Montana Government Chapter 11: The Early Reservation Years 1880-1920

Montana Government Chapter 11: The Early Reservation Years 1880-1920The Bison Era Comes to an EndIn 1881, Sitting Bull returned from Canada, where he had fled after the Battle of Little Bighorn.He then surrendered to the U.S. Army and agreed to live on a reservation because his people were starving.The question of how to make a living haunted all of Montanas Indians in the early reservation years.

Sioux Chief Sitting Bull in 1885When his eight-year-old son, Crowfoot, turned Sitting Bulls gun over to the army commander at the surrender, Sitting Bull said: The boy has given it to you, and he now wants to know how he is going to make a living.

Starvation Winter: Trading More Land for FoodMontanas tribes depended little on annuities from the government in the 1870s still lived off the land (bison meat, etc.).By 1880 the bison were almost gone and there was little other game to hunt.The Blackfeet, Gros Ventre, Sioux, and Assiniboine depended more and more on government annuities just to survive but Congress reduced its spending on annuities.Remember, annuities were not charity or welfare: they were payment to the tribes for land the tribes had sold to the federal government.1883: Starvation WinterWinter storms came early in 1883 government provisions for tribes were held up by snow.First wagon load of bacon didnt reach Browning until December and it was old & full of maggots.About of the Blackfeet tribe (600 people) died from starvation; the Assiniboine lost about 300; the Sioux and Gros Ventre also lost many to exposure & starvation. This was called the Starvation Winter.After Starvation WinterTribes had to sell the only resource they had left: land.Sweetgrass Hills Agreement (1888) reduced the large northern Montana Indian reserve to three smaller reservations: the Blackfeet, Fort Belknap (Gros Ventre & Assiniboine), and Fort Peck (Sioux & Assiniboine).1895: Blackfeet sold more land for gold prospection; no gold was found, but the land became Glacier National Park.1896: Assiniboine & Gros Ventre sold part of the Little Rocky Mountains to the govt. a large gold mine was later developed there by non-Indians.The Sweetgrass Hills of northern Montana, as seen from Red Rock Coulee

Chief Mountain, on the eastern border of Glacier National Park & the Blackfeet Indian ReservationThe land which is now Glacier Park once belonged to the Blackfeet, but the tribe sold it for gold prospection; no gold was found, and it became a national park instead. Chief Mountain has been a sacred site to Native Americans for centuries.

Life on the Reservations1888: Nine Indian tribes (Blackfeet, Crow, Assiniboine, Gros Ventre, Sioux, Salish, Kootenai, Pend dOreille, Northern Cheyenne) lived on six reservations in MontanaRocky Boys Reservation for Chippewa and Cree tribes was established in 1916.Government Policies on ReservationsPolicies reflected common white belief that Indians would best adjust by giving up tribal traditions and assimilating into Euro-American culture.Goal of reservations was to force Indians to live and act like white Americans.

Agents Controlled the Reservations

Each reservation had a government agent appointed by the commissioner of Indian affairs.The agent controlled the tribes money and set rules for the reservation could arrest people or withhold food rations, had almost complete control over life on the reservation.Some agents, like Peter Ronan on the Flathead Reservation, were honest and tried to help the tribes.But many were incompetent or even corrupt didnt know much about Indians, stole money from tribal funds, sold tribal food for their own profit, etc. Forcing a New WayEven honest agents thought they were helping Indians by forcing them to give up traditional cultures to adopt mainstream American culture.Often outlawed Indian religious ceremonies like the Sun Dance & discouraged give-away ceremonies.Indians werent allowed to leave the reservation without a pass.End of intertribal warfare had made it impossible for young warriors to count coup (gain honor by bravery in battle) or complete other traditional requirements for leadership so tribal leadership declined.Keeping Tribal Culture AliveGive-aways and religious ceremonies were held in secret.Holidays like Fourth of July were celebrated with tribal events, like pow-wows (first done by tribes on Flathead Reservation in 1898).Agents started county fairs on reservation to show off Indians farming accomplishments Crow Fair began in 1904 with parades, horse races, & a rodeo; today its one of Montanas most popular annual summer events.Dancers at Crow Fair in 1941. Crow Fair continues to be one of Montanas most popular annual summer events.

