1 00:00:01,400 --> 00:00:04,960 Speaker 1: The history of Montana began with an earnest plea by 2 00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:10,040 Speaker 1: its native people to learn Christianity, but the mission collided 3 00:00:10,080 --> 00:00:13,880 Speaker 1: with reality when the two sides could not agree on 4 00:00:13,960 --> 00:00:18,560 Speaker 1: the purpose of religion. I'm Dan Flores, and this is 5 00:00:18,600 --> 00:00:44,080 Speaker 1: the American West. Jesus and Animus beneath the Bitter Roots 6 00:00:46,200 --> 00:00:49,879 Speaker 1: one exquisite rocky mountain autumn morning during the decades I 7 00:00:49,960 --> 00:00:52,879 Speaker 1: lived in Montana. I walked past tourists in Tanna on 8 00:00:52,920 --> 00:00:56,280 Speaker 1: the roadside historical marker and descended down to the gray 9 00:00:56,400 --> 00:01:00,560 Speaker 1: cobbles of a famous little Montana stream named Lola Creek. 10 00:01:01,200 --> 00:01:02,040 Speaker 2: Then I picked my. 11 00:01:02,040 --> 00:01:05,360 Speaker 1: Way west along the ice clear, bouncing waters for a 12 00:01:05,480 --> 00:01:10,000 Speaker 1: quarter mile or so while yellow cottonwood leaves rotated with 13 00:01:10,120 --> 00:01:15,280 Speaker 1: studied deliberation against the hump blue profile of the Bitterroot Mountains. 14 00:01:16,000 --> 00:01:19,520 Speaker 1: I was here because I've recently read a century's old 15 00:01:19,600 --> 00:01:23,800 Speaker 1: journal entry about this spot. Somewhere along these cobbles, a 16 00:01:23,840 --> 00:01:27,039 Speaker 1: few of them, perhaps minutely smaller now, since it was 17 00:01:27,120 --> 00:01:29,760 Speaker 1: nearly two hundred and twenty years ago. Some of the 18 00:01:29,840 --> 00:01:33,520 Speaker 1: Lewis and Clark party leaving the bitter Root Valley's pleasant 19 00:01:33,560 --> 00:01:37,880 Speaker 1: plains of wild high Shop that was their biblical term 20 00:01:37,959 --> 00:01:43,320 Speaker 1: for sagebrush, approached what they called the Tremendous Mountains and 21 00:01:43,480 --> 00:01:47,200 Speaker 1: came upon an arresting site. One of the many expedition 22 00:01:47,240 --> 00:01:52,760 Speaker 1: members who kept the journal, Joseph Woodhouse, described it this way. Wednesday, 23 00:01:53,520 --> 00:01:59,440 Speaker 1: eleven September eighteen o five, A beautiful, pleasant morning passed 24 00:01:59,440 --> 00:02:03,280 Speaker 1: a tree on which was a number of shapes drawn 25 00:02:03,400 --> 00:02:07,160 Speaker 1: on it with paint by the natives. A white bear 26 00:02:07,280 --> 00:02:11,840 Speaker 1: skin hung on the same tree. We supposed this to 27 00:02:11,919 --> 00:02:21,000 Speaker 1: be a place of worship among them. Lewis and Clark's 28 00:02:21,040 --> 00:02:25,799 Speaker 1: group of Blue Ridge and Missouri hunters, despite many admirable qualities, 29 00:02:25,960 --> 00:02:29,360 Speaker 1: famously misfired more than once when it came to grasping 30 00:02:29,480 --> 00:02:33,880 Speaker 1: Indian religions, but not this time. Their path at Lulo 31 00:02:33,960 --> 00:02:38,960 Speaker 1: Creek had indeed led them past assumis or medicine or 32 00:02:39,080 --> 00:02:44,399 Speaker 1: power shrine of the people whom Jefferson's explorers were calling 33 00:02:44,720 --> 00:02:48,639 Speaker 1: the outlaw Chutes. These were the people Lewis and Clark 34 00:02:48,680 --> 00:02:51,320 Speaker 1: had met at the upper end of this valley many 35 00:02:51,400 --> 00:02:55,680 Speaker 1: days earlier. From them, they had acquired additional horses and 36 00:02:55,840 --> 00:02:58,639 Speaker 1: instructions on how to find a trail on this trail 37 00:02:58,919 --> 00:03:01,880 Speaker 1: for crossing the bitter Mountains to the waters of the 38 00:03:01,880 --> 00:03:06,359 Speaker 1: Columbia River and on to the Pacific Ocean, local inhabitants 39 00:03:06,400 --> 00:03:09,760 Speaker 1: of this valley for generations beyond count These native people 40 00:03:09,800 --> 00:03:13,079 Speaker 1: then thought of themselves and still do, with a name 41 00:03:13,160 --> 00:03:17,560 Speaker 1: that translates to the bitter root Salish. For a long time, 42 00:03:17,760 --> 00:03:21,040 Speaker 1: everyone else mostly ignored their wishes about their name and 43 00:03:21,160 --> 00:03:26,520 Speaker 1: referred to them as the Flatheads. Now, religious thinking yours 44 00:03:26,919 --> 00:03:30,200 Speaker 1: everyone else's, and for sure that of every Native person 45 00:03:30,200 --> 00:03:31,279 Speaker 1: who ever lived. 