaty commitments. It was "WHEN WE WERE FIRST PAID" 149 also an expedient one on the part of a stingy resented keen observation or simply the as government. sumptions associated with a political and cul Within the defined portion of the old con tural agenda is almost beside the point. With tested territory, Stevens determined to trans the buffalo becoming increasingly scarce, the fer the essential intertribal peace of the west tribes would lose the incentives to undertake side of the Rockies, so often associated with the long, difficult pilgrimages into either a the tribes of the Columbia Plateau, onto the peaceful buffalo commons or hostile territory east side, inhabited by warring Indians and, at and thus would remain in their home orbits. the moment, sufficient bison. It was an engag That would not only be to their advantage but ing territorial mission. There was no acknowl would relieve some of the hunting pressure on edgment, however, that peaceful common those unpredictable pockets of bison that re access would further deplete scarce game popu mained on the Northern Plains. On the other lations. Maintaining a healthy bison popula hand, if the tribes were determined to con tion was not Stevens's goal; establishing peace tinue to go to buffalo, Stevens felt they needed was paramount. to avoid the persistent and debilitating tribal In retrospect, this formal creation of a de altercations formerly attendant upon bison fined, limited, and structured "common hunt hunting. Otherwise, the martial ethos now so ing ground" amounted to a kind of federal disruptive to the government plans for terri seizure of the public domain prior to citizen torial development would persist as long as ship or any actual land transfers. It was a legal the buffalo. "taking" as defined by the Fifth Amendment The trick was to keep the common hunting to the US Constitution, for it laid down regu ground viable long enough to accomplish the lations and controls regarding which parties tribal passage from a hunting and foraging were to be included, how they were to con culture to one of "civilization" and agricul duct themselves (peacefully), proper uses of ture. This was no easy task. Persistent fear of the resources available, and avenues of en attack and staggering war losses, deadly dis try-to say nothing of determining how long ease pathogens, and liquor had imposed in the the federal creation would exist. And while it earlier contested commons informal, but very may be argued there had been due process, real, limits to tribal buffalo hunting. Once there had not been fair compensation, or, for those obstacles were lessened, would hunters that matter, any compensation. If these stan from all sides converge onto the buffalo com dards applied to the property rights of citizens mons, both old and new, where peace was now subject to a common good, didn't they also so encouraging? Would implosion occur?72 The apply to dependent sovereigns? answers to these questions dealt not only with The treaty also envisioned for this com the perception of bison numbers and locations mon hunting ground a military presence in but with the Indians themselves. Many whites the form of forts and troops that would give were just as convinced that the Indians were the government an enforcement apparatus disappearing, although it was never clear to should it be needed. Finally, the creation of nineteenth-century observers whether it was the common hunting ground was considered the Indian population or their culture that a temporary and expedient solution. It would was vanishing, or both. Still, these were paral meet immediate needs, buying time until a lel trends, and in the minds of many, their treaty of cession could be negotiated and a convergence would make the ninety-nine-year complete reservation policy effected. life span of the common hunting ground suffi What the government needed was time to ciently long. Then, too, the federal military institute a full reservation effort at moderate presence would constitute a regulating mecha expense, not to protect the declining buffalo nism on the movement of the tribes or on the resource. Whether the government's view rep- exploitation of bison resources. If that were 150 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2001 not enough, a fully implemented and success the Flatheads hunting buffalo and stealing horses ful reservation policy would provide