Diseases Set Everyone BackDiseases caused by poor sanitation, crowded living conditions, lack of nutritious food.Tuberculosis was leading killer of Indians in early reservation years 1/3 of all American Indians caught it, but on some reservations as many as 90% were infected.Trachoma (causes blindness) also struck 1 out of every 5 American Indians.Making a Living on the ReservationsSalish, Pend dOreille, and Kootenai on the Flathead Reservation had grown vegetables and wheat since 1850s, so were prepared to make living as farmers.Northern Cheyenne and Crows also had some success in farming.Government often didnt send enough farm equipment or funding as promised, which hurt farm production.Water and the Winters DecisionNon-Indians often grazed their cattle on the reservation and diverted water to irrigate their farms.1905: Ft. Belknap Reservation agent William Logan complained to commissioner of Indian affairs that nearby farmers were diverting water from the Milk River before it could reach the reservation result was that Indians couldnt water their crops.Case went to the U.S. Supreme Court: in the Winters decision, it upheld the Indians right to the water based on treaty agreements this became precedent for other tribes fighting for water rights.Ranching on the ReservationMany tribes embraced ranching it gave them a way to support their families while practicing tribal values like feeding relatives and giving away cattle & horses.Agents pressured ranchers to work for profit, save money, & expand their operations this often conflicted with tribal ideas about working for the good of the tribe instead of individual success.For example, Blackfeet Reservation ranchers were deemed incompetent for not making a profit they had actually sold off cattle to feed hungry relatives during a hard winter.The Government Kills Off Crow & Cheyenne Herds1914: agent on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation confiscated 20,000 to 30,000 cattle owned by Cheyenne ranchers.Agency officials then managed the herd for reservation use but failed to provide winter feed or move herd to winter pasture on time within a few years only 4,000 cattle remained.Agent sold off remaining cattle & opened reservation to grazing for white cattle ranchers Indians who had been fairly successful ranchers were thrown back into poverty.1919: govt. ordered Crow & Cheyenne to reduce number of horses on their reservations (h0rses ate grass needed for cattle) in 1923, govt. paid to have thousands of horses shot.Other Reservation IndustriesFlathead, Crow, & Northern Cheyenne Reservations all had enough timber to support sawmills run only by non-Indian govt. employees until after 1900, when tribes gained some control over their forestlands.Blackfeet tribe profited from oil on its land didnt have resources to drill oil themselves, so leased out to private oil companies but govt. discouraged oil leases on reservations, so tribe only made a few thousand dollars from small oil leases in 1920s.The Dawes ActOne purpose of reservations: turn Indians into farmers; part of Jeffersons view of America as a nation of small farmers who owned their own land.1880s: some worried that Indians werent becoming farmers fast enough; others wanted reservation land opened for white farmers and ranchers.1887: the Dawes Act results from these pressures.Goals of the act: break up tribes as economic units, encourage individual initiative, cut govt. costs in running reservations, provide more land for white settlers.Destruction of tribes was seen as way to help Indians assimilate into white American culture.The Dawes Act: How it workedReservation lands were allotted into individual parcels.Heads of households got 160 acres; unmarried tribal members over age 18 got 80 acres.Parcels were owned by individuals, not the tribe, but held in trust by the govt. (so owner couldnt sell them) for 25 years.Land not allotted to individuals could be declared surplus (extra) and sold to whites.The Dawes Act affected each reservation differently.The Dawes Act on the Crow ReservationAllotments started in 1888, but werent completed until early 1920s.Crow leaders won the right to determine how the process would work, so most land remained in tribal members hands it wasnt declared surplus and sold to whites.The Dawes Act on the Blackfeet ReservationAllotments began in 1907.Govt. designated 156,000 acres as surplus tribe was $1 million in debt after building federally-ordered irrigation system.Blackfeet spokesman Robert Hamilton testified to Congress and Office of Indian Affairs in protest.1919: Congress allowed surplus Blackfeet lands to be added to individual tribal members allotments, not sold to whites.The Dawes Act on the Fort Peck ReservationAllotted between 1908 and 1913.Each adult male got 320 acres and a few acres of farm and timber lands.Govt. declared 1.3 million acres as surplus, open for non-Indian homesteaders.Most good farmland on Ft. Peck Reservation today is owned by non-Indians.The Dawes Act on the Flathead ReservationAllotments began in 1908 despite strong tribal protests; Salish chief Charlot promised I wont sell a foot! of his tribal land.Charlot died in 1910; two weeks later, the govt. declared 1 million acres of reservation land as surplus to be sold to non-Indian homesteaders.More than 2/3 of reservation land, including most of the fertile Mission Valley, was taken from tribal hands.

The Dawes Act on the Fort Belknap ReservationTribal leaders saw allotments as a way to preserve the land they had left much had already been illegally sold off, with no profit going to the tribe.Afraid even more land would be lost, Fort Belknap tribes lobbied to have their reservation allotted, insisting that all land go to tribal members.Their reservation was allotted in 1923.The Dawes Act on the Northern Cheyenne ReservationTribe lobbied the government to postpone allotments until 1932-34.Tribe retained almost all of its land.Results of AllotmentMontanas reservations lost more than 400,000 acres of land to non-Indian ownership.Tribal members on Flathead Reservation had been about as well-off as white farmers before allotment, but loss of farmland drove them into poverty.Irrigation projects on Blackfeet, Crow, and Flathead Reservations mostly ended up helping non-Indian farmers who moved onto reservations.