46 00:03:31,360 --> 00:03:32,160 Speaker 2: Is a tricky thing. 47 00:03:32,840 --> 00:03:36,400 Speaker 1: I'm not myself a person of a religious faith, although 48 00:03:36,440 --> 00:03:39,040 Speaker 1: like most of us, I spent many a Sunday morning 49 00:03:39,320 --> 00:03:43,320 Speaker 1: with parents who commanded me with let's to church. I 50 00:03:43,400 --> 00:03:46,320 Speaker 1: know from those years that religion is not just a 51 00:03:46,360 --> 00:03:51,840 Speaker 1: belief system one happens onto. It functions as a philosophy 52 00:03:51,920 --> 00:03:57,320 Speaker 1: of life and exploration and explanation of the meaning of existence. 53 00:03:57,800 --> 00:04:00,920 Speaker 1: Which is why most anyone who touts they if their 54 00:04:00,960 --> 00:04:04,600 Speaker 1: own religion is the only true one shouldn't be surprised 55 00:04:04,640 --> 00:04:07,800 Speaker 1: to find just about everybody else outside their circle more 56 00:04:07,840 --> 00:04:12,560 Speaker 1: than passing annoyed with them. But suspend your own convictions 57 00:04:12,640 --> 00:04:15,440 Speaker 1: about the validity of your religion for a moment and 58 00:04:15,640 --> 00:04:20,760 Speaker 1: ponder this question. While individual conversion from one religion to 59 00:04:20,880 --> 00:04:25,919 Speaker 1: another occurs frequently, what happens when an entire people with 60 00:04:26,000 --> 00:04:30,680 Speaker 1: a perfectly serviceable religion falls on hard times and begins 61 00:04:30,720 --> 00:04:35,680 Speaker 1: to wonder if someone else's gods might not be more sympathetic. 62 00:04:36,440 --> 00:04:39,479 Speaker 1: How would something like that play out? And what does 63 00:04:39,480 --> 00:04:42,800 Speaker 1: that say about the practical function of religion? 64 00:04:42,920 --> 00:04:43,320 Speaker 3: Anyway? 65 00:04:44,200 --> 00:04:47,400 Speaker 2: Interestingly, those very questions. 66 00:04:46,920 --> 00:04:51,120 Speaker 1: Occupy the intersection of events that two centuries ago led 67 00:04:51,160 --> 00:04:55,560 Speaker 1: to the creation of the western state of Montana. And 68 00:04:55,640 --> 00:04:58,960 Speaker 1: we do indeed know something about how a religious story 69 00:04:59,000 --> 00:05:02,000 Speaker 1: like that would play out, because a middle aged French 70 00:05:02,080 --> 00:05:05,720 Speaker 1: priest who came to the West in eighteen forty left 71 00:05:05,760 --> 00:05:09,080 Speaker 1: the future of book and a score of drawings and 72 00:05:09,120 --> 00:05:14,320 Speaker 1: paintings devoted to that very history. This story, then, is 73 00:05:14,360 --> 00:05:17,120 Speaker 1: one of those much like the writer Mark Twain used 74 00:05:17,160 --> 00:05:21,880 Speaker 1: to preface with a wonderful sentence, I will now tell 75 00:05:21,960 --> 00:05:25,600 Speaker 1: you a tale that has in it a touch of pathos. 