Time Line
Flathead Indian Reservation
 1860 - 1879
 
    Pre-contact 1800 1840 1860 1880 1900 1910 1920
  1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000
   
March, 1860

John Owen erected permanent agency buildings near a small falls on the Jocko River. By the end of the year, a storehouse, blacksmith shop, millright shop, and two houses had been built. Later a saw mill and grist mill were added.
March 29, 1860 The U.S. Government ratified the Hellgate Treaty of 1855, which created the impression among many whites that the Bitterroot Valley was open to settlers. Montana was being carved by roads and filled by settlers, game was becoming scarce, and the Flatheads realized they were being swallowed up by new settlers. The eastern buffalo herds were in serious decline and buffalo in the western mountain valleys had been virtually exterminated. Indians had increased their hunting in order to trade on the market and they did this with improved firearms. They hoped the Stevens treaty would protect them. But the promised money and equipment were not delivered.

Finally, five years after the treaty was signed, the first annuity goods arrived. The shipment included moldy coffee and flimsy cloth, and none of the tools that Major Owen had wanted. The Flatheads were deeply disappointed. Nothing of real value arrived. Owen protested vehemently but to no avail.
1861

Congress reorganized most of Montana into the Dakota Territory, combining the  Nebraska Territory and much of Minnesota Territory.
1760 - 1770

St. Ignatius Mission, 1862, drawn by Sohon.

Gold was discovered on Grasshopper Creek, followed by discoveries in Alder Gulch (1863) and Last Chance Gulch (1864). Hundreds of immigrants moved to Montana, leading to increased commerce. Vegetables from the Bitterroot Valley were sold in the gold fields. Montana was designated a Territory in 1864 with its capital at Bannack. Tribal people found long-used campsites and meadows claimed by new arrivals. Interactions between wandering Indians of various tribes and settlers become increasingly common and troublesome. Hundreds of horses were reported stolen. Fences were knocked down and fields trampled.

1860? Senator W. A. Clark bought a mail contract and began a pony express route that began at Fort Missoula and ended at Fort Walla Walla. The first leg ended at St. Ignatius, where a new rider completed the second leg along the Flathead River through Perma to Plains. Heavily armed riders rode day and night, stopping at log huts to water their horses and to eat. Clark sold this business to the Northern Pacific Railroad in 1883.
  November, 1862 Charles Hutchins took over as Indian Agent after Major Owen resigned in frustration over the failure of long overdue appropriations to arrive.
  1863 The Jesuits, with an $1800 subsidy from the federal government, opened a boys day school. The Jesuits felt it was unsuccessful because of the influence of the boys' families. The school was later reorganized as a boarding school.
  1863 Western Montana was organized into the Idaho Territory.
  1864 Montana Territory was created.
  1864? Baptiste Eneas, part Flathead Indian, began a ferry that crossed Flathead Lake near the mouth of the Flathead River. Before Kerr Dam was built, the river was several feet lower.
  October 11, 1864 Four Sisters of Providence arrived in St. Ignatius to open a girls boarding school and a hospital. The day school was opened in December, with a tuition of twenty-five dollars a month. It became a boarding school in 1865. Most of the students were orphans, accepted as charity cases. Boys between five and twelve also attended. No government aid was available between 1864 and 1874, so the Jesuits supported the schools with voluntary contributions.
  1871 Angus McDonald ordered his son, Duncan, to close Fort Connah. An 1869 joint commission of British and American representatives had reached an agreement settling Hudson Bay's claims. The era of the fur trade, in decline for thirty years, was definitely over. Agents in Charge of Fort Connah, 1847-1871
  1871 Colonel Wheeler, a member of the Hayden Geological Survey Party, visited the St. Ignatius Mission. He wrote: "We were surprised at the extent of the farming operations carried on. All the grain and corn, potatoes and other vegetables, cattle and horses, butter and cheese needed for several hundred people are produced here by the labor of the Indians under the superintendent of the brothers. The mission. . .is entirely self-sustaining."    Hayden, F. V. "Statement of Colonel Wheeler," in Preliminary Report of the U. S. Geological Survey of Montana and Portions of Adjacent Territories, 1871. Washington, D. C., 1872. Volume II, 251-152

