CHAPTER XXXIII
THE BLACKFOOT COUNCIL
By his careful preparation for two years, and masterly handling of them, Governor Stevens brought and kept these various tribes of Indians within easy distance of Fort Benton, all ready and anxious for the council, and in the most friendly and favorable state of feeling, during the whole month of August and half of September, fully six weeks. Had the goods arrived at any time during this waiting period, not less than 12,000 Indians would have attended the council, comprising 10,000 Blackfeet, 1100 Nez Perces, 700 Flatheads and Pend Oreilles, and 400 Snakes, the western Indians numbering 2200. But it now became impossible for the latter to remain longer on the Muscle Shell and Judith, for lack of game. The buffalo had disappeared. The grass was drying up. No day could yet be fixed for the council in the uncertainty of the arrival of the boats. On September 8 the Nez Perce camp of one hundred and three lodges, in charge of agent Tappan, was obliged to start southward for the Yellowstone, hoping to find buffalo. Tappan wrote that, unless the council was held within three weeks, not twelve Nez Perces would be able to attend it. Eagle-from-the-Light and other chiefs, with several lodges, joined the Flathead camp in order not to miss the council. But on September 10 agent Adams reported that the Flatheads might in twelve or fourteen days be obliged, also, to go to the Yellowstone for food. The Snake camp also moved to the same region for the same cause. In compliance with his instructions, Adams made a trip to the Yellowstone in search of the Crows, and descended it to a point below the Big Horn River, where he met Tappan with some Nez Perces on the same quest. But these Indians could not be found. It was reported that, in consequence of the measles having broken out among them and many having died, they had scattered, a part going down the river and part taking to the mountains.
To prevent, if possible, the failure of the whole council undertaking, now imminent, the governor dispatched Packmaster Higgins with a few picked men to visit both camps, and notify them that October 3, or a few days later, was fixed for holding the council, and directing them to move to the vicinity of Fort Benton, and to find camps on the Shantier and Highwood creeks. Mr. Tappan was also instructed to secure, if possible, the attendance of the principal Crow chiefs.
On the fourth day out Higgins met Adams and Tappan returning to Fort Benton, despairing of the council, but the former hastened back to the Flatheads with the new orders, while Tappan joined Higgins, and, with Craig, Delaware Jim, and the voyageur Legare, pushed across the country and struck the Nez Perce camp high up on the Yellowstone. Although none of the party had ever passed over this part of the country before, Delaware Jim was so thoroughly conversant with the Yellowstone country and the upper Missouri, and certain mountain heights flanking the route, that he actually guided them on an air-line, and struck the looked-for camp without making a detour of a mile on the course, and that, too, traveling fifty miles a day.
As the result of this prompt and decided action, Adams reached Fort Benton October 3, and reported that Victor’s whole camp would soon be on the Judith, and that Victor himself, leaving his camp there, would come with his chiefs and principal men to Fort Benton to attend the council. On the 5th Higgins and Tappan arrived, and at noon next day a large delegation of Nez Perce chiefs, under charge of Craig, also came in, but did not bring the large numbers in their camp, for fear they could not find sufficient game to feed them. Tappan was unable to learn anything of the Crows except the report already mentioned. The Snakes, too, had gone beyond reach, and could not be summoned. In the mean time the northern bands of the Blackfeet, in accordance with the programme arranged by Mr. Doty, had been moving down, and were now all on the Teton and Marias rivers. The Gros Ventres were on Milk River. Low Horn’s and Little Gray Head’s bands of the Piegans were on the Honkee. Alexander, the Pend Oreille chief’s camp, was established on the Highwood. The buffalo were in great numbers between the Marias and Milk, and herds of them were coming within twenty miles of Fort Benton. “The arrival of the Nez Perces,” says the governor, “brought all the Indians within the direct purview of the commission, and the most remote camps, those of the Flatheads and Gros Ventres, could be reached in a single day.” These two camps were some seventy-five miles distant each, in different directions, and the area within which the Indians were now brought was little less than the State of Massachusetts, not counting the large Nez Perce camp on the Yellowstone.