the means across the Rocky Mountains. "The Journal of Charles LeRaye," South Dakota Historical Collec and the social pressure for the tribes to stay tions, voL IV (1908), p. 175, corroborates Flathead home. buffalo hunting east of the Rocky Mountains in Together, these constraints in the minds of 1801, along with the observation "The buffalo is the commissioners would be enough to ensure not found on the west side of the Rocky Mountains the continuing presence of the buffalo and the and there these people subsist on fish and roots." Francois-Antoine Larocque's "Yellowstone Journal" vitality of the common hunting ground-at in Early Fur Trade on the Northern Plains: Canadian least in the short term. As early as 1839 the Traders Among the Mandan and Hidatsa Indians, Indian and the buffalo had been described as 1738-1818, ed. W. Raymond Wood and Thomas "Siamese twins" who would perish together. 73 D. Thiessen (Norman: University of Oklahoma We know the analogy was wrong. Stevens, Press, 1985), pp. 218-29, tells us: "The Flatheads inhabite the Western side of the Rocky Mountains however, would not take a chance. He sought at the heads of Rivers that have a S. Western Course to separate the twins, weaning the buffalo In and flow in the Western Ocean. The Ridge of dians from the nomadic life and substituting Mountains that parts those waters with the Mis in its place reservations, stock, and agricul souri can be crossed in two days, and no more Moun ture. But that would take time. If the western tains are found to the Ocean. They come every fall to the fort [forks] of the Missouri or there tribes and the bison did not perish together, abouts to kill Buffaloes of which there are none certainly they would negotiate together the across the range of Mountains, dress Robes, dry inevitable transition that time would bring. meat with which the[y] return as soon as the win Meanwhile, the common hunting ground was ter sets in. They have deers of different kinds on th:e government's safety valve, for it would their lands and beaver with which they make them selves Robe, but they prefer Buffaloes." M. relieve economic pressure to support the tran Catherine White, ed., Journals of David Thompson, sition. If the buffalo and Indians should some 1808-1812 (Missoula: Montana State University how unexpectedly survive in the common Press, 1950), pp. 208-10, relates how the Flatheads hunting ground, then the ninety-nine-year and their allies to the West claim ancient rights to lease would run out. In fact, the federal com hunt buffalo on the Plains: "We shall then [in the summer of the time the Bull Bison become fat] not mon hunting ground was negotiated out of only hunt upon the lands we claim, but extend existence within ten years and the buffalo were our hunting on the lands of the Peegans, which all but gone in thirty. Yet in concept, the com will be sure to bring a battle between us." See also mon hunting ground was an experiment-an Barry M. Gough, ed., The Journal of Alexander ameliorating one, given government parsi Henry the Younger, 1799-1814 (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1992), voL 2: 523-26: "The Saleeish or mony-and a necessary if temporary stage in Flat Head Indians are numerous and dwell more to the Indians' hope for survivaL the Southward and along the Saleeish River where the Country is open [and] admits of their using NOTES horses of which they have great numbers. Buffalo are numerous upon the Plains towards the South 1. Francis Paul Prucha, The Great Father: The ward, which quarter they frequent at particular sea United States Government and the American Indians sons to make provisions. It is generally there where (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984), they encounter the Peegans and fight most 1:315-409, and American Indian Treaties: The His desparately when they are attacked .... The tory of a Political Anomaly (Berkeley: University of Kullyspel or Earbob Indians, are also a tribe of California Press, 1994), pp. 235-60. Flat Heads, and frequently join with the Saleeish 2. Richard White, "It's Your Misfortune and Indians, and accompany them to the Plains, to None of My Own": A New History of the American procure dryed Buffalo meat.... The Sapetens or West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, Nez Perce Indians, ... are well provided with 1991), pp. 91-92. Horses, like all their neighbors, and frequently re 3. As early as 1800 David Thompson, Travels in sort to the Plains in search of Buffalo." And, of Western North America, 1784-1812, ed. Victor G. course, Gary E. Moulton, ed., The Journals of Lewis Hopwood (Toronto: MacMillan, 1971), p. 224, has and Clark Expedition, 10 June-26 September 1806 "WHEN WE WERE FIRST PAID" 151