76 00:05:32,600 --> 00:05:35,920 Speaker 1: I'm not Salish, although I've known people who are, which 77 00:05:35,960 --> 00:05:38,919 Speaker 1: is one kind of identification. And once, over a twenty 78 00:05:38,960 --> 00:05:42,320 Speaker 1: year span, I built and lived on a small mountain 79 00:05:42,400 --> 00:05:46,159 Speaker 1: ranch in the valley the Bitterroot Salish had occupied for 80 00:05:46,240 --> 00:05:49,120 Speaker 1: a vast stretch of time, which is another way to 81 00:05:49,200 --> 00:05:52,040 Speaker 1: identify with them. When I moved to Montana in the 82 00:05:52,120 --> 00:05:56,040 Speaker 1: early nineteen nineties and began exploring the five valleys around 83 00:05:56,080 --> 00:05:58,720 Speaker 1: Missoula for a place to live, it was the bitter 84 00:05:58,760 --> 00:06:02,320 Speaker 1: Root Valley that won my sweepstakes. I'd known it would 85 00:06:02,600 --> 00:06:06,360 Speaker 1: years before. I'd read fairly extensively about the mountain valleys 86 00:06:06,400 --> 00:06:09,119 Speaker 1: of Montana, then on summer road trips to the west, 87 00:06:09,200 --> 00:06:12,040 Speaker 1: had driven and camped in most of them. It made 88 00:06:12,040 --> 00:06:14,720 Speaker 1: me laugh to try to pronounce bitter root the way 89 00:06:14,760 --> 00:06:17,960 Speaker 1: most of the locals did, where the root and bitter 90 00:06:18,040 --> 00:06:21,400 Speaker 1: root doesn't rhyme with your boot, but rather with the 91 00:06:21,480 --> 00:06:25,239 Speaker 1: foot you slide into it. But this beautiful mountain valley 92 00:06:25,360 --> 00:06:28,880 Speaker 1: just west of the Continental Divide exerted an undertow pool 93 00:06:28,920 --> 00:06:31,839 Speaker 1: on me that I've never gotten over. With a chance 94 00:06:31,920 --> 00:06:34,840 Speaker 1: to live in the state, I found myself transfixed by 95 00:06:34,880 --> 00:06:39,240 Speaker 1: the bitter Roots. Seventy five mile succession of nine thousand 96 00:06:39,279 --> 00:06:43,000 Speaker 1: foot humped back mountains, split one from the other by 97 00:06:43,200 --> 00:06:47,039 Speaker 1: soaring granite canyons, every one of them with a trail 98 00:06:47,440 --> 00:06:50,560 Speaker 1: reaching far back into one of the biggest National forest 99 00:06:50,680 --> 00:06:55,440 Speaker 1: wildernesses in the west. Below those vast public lands stretched 100 00:06:55,520 --> 00:06:59,520 Speaker 1: a north south valley four to eight miles wide, slit 101 00:06:59,600 --> 00:07:04,200 Speaker 1: by a clear, cold Namesake River into a west side 102 00:07:04,440 --> 00:07:07,880 Speaker 1: and an east side. For haul the high mountain drama 103 00:07:07,920 --> 00:07:09,960 Speaker 1: on the west side of the valley, what drew me 104 00:07:10,040 --> 00:07:13,800 Speaker 1: repeatedly was the more modest mountain range on the east side, 105 00:07:14,320 --> 00:07:17,880 Speaker 1: called the Sapphire Mountains. It was a lower undulation of 106 00:07:17,960 --> 00:07:21,960 Speaker 1: green ridges and peaks, with a savannah parkland at its feet. 107 00:07:22,640 --> 00:07:28,000 Speaker 1: This was drier, more open country than the uniformly green mounds. 108 00:07:27,520 --> 00:07:28,320 Speaker 2: Of the bitter Roots. 109 00:07:28,800 --> 00:07:31,960 Speaker 1: It was a place where sagebrush grew, and the main 110 00:07:32,120 --> 00:07:35,760 Speaker 1: bitter Root range to the west stood in panoramic relief. 111 00:07:42,280 --> 00:07:46,440 Speaker 1: In today's Montana, Grizzly Bears and Gray Wolves and Yellowstone 112 00:07:46,480 --> 00:07:49,760 Speaker 1: Park and the TV series Yellowstone and its spin offs 113 00:07:49,920 --> 00:07:54,440 Speaker 1: filled people with fantasies about Montana ranchers and wilderness adventure. 114 00:07:55,000 --> 00:07:56,920 Speaker 2: But in the case of the bitter. 115 00:07:56,720 --> 00:08:00,720 Speaker 1: Root, the reality is that before the arrival of worlds 116 00:08:00,760 --> 00:08:03,040 Speaker 1: in this part of the West, the beautiful valley had 117 00:08:03,040 --> 00:08:07,240 Speaker 1: spent a very long time as the primary home of 118 00:08:07,360 --> 00:08:11,400 Speaker 1: the resident population of Salish, whom Lewis and Clark found 119 00:08:11,440 --> 00:08:16,600 Speaker 1: here in the Bitterroot's own version of America's Native Lands dispossession, 120 00:08:16,800 --> 00:08:20,440 Speaker 1: though in an eighteen fifty five treaty with the US, 121 00:08:20,640 --> 00:08:25,480 Speaker 1: those Salis had signed away twenty three thousand square miles 122 00:08:25,480 --> 00:08:28,080 Speaker 1: in the bitter Root and in return got a two 123 00:08:28,160 --> 00:08:32,960 Speaker 1: thousand square mile reservation in the Mission Valley north of Missoula. 