Moses: “Yes, I see him. They will get his hair. The Blackfeet are not like these people. They are all drunk.”
All the principal men came forward and signed the treaty. Governor Stevens then said:—
“Here are three papers which you have signed, copies of the same treaty. One goes to the President, one I place in the hands of the head chief, and one I keep myself. Everything that has been said here goes to the President. I have now a few presents for you. They are simply a gift, no part of the payments. The payments cannot be made until we hear from the President next year.”
The presents were then distributed. The chiefs were then requested to assemble on the morrow with regard to the Blackfoot council.
Thus successfully and happily terminated this protracted council, “every man pleased and every man satisfied,” says the governor. Twelve hundred Indians were present on the treaty ground.
The jealousy and pride of the chiefs, Victor and Alexander, greatly increased the difficulty of coming to an agreement. The former repeatedly asserted his chieftainship over both tribes by claiming that the countries of both were his, a claim that Alexander offered to recognize if Victor would move to the Horse Plains (mission) reservation. Alexander claimed to be chief of the lower Pend Oreilles, a claim the governor summarily rejected. The influence and advice of the former Hudson Bay Company employees and half-breeds, to this and to the other treaties, was prejudicial, instigating the Indians to make unreasonable demands, and often opposing and misrepresenting the treaties themselves.
Father Hoecken arrived before the end of the council, in response to the governor’s summons. It did not appear that he was exerting any adverse influence. On the contrary, he highly approved the treaty, and signed it as one of the witnesses. It seems, however, as the governor reported, that the dislike of the Flatheads to the mission establishment was one cause of their unwillingness to move to the reservation in the Pend Oreille country. It is probable that the missionaries at St. Mary’s had been too strict and exacting for their independent natures. Moreover, it was the fact, as the governor had cause to realize later, that the missionaries feared and dreaded the approach of the settlers, and sympathized wholly with the Indians as between the two.
This treaty, like all made by Governor Stevens, was remarkably liberal in its terms to the Indians. The reservation on the Flathead River comprises a million and a quarter acres. $84,000 in annuity goods; $36,000 to improve the reservation; salaries of $500 a year for twenty years, with a house and ten acres fenced and ploughed, to the three head chiefs; schools, mills, hospitals, shops; teachers and mechanics for twenty years; the right to fish, hunt, gather roots and berries, and pasture stock on vacant land; and the provision for ultimately dividing the reservation among them in severalty,—were all embraced. It was agreed that the three tribes were to constitute one nation under Victor as head chief, to be known as the Flathead nation, in which, and on the same reservation, were to be included other friendly tribes, as the lower Pend Oreilles and Cœur d’Alenes. Besides Father Hoecken, R.H. Lansdale, W.H. Tappan, R.H. Crosby, Gustavus Sohon, and William Craig witnessed the treaty. Some 25,000 square miles were ceded.
All three tribes now occupy the reservation on the Jocko (mission), together with the lower Pend Oreilles and a few Spokanes. They number 2000, showing little diminution since the treaty, and have made fair progress. Nearly all have houses with some land inclosed. Many raise small crops of wheat and have good gardens. They have 20,000 acres under fence, over ten miles of irrigation ditches, and raised last year 25,000 bushels of grain, 10,000 bushels of vegetables, and 7000 tons of hay. Their lands have not yet been allotted in severalty. The agent complains that worthless employees are frequently foisted upon the agency, “many incompetent men hold positions who take no interest in their work,”[8] etc.,—a state of things equally unfair to the Indians and disgraceful to the government.