Flathead Lake, the Hellgate Treaty, & the Allotment Act

Flathead Lake, the Hellgate Treaty, and the Allotment Act. . For ten days in July 1855, near the confluence of the Bitterroot and Clark Fork Rivers, Salish, Pend d’Oreille, and Kootenai people met in council with US officials. The tribes struggled to understand the negotiations due to inept translators. In the end, the chiefs put their "x" marks on the paper, which said the tribes ceded to the US most of western Montana. The tribes reserved certain areas including the Flathead Indian Reservation, for their own “exclusive use and benefit.” On ceded lands, the tribes also reserved the right to continue hunting, fishing, gathering plants, and pasturing animals., As western Montana’s transformation intensified in the late 1800s, tribal leaders defended the treaty’s guarantees. Many officials and settlers, however, pressed for the reservation itself to be opened to non-Indian settlement., In April 1904, Rep. Joseph Dixon pushed the Flathead Allotment Act through Congress, despite overwhelming tribal opposition. The act broke up communal lands, allotted individual tracts to tribal members, and then designated remaining lands “surplus.” In 1910, the government opened those lands to homesteaders. In 1971, the U.S. Court of Claims ruled that the Flathead Allotment Act was a “breach” of the Hellgate Treaty. The Tribes began rebuilding their sovereignty following passage of the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act., Today, the Flathead Reservation , and Flathead Lake , remain places shaped by the Hellgate Treaty and the Flathead Allotment Act.