24 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 1 10 



their ambitious young braves. When Stevens returned to the Flathead 

 in the summer of 1855, he was told how Blackfoot warriors had 

 continued to steal large numbers of horses from Flathead camps and 

 to kill peaceful Flathead on hunting excursions. The Flathead com- 

 plained bitterly that they had suffered serious losses since 1853, but 

 had kept their promise not to retaliate. 



The Blackfoot Treaty of 1855, signed by both Blackfoot and 

 Flathead leaders, designated a portion of the plains south of the 

 Musselshell River as a proper buffalo-hunting ground for the Flat- 

 head and their allies from west of the Rockies. The treaty also pledged 

 all the signatory tribes to intertribal peace. This treaty failed also 

 to end warfare in the area. The chiefs who signed it could not enforce 

 it among their own warriors. John Owen stated in i860, "Since 

 the treaty of '55 the Blackfeet have made frequent predatory Excur- 

 sions to the different Camps from (on) this side and have run off 

 many horses." (Owen, 1927, vol. 2, p. 215.) Sporadic clashes 

 between Blackfoot and Flathead continued until the end of buffalo 

 days nearly three decades after the treaty. 



When Governor Stevens called the Flathead Treaty Council in the 

 summer of 1855, ^^^^ Indians hoped he would present a plan to halt 

 Blackfoot depredations. Instead he told them of the Government's 

 desire to place the Flathead, Pend d'Oreille, and that portion of the 

 Kutenai living in the United States upon a single reservation com- 

 prising a small portion of the land claimed by those tribes west of 

 the Rockies. The Indians were disappointed. Nevertheless, after 

 Governor Stevens explained to them the many benefits offered by 

 the Government in exchange for the cession of their lands outside 

 the reservation boundaries, the majority of the chiefs appeared to 

 accept the joint reservation proposal. Trouble arose when it came 

 to the selection of a reservation site. The Flathead leaders refused 

 to consider any location other than their ancestral home, their beloved 

 Bitterroot Valley. The Upper Pend d'Oreille were unwilling to leave 

 their homeland farther north about the newly established Catholic 

 Mission of St. Ignatius. Negotiations appeared to have bogged down 

 completely when Victor, the Flathead head chief, suggested a com- 

 promise, which Stevens accepted, and embodied in the formal treaty, 

 signed by leaders of these tribes, and Governor Stevens as United 

 States Commissioner, July 16, 1855. Article XI of this treaty read: 



It is moreover, provided that the Bitter Root Valley, above the Loo-lo fork 

 shall be carefully surveyed and examined, and if it shall prove, in the judgment 

 of the President, to be better adapted to the wants of the Flathead tribe than 

 the general reservation provided for in this treaty, then such shall be set apart 



