The Swan Valley Massacre was an incident in 1908 in which four
Pend d'Oreilles
The Pend d'Oreille ( ), also known as the Kalispel (), are Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Plateau. Today many of them live in Montana and eastern Washington of the United States. The Kalispel peoples referred to their primary tribal range a ...
Indians, members of an eight-person hunting party, were killed by a state game warden and his deputy in the
Swan Valley in northwestern
Montana
Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbi ...
. The state of Montana did not honor off-reservation hunting permits, although the hunting right was established by federal treaty. The game warden confronted the Pend d'Oreilles party and a gunfight ensued.
Background
The
Bitterroot Salish
The Bitterroot Salish (or Flathead, Salish, Selish) are a Salish-speaking group of Native Americans, and one of three tribes of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Nation in Montana. The Flathead Reservation is home to th ...
(Flathead) and
Pend d’Oreille (Kalispel) tribes of the Northern
Rocky Mountain
The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico in ...
(Plateau) region of the Western United States had long occupied the area around
Flathead Lake
Flathead Lake ( fla, člq̓etkʷ, label=Salish, kut, yawuʔnik̓ ʔa·kuq̓nuk) is a large natural lake in northwest Montana.
The lake is a remnant of the ancient, massive glacial dammed lake, Lake Missoula of the era of the last interglacial. ...
as their traditional territory. Their culture included hunting and gathering for their food. The Salish were known to war with the
Blackfeet
The Blackfeet Nation ( bla, Aamsskáápipikani, script=Latn, ), officially named the Blackfeet Tribe of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation of Montana, is a federally recognized tribe of Siksikaitsitapi people with an Indian reservation in Monta ...
and
Shoshone
The Shoshone or Shoshoni ( or ) are a Native American tribe with four large cultural/linguistic divisions:
* Eastern Shoshone: Wyoming
* Northern Shoshone: southern Idaho
* Western Shoshone: Nevada, northern Utah
* Goshute: western Utah, easter ...
. With the rise of the
fur trade
The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals have been the mos ...
with Europeans in the late eighteenth century, many Salish and Pend d’Oreilles became involved as trappers and traders. The Salish were visited by the
Lewis and Clark
Lewis may refer to:
Names
* Lewis (given name), including a list of people with the given name
* Lewis (surname), including a list of people with the surname
Music
* Lewis (musician), Canadian singer
* "Lewis (Mistreated)", a song by Radiohead ...
expedition in 1805, who traded gifts of goods and horses with them.
In the early 19th century,
Jesuit
, image = Ihs-logo.svg
, image_size = 175px
, caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits
, abbreviation = SJ
, nickname = Jesuits
, formation =
, founders ...
Catholic missionaries, primarily French-speaking, came to live among the Salish in the
Bitterroot Valley
The Bitterroot Valley is located in southwestern Montana, along the Bitterroot River between the Bitterroot Range and Sapphire Mountains, in the Northwestern United States.
Geography
The valley extends approximately from Lost Trail Pass in Id ...
with the intent of converting the natives. They built a church. During the Steven’s Treaty era,
Washington Territory
The Territory of Washington was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 2, 1853, until November 11, 1889, when the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Washington. It was created from the ...
Governor
Isaac Stevens
Isaac Ingalls Stevens (March 25, 1818 – September 1, 1862) was an American military officer and politician who served as governor of the Territory of Washington from 1853 to 1857, and later as its delegate to the United States House of Represen ...
called the Salish, Pend d’Oreilles, and Ksanka Band of
Kootenai
The Kutenai ( ), also known as the Ktunaxa ( ; ), Ksanka ( ), Kootenay (in Canada) and Kootenai (in the United States), are an indigenous people of Canada and the United States. Kutenai bands live in southeastern British Columbia, northern ...
together in 1855 to negotiate the
Hellgate Treaty. By this treaty, the U.S. government established a reservation for and a peaceful confederation of these tribes.
Confrontation
According to the 1855 treaty, the confederated tribes retained the right to hunt, gather, and fish in their aboriginal territory, some of which was outside the reservation boundaries. After Montana acquired statehood in 1889, it established its own hunting and fishing regulations, to be enforced by game wardens. Only the federal government had jurisdiction within reservation borders, but in other areas, Montana state officials believed they had authority to regulate Native Americans as well as non-Native Americans.
In September 1908 a party of eight Pend d’Oreille entered the ancient hunting grounds of the Swan Valley on the eastern side of the
Mission Mountain range. The party members included Atwen Scwi, his wife, son, and daughter; Little Camille Paul and his pregnant wife; and two elders, Mary and her husband Martin Yellow Mountain. Before they had left the reservation, they purchased state hunting permits to avoid trouble, although this was not required under the Hellgate Treaty. (Yellow Mountain cleared permission for the expedition from the Indian agent in Arlee).
In October, after the hunting party had camped for several weeks, Charles Peyton, a state
game warden
A conservation officer is a law enforcement officer who protects wildlife and the environment. A conservation officer may also be referred to as an environmental technician or technologist, game warden, forest ranger, forest watcher, forest gu ...
, together with a few deputized residents of the valley, entered the encampment three times to investigate the party. He demanded hunting licenses and harassed the band. Peyton returned the next day with guns drawn, and demanded that the Pend d'Oreille leave by the next morning. To avoid confrontation, the band decided to move and began to pack up the camp.
The next day, before the party could pack and mount their horses to leave (they had been delayed by two of their horses wandering away and having to retrieve them), Peyton arrived with his deputy, 32-year-old Herman Rudolph.
Peyton shot Camille Paul and Atwen, the two leaders of the party, who were unable to reach their guns. When Yellow Mountain tried to reach his weapon, Peyton shot him as well. As the women fled toward the edge of the clearing, Peyton chased them. Atwen’s son ''Peh-lah-so-weh'' found a gun and shot Peyton, hitting him in the stomach. The warden’s deputy Herman Rudolph shot Peh-lah-so-weh at the same time, killing him almost instantly.
As the women tended to the dead and dying members of the party, Peyton began to get back up. Camille’s wife, Clarice, fearful that Peyton would try to kill the rest of them, pulled her husband's rifle from under his body and shot twice at Peyton, leaving him dead.
Though six months pregnant, Clarice rode to another Pend d’Oreille camp to seek help. When she arrived, the band of Many Names (Louie Mollman) took her in and tended to her. When Many Names’ party returned the next day to recover the bodies, they encountered a non-Indian posse. Many Names warriors declined to attack.
Aftermath
Rudolph was scheduled for a county coroner’s appearance but left the area and was never prosecuted. The Pend d'Oreille reinterred the bodies of their four dead at the
St. Ignatius Catholic cemetery.
Clarice gave birth to her son, naming him John Peter Paul. He grew up telling the story of his mother and their hunting party for years. The tribe cut back on hunting parties outside the reservation for fear of similar attacks.
References
*Salish and Pend d'Oreille Culture Committee. "The Swan Valley Massacre of 1908- A Brief History".
*John Fahey. ''The Flathead Indians''.
*Theresa DeLeane O'Nell, ''Disciplined Hearts: History, Identity, and Depression in an American Indian Community'' (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996).
External links
"We will never forget" ''Daily Inter Lake''
{{Lincoln County, Montana
History of Montana
1908 in Montana