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993), 13. "Official Proceedings of the Hell Gate Treaty 8:85, tells of Cokahlarishkit or the River of the Council," with notes by Albert J. Partoll, 7 July Road to Buffalo; see especially the entry for Thurs 1855, In the Name of the Salish and Kootenai Nation, day, 3 July 1806. And finally, Nicholas Point, Wil ed. Robert Bigart and Clarence Woodcock (Pablo, derness Kingdom: The Journals and Paintings of Father Mont.: Salish Kootenai College Press, 1996), p. Nicholas Point, trans. Joseph P. Donnelly, S.J. (New 22. York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967), p. 43, 14. Ibid., 11 July 1855, p. 42. has the Flatheads departing for their winter buf 15. For the Blackfoot name for the Judith River, falo hunt across the mountains: "Some fifteen par see James Willard Schultz, Blackfeet and Buffalo: allel trails, formed by dragging wigwam poles, Memories of Life among the Indians, ed. Keith C. wound between two chains of mountains which Seele (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, sometimes drew together to offer at close range a 1962), p. 373, where in "Glossary of Geographical view of what was most majestic about the wilder Names" the Judith River is given as "Otokwi Tuktai" ness, sometimes separated to reveal a series of in or Yellow River. Schultz, writing under the name finitely varied and distant perspectives. This is what Walter B. Anderson, "In the Lodges of the was called the great hunting trail." Blackfeet," Forest and Stream 65, no. 27 (30 De 4. U.S. House, Report of The Secretary of War, cember 1905): 26, translates the Missouri as "Big 41 st Congo 2 sess. 1869, H. Doc. 1, pt. 2, serial River." 1412, p. 64, Major General Hancock, Headquar 16. Albert Partoll, ed., "The Blackfoot Indian ters Department of Dakota, Report, 20 October Peace Council," Frontier and Midland: A Magazine 1869: "The passion for buffalo hunting is such, of the West 17 (spring 1937): 199-207, reprinted and its profits are a matter of such importance to sources of Northwest History, no. 3, Montana State the Indians, that even the tribes from the Pacific University, Missoula, Montana, 1937, pp. 3-11. slope of the Rocky Mountains, and from Oregon 17. For Broken Arm or Maskepetoon, see John and Washington, come over yearly to engage it. C. Ewers, "When The Light Shone in Washing The Flatheads, Nez Perces, Pend d'Oreilles, and ton," Montana: Magazine of Western History 6, no. Coeur d'Alenes, are prominent among them." For 4 (autumn 1956): 3-11; Allen Ronaghan, "The earlier examples, see Elizabeth Vibert, Traders' Problem of Maskepetoon," Alberta History 24, no. Tales: Narratives of Cultural Encounters in the Co 2 (spring 1976): 14-19; Ronaghan, "A Second Por lumbia Plateau, 1807-1846 (Norman: University of trait of Maskepetoon," Alberta History 26, no. 3 Oklahoma Press, 1997), p. 221 and chap. 7. (summer 1978): 36; and Hugh A. Dempsey, Dictio 5. Paul S. Martin and Christine R. Szuter, "War nary of Canadian Biography (Toronto: University of Zones and Game Sinks in Lewis and Clark's West," Toronto Press, 1966),9:537-38, for further bibli Conservation Biology 13 (1999): 36-45. For Clark's ography. observation, see Moulton, Journals (note 3 above), 18. National Archives, Records of the Bureau of 16 September 1804. Indian Affairs (Record Group 75), Documents 6. Frederick A. Wislizenus, A Journey to the Relating to Ratified and Unratified Treaties, 6 Rocky Mountains in the Year 1839 (St. Louis: Mis October 1855, RollS, FI020--; Piegans, north and souri Historical Society, 1912), p. 150; as quoted in south, are 340 lodges or 3,060 souls; Bloods, with Martin and Szuter, "War Zones," and ibid., p. 11. 290 lodges and 2,610; Blackfeet proper, 290 lodges 7. Larocque, Journal (note 3 above), pp. 84-85; and 2,610; Gros Ventres, 360 lodges and 2,880, for Ross Cox, The Columbia River, ed. and intro. by a total of 11,160. The Flathead Nation was broken Edgar L Stewart and Jane R. Stewart (Norman: down into Flatheads, 450; Pend d'Oreilles, 600; University of Oklahoma Press, 1957), pp. 134-35. Kootenais, 350, for a total of 1,400, and the Nez 8. Isaac Ingalls Stevens, A True Copy of the Perces were lumped together and given the figure Record of the Official Proceedings at the Council in the 2,'500. Walla Walla Valley, 1855, ed. Darrell Scott 19. Luke Lea quotation cited in Prucha, Great (Fairfield, Wash.: Ye Galleon Press, 1985), p. 38. Father (note 1 above), 1:324-25. 