Even yet the boats had not reached the Judith, could not reach it probably before the 8th, thirty-seven days from the Muscle Shell, instead of twenty as promised. It would require twenty-five days longer to drag them up the river another hundred miles to Fort Benton. The Blackfeet and the western Indians had now been freely mingling together for several days, and it was important that their present favorable disposition should be availed of. Accordingly Governor Stevens proposed to hold the council on the mouth of the Judith, and upon his urgency and arguments it was so decided on the evening of the 5th, the day the Nez Perce chiefs arrived, and the 13th was fixed as the time. The necessary measures to assemble the Indians at that point were devolved upon the governor as usual, and also to notify the boats to stop and unload there. By the 7th all the camps were notified, the Flatheads being already on the appointed ground, and most of the chiefs conferred with the governor in person, who, during these days, held a constant levee in his camp at the fort. The northern camps, however, were unwilling to move seventy miles farther than they expected, with their large supplies of meat recently taken, and it was decided that the chiefs, with a portion of their people, should attend, leaving the main camps undisturbed.
The governor relates the following incident:—
“My son Hazard, thirteen years of age, had accompanied me from Olympia to the waters of the Missouri. Like all youths of that age, he was always ready for the saddle, and had spent some days with one of my hunting parties on the Judith, where he had become well acquainted with the Gros Ventres. When we determined to change the council from Fort Benton to the mouth of the Judith, I undertook the duty of seeing the necessary messages sent to the various bands and tribes, and to bring them all to the mouth of the Judith at the proper moment. These Indians were scattered from Milk River, near Hammell’s Houses, along the Marias, along the Teton, to a considerable distance south of the Missouri, the Flatheads being on the Judith, and the Pend Oreilles on Smith’s Fork of the Missouri, with two bands of the Blackfeet lying somewhat intermediate, but in the vicinity of the Girdle Mountain. I succeeded in securing the services of a fit and reliable man for each one of these bands and tribes, except the Gros Ventres, camped on Milk River. There were several men, who had considerable experience among Indians and in voyageuring, who desired to go, but I had not confidence in them, and accordingly, at ten o’clock on Sunday morning, I started my little son as a messenger to the Gros Ventres. Accompanied by the interpreter, Legare, he made that Gros Ventre camp before dark, a distance of seventy-five miles, and gave his message the same evening to the chiefs, and without changing horses they were in the saddle early in the morning, and reached my camp at half past three o’clock. Thus a youth of thirteen traveled one hundred and fifty measured miles from ten o’clock of one day to half past three o’clock in the afternoon of the next. The Gros Ventres made their marches exactly as I had desired, and reached the new council ground at the mouth of the Judith the very morning which had been appointed.
“I doubt whether such an express service as we were obliged to employ at Fort Benton to keep the Indians in hand was ever employed in this country with the same means. Many of our animals, which had done service all the way from the Dalles, traveled at express rates more than a thousand miles before we started on our return from Fort Benton. Many of our mules traveled from seven to eight hundred miles with packs in going to the boats for provisions and to the hunting grounds for meat; and yet, after our treaty was concluded and we were ready to move home, we were able to make very good rates with these same animals, although the season was so late as November.”
To realize the remarkable extent and efficiency of this express service, bear in mind Doty’s trip to Bow River, three hundred miles north of Fort Benton; Tappan’s and Adams’s and Higgins’s to the Yellowstone, two hundred miles southeast; and the expresses down the river to the boats, one hundred and fifty miles; not to speak of Pearson’s trip to Olympia, one thousand miles. It was as though one in New York, without telegraphs, railroads, or mails, had to regulate by pony express the movements of bands of Indians at Boston, Portland, Montreal, Buffalo, and Washington.