The Flathead Indian Agent, C. J. Jones, in his annual report for 1871, said the Flatheads had 105 farms, averaging about thirteen acres each. They raised five thousand bushels of wheat, 1,650 bushels of potatoes, and 160 bushels of corn. 
  1872 The St. Ignatius Post Office was established.
  August 22, 1872 The Bitterroot Flathead chiefs held a conference with James Garfield, appointed special commissioner to carry out President Grant's November 14, 1871 Executive Order to relocate the Bitterroot Flatheads to the Jocko reservation. The government had stopped making treaties in 1871, so Garfield sought to negotiate a contract with the Indians.

The conference began at a camp near the St. Mary's Mission but moved on August 24 to the Jocko Valley, near today's town of Arlee. 

Garfield found the chiefs committed to staying in the Bitterroot. Chief Charlo produced his copy of the Hellgate Treaty, signed by his father, Victor, seventeen years before. After being promised the government would pay them for their Bitterroot farms and on their new Jocko farms would fence fields, build frame houses twelve by sixteen feet with a chimneys and windows, Chief Arlee and Chief Adolph signed their marks to the contract.  

Chief Charlo did not. When the contract was printed for the commissioner's annual report, Charlo's mark appeared as though he had signed the original document. Charlo believed his mark had been forged, and this further embittered him toward the white people.  Congressional Act providing for the Removal of Flatheads from the Bitterroot.

In December, 1873, the Bitterroot Valley was opened to patenting by settlers who had taken up occupancy before June 5, 1872.

  1874 The Sioux convened a council of buffalo-hunting tribes on the lower Yellowstone, seeking a united response to the whites. It was clear that the buffalo were vanishing and the tribes were facing serious trouble. Most of the tribes voted for war.

The Flatheads and the Nez Perce believed the fight would be too far from their homes, and they voted against it. An 1873-74 gold rush to British Columbia drew throngs of prospectors through Flathead country. Whites became increasingly nervous about Indian alliances. Beginning in 1873, the Missoulian published numerous predictions of Indian uprisings, promoting a military post in Missoula.
  1874 The Mission at St. Ignatius began receiving contract subsidies from the federal government for their schools. For each of the next four years $2100 was paid. This was increased to $4,000 per year in 1878. Beginning in 1890, payment was made on a per student basis. The federal subsidies did not cover the costs of the schools, which the Mission had to raise themselves. For example, in 1882 the government paid $4,000 but the religious society spent another $9,700.
  June 1, 1877 Peter Ronan took over as Superintendent of the five-year-old Flathead Indian Reservation. In his 1879 Annual Report, he said only twenty Flatheads still lived primarily by hunting. Many farms had been built on the reservation. Ronan believed religion and education were the keys to the Flathead's future, and he supported the Jesuits in their efforts until his death in 1893.
  1878 Walking Coyote, a Pend O'Reille Indian also known as Samuel, brought 4 to 7 buffalo calves to the Reservation from the Marias River. The details of the story, including names and dates, vary in several accounts, but there is agreement that a few bison were brought to the Reservation and later sold Michel Pablo and Charles Allard, Senior in 1882 or 1883. Thus began the famed Pablo-Allard Herd, sold to the Canadian government in 1906 in anticipation of the opening of the Reservation.
  August 7, 1879 The cornerstone was laid for a new church at the St. Ignatius Mission, constructed of bricks manufactured at a site 1 mile southeast of the church. During 1879, the mission also printed a Salish language dictionary, based on work begun by Father Mengarini and continued by Father's Diomedi and Giorda. The type had been handset over four years by Indian boys.

Also in this year, the mission school was converted to a boarding school under contract with the Indian office. Commissioner of Indian Affairs Ezra A. Hayt announced a national policy of allotting lands in severalty to Indians, to encourage the practices of individual land ownership. After the Nez Perce war, traditional ways were replaced by newer ways more quickly. By 1880, over fifty reservation Flatheads could read and write English.

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