9. Isaac L Stevens, Map Showing Indian Tribes 20. Letter to Luke Lea, St. Louis, 11 November in Washington Territory and on the Missouri and Its 1851, from Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Fort Tributaries to the Mouth of the Yellowstone (Wash Laramie, 1851, Ratified and Unratified Treaties ington, D.C., 1854), map G4241 E6 1854 US, (note 18 above), Roll 4; William H. Goetzman, University of Montana Library, Missoula, Mont. Army Exploration in the American West, 1803-1862 10. Stevens, Official Proceedings (note 8 above), (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1959), p. 103. p.278. 11. Ibid., p. 44. 21. Partoll, "Blackfoot Indian Peace Council" 12. Ibid., p. 46. (note 16 above), pp. 7-8. 152 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2001
22. Charles J. Kappler, ed., Indian Affairs: Laws J.N.B. Hewitt (Norman: University of Oklahoma and Treaties (Washington, D.C.: US Government Press, 2000), p. 10, for an example of peace Printing Office, 1904), Article V, 2:737. broke ring at Fort Union. On the Columbia River 23. Richard White, "The Winning of the West: Plateau at Fort Nez Perces John Dease negotiated The Expansion of the Western Sioux in the Eigh in the spring of 1826 a peace between Cayuse and teenth and Nineteenth Centuries," Journal of Nez Perces and Snakes. See Fur Trade at Empire: American History 65, no. 2 (September 1978): 340. George Simpson's Journal Entitled Remarks Connected For Indian alarm at the growing numbers of whites with the Fur Trade in the Course of a Voyage from who were marching across their lands in the Cen York Factory to Fort George . .. with Related Docu tral Plains, see Elliot West, The Way to the West: ments, Frederick Merk, ed. (Cambridge: Harvard Essays on the Central Plains (Albuquerque: Univer University Press, 1968), p. 273. sity of New Mexico Press, 1995), pp. 40-45. 35. Partoll, "Blackfoot Indian Peace Council" 24. Ratified and Unratified Treaties (note 18 (note 16 above), pp. 8-10. above), Roll 5, FlO13. 36. Stevens, Official Proceedings (note 8 above), 25. Interview with Mike Oka, Blood Indian, by p.38. his son-in-law Harry Mills, 1936. Dempsey Papers, 37. One foundation for such an example may Glenbow Museum, Calgary, Alberta; Dog Takes A have been the situation in 1834, when government Gun, 29 June 1951, Claude Schaeffer Papers, officials trying to find a remedy that would protect Glenbow Museum. Indian lands from white encroachment called for a 26. While the official record noted that discus "neutral strip of land five miles wide between the sions regarding the boundaries, including that of a lands of the two races, on which settlement would common hunting ground, had taken place on the 5 have been prohibited." Francis Paul Prucha, Ameri and 6 October 1855, that was all that was men can Indian Policy in Formative Years, 1790-1834 tioned, Ratified and Unratified Treaties (note 18 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1970), above), Roll 5. p. 258, as cited in John J. Killoren, S.J., Come 27. John Fahey, The Flathead Indians (Norman: Blackrobe: DeSmet and the Indian Tragedy (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1974), pp. 101 ff.; University of Oklahoma Press), p. 64. Kent D. Richards, Isaac 1. Stevens: Young Man in a 38. Kappler, Indian Affairs (note 22 above), Ar Hurry (Pullman: Washington State University ticle IV, 2:737. Press, 1993), pp. 230-34. Specifically, see Kappler, 39. Partoll, "Blackfoot Indian Peace Council" Indian Affairs (note 22 above), Article III, 2:736-40. (note 16 above), p. 7. 28. See P. J. DeSmet map' presented to D. D. 40. Hazard Stevens, The Life of Isaac Ingalls Mitchell, National Archives, Washington, DC, Stevens (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1900), 1:113. Records of Bureau of Indian Affairs, RG 75, Map 41. Partoll, "Blackfoot Indian Peace Council" No.251. (note 16 above), p. 7. 29. Hugh A. Dempsey, pers. comm. with author, 42. Ibid. 14 December 1999. 43. Ibid., p. 8. 