Flathead Reservation

The Treaty of Hellgate was signed in Hellgate on July 16, 1855 between Indian commissioner Isaac Stevens and the Native American tribes located in western Montana. The treaty was ratified by Congress, signed by President James Buchanan, and proclaimed on April 18, 1859.The tribes involved in the signing of the treaty entailed the Bitteroot Salish, Pend d'Oreille, and the Kootenai. The tribes negotiated the Hellgate treaty with the United States in 1855. From the start, treaty negotiations were plagued by serious translation problems. A Jesuit observer, Father Adrian Hoecken, said that the translations were so poor that "not a tenth of what was said was understood by either side". The meeting with Lewis and Clark, the pervasive cross-cultural miscommunication ran even deeper than problems of language and translation. Tribal people came to the meeting assuming they were going to formalize an already-recognized friendship. Non-Indians came with the goal of making official their claims to native lands and resources.

Rationale: I chose to do my presentation on the Flathead
Reservation, because I grew up on there. My grandparents were enrolled tribal members, and I enjoy the culture and the diversity of the reservation today. Understanding how the reservation was formed and why the tribes were moved there fascinates me. To be placed in such a beautiful valley with great resources wasn’t all that bad. Surely at the time of the move from the Bitterroot Valley it was catastrophic, but today the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes are standing strong.