NO. 7 SOIION S PORTRAITS OF INDIANS — EWERS 55 



western plains they met the Blackfoot, Gros Ventres, Sarsi, and 

 Cree, aboriginal inhabitants of the region. The partially accultur- 

 ated Iroquois who had been instructed in the Catholic religion at 

 Caughnawaga Mission near Montreal felt themselves superior to the 

 barbaric plains Indians, which so enraged the latter that the Blackfoot 

 or Gros Ventres attacked the Iroquois and killed about a score of 

 them. Friendly Cree advised tiie Iroquois that it would not be safe 

 to try to revenge this defeat. (Mackenzie, 1903, vol. 2, p. 345; 

 Thompson, 1916, pp. 311-317.) 



One small colony of Iroquois, reputed to have been descendants 

 of two brothers of this migration, still remains in Alberta, under the 

 name of Michel's l^and. This band, now under the jurisdiction of the 

 Edmonton Agency, numbered 104 persons in 1944. (Gibbons, 1904, 

 pp. 125-126; Census of the Indians in Canada, 1945, p. 3.) The 

 remainder of the original group scattered after their disastrous battle 

 with the plains tribes. Perhaps many of them returned to the East. 

 In February 18 10 David Thompson, at Saleesh House (near present 

 Thompson's Falls, Mont.), west of the Rockies, employed six Iroquois 

 "who had come this far to trap Beaver" to assist him in collecting 

 birchbark for canoes. (Thompson, 1916, p. 418.) Thus it is certain 

 that some Iroquois, possibly remnants of the large group of the 1798-99 

 migration, reached the country of the Flathead and Pend d'Oreille 

 by the end of the first decade of the nineteenth century, only 5 years 

 after the pioneer explorers Lewis and Clark. Some of the members 

 of that early migration may have settled eventually among the 

 friendly Flathead. 



However, the group of Iroquois who were primarily responsible 

 for giving the primitive Flathead and Pend d'Oreille their first notions 

 of Christianity have been credited to another and somewhat later 

 migration. Father Palladino stated that they comprised a group of 

 24 Iroquois under the leadership of Ignace Lamoose, who wandered 

 westward until they reached the land of the Flathead, where they 

 were hospitably received and decided to remain. (Palladino, 1894. 

 pp. 9-10; Chittenden and Richardson, 1905, vol. i, p. 20.) This 

 explanation sounds reasonable only if we may assume that members 

 of the party were encouraged, and perhaps even guided, by Iroquois 

 who had been among the Flathead before that time and had returned 

 east with flattering descriptions of the country and its people. 



The date of this migration is uncertain. Father Palladino placed it 

 between 1812 and 1820; Father De Smet, 1816, and Father Mengarini. 

 as late as 1828. (Palladino, 1894, p. 9; Chittenden and Richardson. 

 1905, vol. 1, p. 29; Garraghan, 1938, vol. 2, p. 238, footnote.) 

 8 



