b SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. IIO 



ground on the east bank of the Missoula River, y^ miles northwest 

 of the present city of Missoula, Mont., Governor Stevens met the 

 leaders of the Flathead, Upper Pend d'Oreille, and Kutenai tribes. 

 The Council opened July 9 and ended July 16 in the signing of a 

 treaty betvi^een these tribes and the United States which provided for 

 the cession of some 25,000 square miles of Indian land. Details of 

 this complex treaty are discussed in later pages of this paper. 



Gustavus Sohon and Ben Riser, a half-breed Shawnee who lived 

 with the Flathead, served as the official interpreters at this Flathead 

 Treaty Council. The Flathead Indians still refer to the treaty site as 

 "where the trees have no lower limbs." Sohon's sketch of the Council 

 in session (pi. 2), the only pictorial record of the event, shows this 

 characteristic of the locality. 



From this council ground the Stevens party continued eastward to 

 make a treaty with the Blackfoot Indians and their neighbors. En 

 route Sohon assisted Governor Stevens in making an examination 

 of the approaches to Cadotte's Pass over the Rockies, drew panoramic 

 sketches of the Rocky Mountain chain as seen from the plains on the 

 east, and took numerous barometrical observations. 



On October 16 Governor Stevens and Alfred Cumming, as United 

 States Commissioners, met the chiefs of the three Blackfoot tribes, 

 and the Gros Ventres, Nez Perce, Flathead, and Upper Pend d'Oreille, 

 at a council ground near the mouth of the Judith River in the present 

 State of Montana. Next day a treaty was signed. The treaty provided 

 for no Indian land cessions, but it did define the boundaries of the 

 hunting grounds of the Blackfoot tribes and of the Indian tribes from 

 west of the Rockies who hunted buffalo on the plains. 



Gustavus Sohon and Ben Kiser served as official Flathead inter- 

 preters. Sohon also made a sketch of the Council in session and a 

 series of fine pencil portraits of both the white officials and the leading 

 chiefs of the Blackfoot tribes who signed this first treaty between the 

 United States and the Blackfoot. (See Appendix, p. 68, for list of 

 published drawings made by Sohon at the Blackfoot Council.) 



Governor Stevens intended to make treaties with the Spokan, 

 Colville, and Coeur d'Alene tribes during his return journey to the 

 west coast. However, on October 29, the day after his party left the 

 council ground, he was met by a mounted courier from the west 

 bearing the alarming report that some of the tribes with whom he 

 had recently treated at Walla Walla had broken out in open war. 

 The dispatches warned Stevens not to attempt to return through the 

 country of the hostile Indians, but he obtained additional arms and 



