Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Salish and Kootenai Indian Chiefs Speak for Their People and Land, 1865-1909

Salish and Kootenai Indian Chiefs Speak for Their People and Land, 1865-1909

McDonald, Joseph
Bigart, Robert J.

Paperback

Native American HistoryGeneral United States History

Publisher Price: $34.95

ISBN10: 1934594342
ISBN13: 9781934594346
Publisher: Salish Kootenai College Press
Published: Jun 15 2023
Pages: 248
Weight: 1.20
Height: 0.71 Width: 7.01 Depth: 9.92
Language: English
Named a 2023 Best Historical Material from the American Library Association

This collection includes talks or petitions by Salish and Kootenai chiefs found in the surviving historical record. The Salish and Kootenai Indians of the Flathead Indian Reservation confronted many crises in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The physical and cultural survival of the tribes was challenged by epidemics, intertribal warfare with larger enemy tribes, and an invasion of white settlers. The tribes had to fight to have their voices heard and to get the United States government to keep its promises.

Fortunately, the tribes had capable leaders who spoke up for their interests and negotiated with visiting government officials. The chiefs were able to get sympathetic white men to write letters supporting their efforts to keep a reservation in the Bitterroot Valley of western Montana and pressure the government to honor other promises made in the 1855 Hellgate Treaty. In later negotiations their white neighbors coveted tribal land and assets.

Many of the chiefs' statements were preserved in English by newspaper reporters and government clerks. The interpreters in the meetings had to struggle to explain white American cultural concepts of property and right and wrong. They were also challenged in trying to explain Salish and Kootenai values to the white officials.

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General United States History

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