The treaty was much more than a treaty of peace as far as the Blackfeet were concerned, for it gave them schools, farms, agricultural implements, etc., and an agent, and annuities of $35,000 for ten years, of which $15,000 was devoted to educating them in agriculture and to teaching the children. At the last moment the governor induced Cumming to agree to a clause empowering the President and Senate to increase the annuities $15,000 more, if the amount fixed in the treaty was deemed insufficient. It contained the usual provision prohibiting intoxicating liquor. The extensive region between the Missouri and Yellowstone was made the common hunting ground of all the tribes. All agreed to maintain peace with each other, including those tribes that were unable to be present, the Crows, Crees, Assiniboines, and Snakes. The treaty was made obligatory on the Indians from their signing it, and on the United States from its ratification, which occurred the next spring, and it was duly proclaimed by the President on April 25, 1856.
The tribes actually parties to this treaty numbered, by the commissioners’ calculation, Blackfeet, 11,500; Nez Perces, 2500; Flathead nation, 2000; total 16,000. Nearly all of their chiefs and principal men attended the council and signed the treaty.
The peace made at this council was observed with gratifying fidelity in the main. The Blackfeet ceased their incessant and bloody raids, and met their former enemies on friendly terms upon the common hunting grounds. Within a few years, in 1862–63, large white settlements sprang up on the headwaters of the Missouri, but they were spared the horrors and sufferings of Indian warfare with so powerful a tribe largely in consequence of this treaty. The council, which Governor Stevens planned and carried out with such foresight, sagacity, and indefatigable exertions during two years, bore fruit at last in the perpetual peace he hoped for and predicted. Few treaties with Indians have been so well observed by them as this by the “bloodthirsty” Blackfeet. They took no part in the great Sioux wars, nor in the outbreak of Joseph. They were afterwards gathered together on a large reservation, including the country about the Sun River, where the governor proposed to establish their farms.
The council ground was a wide, level plain covered with a noble grove of huge cottonwoods. It was on the left bank of the Missouri, nearly opposite but below the mouth of the Judith. This stream was also bordered by broad bottoms, which were covered with large sage-brush, and fairly swarming with deer. The governor’s camp was pitched under the lofty cottonwoods, and lower down was the camp of the crew of men who had dragged the boats up the river. They were a hundred strong, mostly Germans, having many fine voices among them, and were fond of spending the evenings in singing. The effect of their grand choruses, pealing forth over the river and resounding among the lofty trees, was magnificent. In the governor’s camp an unusually large Indian lodge—a great cone of poles covered with dressed and smoke-stained buffalo skins—was erected and used as an office tent, where the records were copied and smaller conferences held. Every night between eleven and twelve, when the work of the day was concluded, the governor would call in the gentlemen of the party, a few chiefs, and some of the interpreters, and have a real Homeric feast of buffalo ribs, flapjacks with melted sugar, and hot coffee. Whole sides of ribs would be brought in, smoking-hot from the fire, and passed around, and each guest would cut off a rib for himself with his hunting knife, and sit there holding the huge dainty, three feet long, and tearing off thejuicy and delicious meat with teeth and knife, principally the former. No description can convey an idea of the hearty zest and relish and enjoyment, or the keen appetites, with which they met at these hospitable repasts, and recounted the varied adventures and experiences of their recent trips, or listened as Craig, Delaware Jim, or Ben Kiser related some thrilling tale of trapper days, or desperate fight with Indian or grizzly bear.
TAT-TU-YE, THE FOX
Chief of the Blood Indians
MEK-YA-PY, RED DYE
Piegan Warrior
The other commissioner did not grace these reunions with his presence. Chafing at the constraint put upon him, and the secondary part which he could not help taking, despite all his pretensions, he kept his quarters on one of the boats, and relieved his mind by refusing to recommend the allowance of the governor’s accounts for the extra expenses necessarily incurred by the two months’ delay, the result of his own inefficiency; refused to allow Mr. Doty more than five dollars a day for his services as secretary, which pitiful stipend he took pains to call “wages;” and among other grievances complained that Governor Stevens had insinuated that he, Cumming, had shown a disposition to repudiate his own acts done in commission,—all this gravely set forth in official communications addressed to the Secretary, and made part of the record. This was too much for the governor’s patience, and he replied:—