30. Martin and Szuter, "War Zones" (note 5 44. Ibid., p. 7; Fahey, Flathead Indians (note 27 above), pp. 36-45. above), p. 102. 31. For a thorough, imaginative and sophisti 45. Ibid., p. 8. cated treatment of the northwestern plains as a 46. Ibid., p. 8; and John C. Ewers, The Blackfeet: common and contested hunting ground, in the 18th Raiders on the Northwestern Plains (Norman: Uni century, where coalitions of bands interacted in versity of Oklahoma Press, 1958), p. 218. peace and war, see Theodore Binnema, "The Com 47. For "going to war" as "stealing horses," see mon and Contested Ground: A History of the Jacqueline Peterson, Sacred Encounters: Father Northwestern Plains from A.D. 200 to 1806" (Ph.D. DeSmet and the Indians of the Rocky Mountain West diss., University of Alberta, Edmonton, 1998). (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993 ), p. 49. 32. Kingsley M. Bray, "Lone Horn's Peace: A For the Blackfeet promise as to what peace meant, see New View of Sioux-Crow Relations, 1851-1858," James Doty, Report, 6 September 1855, Ratified and in Nebraska History 66, no. 1 (spring 1985): 28-47, Unratified Treaties (note 18 above), RollS. This also especially pp. 30-31. appears as James Doty, "A Visit to the Blackfoot 33. Gregory R. Campbell and Thomas A. Foor, Camp," ed. Hugh A. Dempsey in Alberta Historical "The Big Horn Medicine Wheel: A Sacred Land Review, vol. 14, no. 3 (summer 1966), p. 22. scape and the Struggle for Religious Freedom," in 48. Thomas Adams, Special Agent for the European Review of Native American Studies 13, no. Flatheads, Report, 4 October 1855; Ratified and 2 (1999): 26-27. Unratified Treaties (note 18 above), RollS, F1024- 34. Ibid., p. 324, for 18th century examples and 1025. See also Stevens, Life (note 40 above), Edwin Thompson Denig, The Assiniboine, ed. 2:107-9. "WHEN WE WERE FIRST PAID" 153
49. W. H. Tappan, Sub-Agent for the Nez Perce, every observing and reflecting mind, that notwith Report, Ratified and Unratified Treaties (note 18 standing many portions of this country abound so above), RollS, F1026-1030. plentifully with buffalo and smaller game, that this 50. Hugh A. Dempsey, A Blackfoot Winter Count source of their [Indians] subsistence is occupying (Calgary: Glenbow-Alberton Institute, 1965), p. 12. annually a smaller portion of territory; and the 51. For buffalo as spiritual or power beings to be improvident and reckless course pursued by the listened to, to be obeyed, to be dreamed about and Indians in destroying them, must in a few years communicated with in the Blackfeet tradition, see produce such a scarcity that distress as a natural George Bird Grinnell, Blackfoot Lodge Tales (lin consequence must follow." Alfred D. Vaughn to coln: University of Nebraska Press, 1962), pp. 140- Col. Alfred Cumming, Superintendent Indian Af 41, as well as Howard L. Howard, The Animals Came fairs, St. Louis, Missouri, Executive Documents, Dancing: Native American Sacred Ecology and Ani House of Representatives, 33rd Cong., 1st sess., mal Kinship (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, vol. 1, part 1, serial 710, no. 43, p. 354. 2000), pp. 55-58. For the unpredictable wander 57. "Fort Benton Journal," Contributions to the ings and divisions of the bison, see Andrew C. Historical Society of Montana, vol. 10 (25 Septem Isenberg, The Destruction of the Bison (Cambridge: ber 1855): 47. Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 65-75. 58. James H. Bradley, "Affairs at Fort Benton Frank Gilbert Roe, The North American Buffalo: A from 1831 to 1869 from Lieutenant Bradley's Jour Critical Study of the Species in Its Wild State (Toronto: nal," Contributions to the Historical Society of Mon University of Toronto Press, 1970), p. 188, de tana, vol. 3, p. 225 relates Alexander Culbertson's scribes buffalo movements as "inscrutable fluctua tragic experiences with the Blackfeet. For Nicolas tions." Point, see Cornelius M. Buckley, Nicolas Point, S.].: 52. Partoll, "Blackfoot Indian Peace Council" His Life and Northwest Indian Chronicles (Chicago: (note 16 above), p. 16. Loyola University Press, 1989), p. 245. Point also 53. Stevens, Official Proceedings (note 8 above), quotes from J.P. DeSmet's 1841 account and then p.45. later compares this "tragic decimation of the 54. Hiram Martin Chittenden and Alfred Tal Blackfeet to the increase of the Flathead popula bot Richardson, Life, Letters and Travels of Father tion." The Salish increase he attributes to the hand DeSmet (New York: Francis P. Harper, 1905),3:935. of God. See also p. 994 for buffalo and Indians vanishing 59. Vaughan, "Annual Report" (note 54 above), together. Agent Alfred J. Vaughan, in "Annual p.352. Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs," 60. Gregory R. Campbell, "The Disease Ques 33rd Cong., 2d sess., 1854, S. Doc., serial 746, 290- tion on the Northern Plains: An Inquiry about the 91, reported in 1846 that these same Assiniboine Consequences of Depopulation on Social Structure," had resorted to cannibalism as a result of buffalo (University of Montana, Department of Anthro shortages near the Missouri River. This event is pology, unpublished paper in author's possession also cited in Andrew C. Isenberg, "Towards a Policy 2001). See also Binnema, "Common and Contested of Destruction: Buffaloes, Law, and the Market, Ground," (note 31 above), pp. 235-68, for the after 1803-83," Great Plains Quarterly 12 (fall 1992): effects of the small pox epidemic of 1781 and for the 236. strategy of withdrawing from the contested area. 55. See Stevens, Life (note 40 above), 2:109. 61. For the Sioux expansion, see Richard White, Jeffrey Ostler, "They Regard Their Passing as "The Winning of the West" (see note 23 above), 'Wakan': Interpreting Western Sioux Explanations pp. 319-43. For the expansion of Metis hunters as for the Bison's Decline," Western Historical Quar early as 1857 into Blackfoot home territory in sight terly 30, no. 4 (winter 1999): 486, 490-92, attempts of Chief Mountain, see H.Y. Hind, Narrative of the to reconstruct what Indians of the Plains thought Canadian Red River Exploring Expedition of 1857 and about the decline of the buffalo. He also explores of the Assiniboine and Saskatchewan Expedition of what the western Sioux thought might bring a re 1858, II (London: Longman, Green, Longman turn of the bison. There were many accounts and, Roberts, 1860), p. 360, as well as Gerhard J. Ens, unlike what they heard from whites, absolutely no Homeland to Hinterland. The Changing Worlds of the consensus or certainty. Red River Metis in the Nineteenth Century (Toronto: 56. Dan Flores, "Bison Ecology and Bison Diplo University of Toronto Press, 1996), pp. 72-74. macy: The Southern Plains from 1800 to 1850," 62. Small Robes, for example, made peace with Journal of American History 78, no. 2 (September one Salish with important consequences. See John 1991): 480-83; West, Way to the West (note 23 C. Ewers, Ethnological Report on the Blackfeet above), pp. 51-57; Stevens, Official Proceedings [Docket No. 279-A]. John Ewers, "Ethnological (note 8 above), pp. 45, 52. Agent Alfred Vaughn Report on the Blackfeet and Gros Ventre Tribes of wrote in September of 1853 "It is ... manifest to Indians," Commission Findings, U.S. Indian Claims 154 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2001
Commission [Docket No. 279-A], (New York: Gar ities for Lame Bull, see Report of the Reverend land Publishing, 1974). E.D. Mackey, St. Joseph, Miss., 13 November 1856, 63. Hudson's Bay Company Papers, Edmonton in "Missionary Endeavor's of the Presbyterian Post Journal, Reel IM50, 29 September 1855, 25 Church Among the Blackfeet Indians in the 1850s," October 1855, and 21 March, 1856, as cited in compiled by Guy S. Klett in Journal of the Depart John S. Milloy, The Plains Cree: Trade, Diplomacy ment of History (University of Oregon, Presbyte and War, 1790-1870 (Winnipeg: University of rian Historical Society) 19, no. 7 (1940-41): 343. Manitoba Press 1988), p. 110. 69. Partoll, "Blackfoot Indian Peace Council" 64. "Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indi (note 16 above), p. 11. ans," 56thCong., 1stsess., 1899-1900, S. Doc. 444, 70. Edwin A. C. Hatch, Journal (1855), MS237.5, serial 3878, No. XXXII, Document No.7, p. 152. Newberry Library, Chicago, Ill. 65. Partoll, "Blackfoot Indian Peace Council" 71. Doty Report (note 47 above), Roll 5, F098 7. (note 16 above), pp. 8-9. n. For a thorough discussion of this situation as 66. Ibid. it existed on the Central Plains, replete with buffer 67. Hugh Dempsey, Indian Tribes of Alberta or neutral zones, changing power relationships and (Calgary: Glenbow Museum 1979), p. 13. the creation of an intertribal peace, see West, Way 68. Dempsey, Blackfoot Winter Count (note 50 to the West (note 23 above), pp. 61-63. above), p. 12. For the importance of these annu- 73. Wislizenus, Journey (note 6 above), p. 53.