The Story of the Bitter Root
open conference with Charlos, the Honorable Secretary devised a new plan of campaign:
"In compliance with verbal instructions from the Honorable Secretary of the Interior, a full report of which I furnished the Indian Office under date of March 27, 1884, I made certain propositions to individual families to remove from the Bitter Root and settle at the Flathead reservation, and the result was that twenty-one heads of families concluded to remove, and to them, following the views of the Honorable Secretary of the Interior, as expressed to the Indians in Washington, I promised to each (1) a choice of 160 acres of unoccupied land on the reservation; (2) the erection of a suitable house; (3) assistance in fencing and breaking up ten acres of land for each family; (4) the following gifts: two cows, a wagon, set of harness, a plough, with other agricultural implements, seed for the first year, and provisions until the first crop was harvested."
Quite tempting inducements, surely. It may be interesting to know what sort of Indians these seceders were; the agent supplies the information:
"The members of Charlos' band who removed from the Bitter Root to this agency cannot be classed among the most industrious and civilized members of the tribe. In fact the colony is composed mostly of Indians who, with their families, followed the buffalo until this game became almost
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