CHAPTER XXVI

THE INDIANS OF THE PLAINS

§ I. THE BLACKFEET At the time Bishop Miege, Vicar-apostolic of the Indian Territory east of the Rocky Mountains, first arrived in his vicariate, which was in 1851, there were only two Catholic Indian missions, those among the Osage and , in its whole vast range from the to the Rockies "As to possible missions," he had written to the General from St Louis before his consecration, "there are as many as there are Indian nations", but "one cannot establish such without great resources in men and money " x For this reason Father Roothaan had suggested more than once in the course of 1850 to Cardinal Barnabo, Prefect of the Propaganda, the expediency of uniting under one and the same jurisdiction "the missions to the east of the Rocky Mountains and those in the heart of those same Mountains where now there are eleven Fathers" The Cardinal replied, August, 1850, that the Propa­ ganda would take the proposed plan under consideration 2 But the plan did not commend itself either to the bishops of Oregon or to Father Accolti, superior of the Oregon Missions The latter expressed the opinion that a single vicariate would not suffice even for the region east of the mountains, where there was a very numerous Indian population, "the alone counting at least 80,000," which figure, however, was an overstatement3 In the end Father Roothaan advised Cardinal Barnabo, December, 1850, that the proposal to unite the missions east and west of the Rockies under a single vicariate had met with disfavor and that he would urge it no longer 4 That efforts be made to evangelize the Indians of the plains was a plea persistently made by De Smet both with his superiors and with the bishops In 18 50, at the request of Archbishop Purcell of , he drew up "a brief memorial of the Indians who inhabit the Great Desert and on the means of coming to their aid in a religious way " He calculated, roughly it would appear, the entire Catholic Indian

1 Miege a Roothaan, February 13, 185 1 (AA) 2 Barnabo a Roothaan, August, 1850 (AA) 3 Accolti a Roothaan, January 22, 1851 (AA) 4 Roothaan a Barnabo, December I, 1850 (AA) 442 THE INDIANS OF THE PLAINS 443 population east of the Rockies al only six thousand, of which number twenty-eight hundred were Osage and Potawatomi, the rest being for the most part children baptized by him in visits to Indian tribes of the upper Missouri There were great tribes still awaiting the gospel message, as the Comanche, twenty thousand, the Sioux, thirty-five thou­ sand in forty bands, the Assiniboin, six thousand, the Crows, eighty- five hundred, and the Blackfeet, twelve thousand 5 Sporadic attempts were made to extend the activities of the vice-province of Missouri above the line of the Osage and Potawatomi, but without result The Indian missions established by it in the remote Northwest were all situated to the west oi the main ridge of the Rockies No permanent establishment had been made by it among the Indian tribes dwelling on the great plains east of the continental divide But the seeds of future missionary harvests were planted by De Smet and one or other of the Missouri Jesuits in occasional travels through the upper Missouri country and it is with 1 his phase of the missionary activity of De Smet and his associates that the present chapter purposes to deal Conspicuous among the Indian tribes of the eastern slope of the Rockies were the Siksika or Blac k feet They were of Algonkin origin and consisted of three sub-tribes, the Siksika proper or Blackfeet, the Kainah or Bloods, and the Piegan, the whole body generally going under the popular name of Blackfeet Their habitat in the last century, before they were gathered into reservations, included the greater part of the vast plains extending "almost from the No