Results of Allotment, Part IILarge horse & cattle herds sold off because they could no longer graze on communal land once it was turned into individual allotments.Allotments sometimes sold just to pay taxes/buy food: Blackfeet lost 200,000 acres between 1912 & 1929 most went to pay local businesses for items purchased at their stores.During 47 years that allotments were in effect, western tribes lost 70% of remaining lands.John Collier, U.S. commissioner of Indian affairs, later said that allotments had caused poverty a 30 percent illiteracy rate, a death rate twice that of the white population, and the loss of more than 90 million acres of Indian land.Losing Our Selves: The Boarding School ExperienceMany Americans thought the fastest way to assimilate Indian people into mainstream culture was to remove Indian children from their families & bring them up as white children.Reservation agents forced parents to surrender their children so they could be sent to school sometimes families lost their food ration if they didnt cooperate.Most Montana Indians favored education they knew their kids needed to learn new skills/professions to succeed in the white mans world but they didnt want their kids taken away or to lose respect for tribal traditions.The Boarding School Experience, Part IISome educators thought Indian children would assimilate faster if removed from the reservation entirely.After 1890, thousands of Montana Indian children were sent to faraway boarding schools like the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, Haskell Indian School in Kansas, & Chemawa Indian School in Oregon, and didnt return home for years.Goal of these schools was to erase childrens memories of native language & culture hair was cut short, not allowed to speak only English, etc.Boarding Schools, Part IIIBoarding school students would study half the day and work other half in laundries, kitchens, leather shops, dairies.Learned English, math, how to structure their day by the clock.Carlisle school was run like a military unit by a retired army officer students wore uniforms, marched, could be punished with flogging and solitary confinement.Schools were often overcrowded diseases like tuberculosis spread easily.Forced to stay at boarding schoolMany students tried to run away, especially from schools located on reservations.Tribal police were paid to bring them back.Students on reservation boarding schools were allowed short vacations to see their parents.Students at faraway schools were sent to work for white families during their vacations from school.The Positive Side of Boarding Schools: Educated Indians Helped Their TribesEducated Indians returned home with job skills and knowledge some, like Robert Yellowtail, negotiated with Congress and became activist leaders.1898: govt. pressured Crow tribe to give up more land for railroads & homesteaders, but Chief Plenty Coups referred them to group of young Crow men just back from boarding school.One of them, Carl Leider, produced an itemized list of payments government had promised but failed to make government postponed discussion until payments could be made.The Positive Side of Boarding Schools, Part IIBlackfeet leader Robert Hamilton stood up for full-blood Blackfeet against mixed-blood businessmen who wanted to control the tribes resources.Hamilton had graduated from the Carlisle school his efforts kept the tribe from losing power, money, and much of its land.Boarding school era lasted from 1880 to 1934 many family ties broke during that time, but Indian children from different tribes formed intertribal friendships at boarding schools.These relationships later helped American Indians work together for political and cultural change.Students at Carlisle Indian Industrial SchoolFrom 1879 to 1918, over 10,000 Native American children from 140 tribes attended - only 158 graduated.

Oglala Lakota chief American Horse at Carlisle in 1882, with his daughter, Maggie Stands LookingSome Native American leaders, like Spotted Tail and American Horse, wanted their children to be educated so they could compete successfully in the white mans world. American Horse sent two sons and a daughter to Carlisles first class. His daughter Maggie was one of Captain Pratts model students.

Luther Standing Bear in 1879. Luther, an Oglala Lakota, was a successful student at Carlisle and became a recruiter for Pratt, returning to the reservation to ask parents to send their children away to boarding school. Although he was well-liked and respected, many parents feared they would never see their children again once they went away, and refused to send them with Luther.

The 1911 Carlisle Indians football team.The Indians, led by coach Pop Warner and star player Jim Thorpe, went 11-1, including an 18-15 upset of Harvard. The Indians developed a rivalry with Harvard and loved to mimic the Boston accent even players who could barely speak English would say things like pahk the cah in Hahvad Yahd, and whenever someone did anything especially well, they called it Harvard-style. The team went 167-88-13 in 25 years of competition. Another of its most famous victories was a 27-6 blowout of Army in 1912. One of Armys players that day was future general and President of the United States Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Jim ThorpeA member of the Sac and Fox tribe, Thorpe became a star athlete at Carlisle. He went on to win the pentathlon and decathlon at the 1912 Olympics. When King Gustav V of Sweden gave Thorpe his gold medal, he said, You sir, are the greatest athlete in the world, to which Thorpe replied, Thanks, King. Thorpe went on to play professional baseball, football, and basketball. An ABC sports fan poll chose him as the Greatest Athlete of the Twentieth Century, beating out other nominees like Babe Ruth, Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, and Muhammad Ali.

1904 Fort Shaw Girls Basketball World ChampionsFront row, l to r: Genie Butch, Belle Johnson, Emma Sansaver. Back row, l to r: Katie Snell, Minnie Burton. Not pictured: Nettie Wirth, Sarah Mitchell.The Fort Shaw Indian School team was declared World Champion after defeating the St. Louis all-star team at the Worlds Fair in St. Louis, Missouri. Fort Shaw won a best of three series, 2 games to 0, beating St. Louis 24-2 and 15-9. Their story is told in the 2008 book, Full-Court Quest.

People of Strength and Power EndureAt the end of the 1800s, many assumed that Indian tribes would soon disappear.Montanas tribes have not only survived, but the number of tribal members is growing.Blackfeet Tribal Council chairman Earl Old Person (2008): Our ability to adapt is infinite and assures our survival. The struggles Indian people went through to survive have made us stronger and it is through this experience that we can conquer the obstacles ahead.