Time Line
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| Pre-contact | 1800 | 1840 | 1860 | 1880 | 1900 | 1910 | 1920 | ||
| 1930 | 1940 | 1950 | 1960 | 1970 | 1980 | 1990 | 2000 | ||
| March 27, 1840 |
Father De Smet started for the Rocky Mountains to bring Christianity to the Flatheads and other tribes. He met the Salish at Pierre's Hole in Montana, where about 1,600 Indians were waiting. He baptized six hundred of them. They traveled to the Bitterroot Valley and began the St. Mary's Mission. The Flatheads knew the fur trade was coming to an end, and they believed the new religion would increase their military success against the Blackfeet. |
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| September 4, 1841 |
The Jesuits arrived in the Bitterroot Valley at the spot chosen by the Flatheads for a mission and named it St. Mary's. Other tribes visited the Mission. Whenever Blackfeet came, they flew a United States flag to signal peaceful intentions. In late 1841, Father Pierre DeSmet passed through the Jocko Valley on his way to Fort Colville to the west. |
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| 1844 | St. Ignatius Mission was founded among the Pend d'Oreilles band of Flathead Indians in what is now Cusik, Washington by Father DeSmet. |
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| Summer, 1846 | Neil McArthur began construction of Fort Connah, six miles north of St. Ignatius, for the Hudson's Bay Company. Angus McDonald replaced McArthur in 1847, and completed the fort with the help of George Simpson. Traffic was heavy on the Oregon Trail. The population of Oregon doubled due to the 1845 migration alone. The interior tribes were becoming sandwiched between large white populations to both the east and the west. The Jesuits believed rapid assimilation was the Indians' best hope. (Partoll) |
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| 1846 | The Oregon Treaty designated the 49th parallel as the northern boundary of the United States, and provided that the the Hudson's Bay Company (a British company) be paid for its property south of that border. It would be more than twenty years before the United States paid for Fort Connah, and the Fort continued to operate during those years despite occasional opposition to its presence. Traders came from as far away as the Deer Lodge valley to get powder, percussion caps, blankets and other goods. |
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| August 14, 1848 | Congress created the Oregon Territory, an area that includes what is today Oregon, Idaho, Washington, and western Montana. |
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| November, 1850 | The Jesuits left the St. Mary's Mission in the Bitterroot because of increasing tensions between the missionaries and the Flatheads. They sold the property to trader John Owen, who turned it to a trading post, Fort Owen, and began competing with Hudson's Bay. | ||
| 1853-1854 | General Isaac Stevens, first Governor and Superintendent of Indian Affairs for Washington Territory, headed a railroad survey party, mapping a route for a railroad connecting the Great Lakes to Puget Sound. The best route followed the old Jocko and Flathead River trail through the homelands of the Salish, Kootenai, Pend D'Oreille and Kalispel. Stevens' instructions were to extinguish Indian title along the route. (Biggar, p. 63) | ||
| 1853 | Northwest Montana was organized into the Washington Territory | ||
| 1854 | The St. Ignatius Mission was moved from Washington to its present location along Mission Creek in Montana. The Kalispel chief, Alexander, showed the site to Fathers Hoecken and Menetray. Within weeks, the fathers had built several log buildings, including a chapel, two houses, a carpenter's shop, and a blacksmith shop. Many local tribesmen moved their lodges to the site. Why the Catholic Mission Among the Kalispels Moved, by Steven Donald Ellersick, M.S. | ||
| July 9, 1855 |
Governor Isaac Stevens conducted the Hellgate
Treaty Council in a grove of lodgepole pine along the river west of the
village of Hellgate (6 miles west of today's Missoula). He had called together about 1,200 Indians from
various bands of Salish, Pend d'Oreille, and Kootenai with the head
chiefs Victor, Alexander, and Michel. Negotiations went on for
several days, with Stevens varying little from the draft treaty he had
prepared before he left Omaha. The various tribes present agreed with
reluctance to be joined on a single reservation but did not agree to a
location.
About two thirds of the ceded land was later reserved as National Forests: the Flathead and Bitterroot National Forests, created in 1897; the Missoula, Kootenai and Lolo National Forests, created in 1906; a portion of the Cabinet National Forest, created in 1907; and the Blackfoot National Forest, created in 1908. Text of Treaty. |
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| 1856 | Dr. R. H. Landsdale arrived from Oregon to assume duties as the first Flathead Indian Agent. He established the agency near the mouth of the Jocko. The Jesuits encouraged the Flatheads to take up farming, gave them seeds, and loaned them plows, tools, and oxen. | ||
| January, 1857 | Henry G. Miller brought his wife to the Jocko Agency. They stayed for several years. She was the first Euro-American woman to reside in the area. The Flatheads were bemused to see her ride a horse sideways. A Mrs. J. Brown had visited a few days at Fort Connah in 1854. (Woody, 94) | ||
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© 2004 Flathead
Reservation Historical Society. All rights reserved. |
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