124 00:08:33,679 --> 00:08:38,199 Speaker 1: The US government and Montana Territory then methodically forced their 125 00:08:38,280 --> 00:08:42,679 Speaker 1: last bands, under a leader named Charlot, finally to abandon 126 00:08:42,800 --> 00:08:46,280 Speaker 1: their Natal Valley in the eighteen eighties or the Flathead 127 00:08:46,360 --> 00:08:50,360 Speaker 1: Reservation seventy miles to the north. But the Salish had 128 00:08:50,360 --> 00:08:53,720 Speaker 1: been here for so long, had lived in and managed 129 00:08:53,760 --> 00:08:56,520 Speaker 1: the bitter Root Valley for such a vast amount of time, 130 00:08:56,800 --> 00:09:00,840 Speaker 1: that their presence had put an indelible cultural imprint on 131 00:09:00,920 --> 00:09:05,520 Speaker 1: the place. As a result of Salish ecological practices, for example, 132 00:09:05,800 --> 00:09:09,520 Speaker 1: the grand Ponderosa pines in the valley, especially those on 133 00:09:09,600 --> 00:09:16,040 Speaker 1: the Sapphire Mountain side, left American observers like ce Dutton astonished. 134 00:09:16,480 --> 00:09:19,800 Speaker 1: In his case in the year eighteen eighty seven. The 135 00:09:19,920 --> 00:09:24,479 Speaker 1: trees are large and noble in aspect and stand widely 136 00:09:24,720 --> 00:09:28,920 Speaker 1: apart Dutton Road, instead of dense thickets where we are 137 00:09:29,000 --> 00:09:32,840 Speaker 1: shut in by impenetrable foliage. We can look far beyond 138 00:09:33,120 --> 00:09:37,920 Speaker 1: and see the tree trunks vanishing away like an infinite colonnade. 139 00:09:38,320 --> 00:09:47,920 Speaker 1: The ground is unobstructed and inviting. What Dutton called an 140 00:09:48,000 --> 00:09:52,200 Speaker 1: unobstructed and inviting look was actually the result of centuries 141 00:09:52,240 --> 00:09:57,080 Speaker 1: of understory burns. The Salish residents had set a human 142 00:09:57,200 --> 00:10:01,880 Speaker 1: fire ecology cycle that varied between three and thirty years. 143 00:10:02,679 --> 00:10:06,160 Speaker 1: Then there were the valley grasslands. The natural cover of 144 00:10:06,320 --> 00:10:11,199 Speaker 1: rough fescue, blue bunch wheat grasses, and Idaho fesque appears 145 00:10:11,280 --> 00:10:14,760 Speaker 1: from pollen evidence to have expanded in the Bitterroot Valley 146 00:10:14,840 --> 00:10:18,240 Speaker 1: and became purified of sagebrush and rabbit brush two thousand 147 00:10:18,320 --> 00:10:21,480 Speaker 1: to three thousand years ago when the Salish arrived as 148 00:10:21,600 --> 00:10:25,800 Speaker 1: full time residents and began to fire the valley regularly. 149 00:10:26,480 --> 00:10:31,720 Speaker 1: Along with the shrubs, Douglas firs also decreased, although in truth, 150 00:10:32,120 --> 00:10:36,240 Speaker 1: Salish fires probably skipped and jumped around enough to create 151 00:10:36,559 --> 00:10:42,160 Speaker 1: many different mosaics, but bunch grasses and giant scattered yellow 152 00:10:42,200 --> 00:10:46,719 Speaker 1: belly ponderosis thrived under Salish management. There may have been 153 00:10:46,800 --> 00:10:50,400 Speaker 1: fewer than a dozen big pines per acre, even in 154 00:10:50,480 --> 00:10:54,160 Speaker 1: the draws. In both the Bitter Root and sapphire ranges. 155 00:10:54,559 --> 00:10:59,480 Speaker 1: Fire blackened mountains were common because the bunch grasses were 156 00:10:59,600 --> 00:11:03,600 Speaker 1: cool seasoned matures that dried and lost their nutrition in 157 00:11:03,679 --> 00:11:08,120 Speaker 1: the summer. Bison were only infrequent visitors to these mountain valleys, 158 00:11:08,720 --> 00:11:12,840 Speaker 1: but elk did well and horses loved the place. The 159 00:11:12,920 --> 00:11:16,680 Speaker 1: Silis got their horses early by the early seventeen hundreds, 160 00:11:16,960 --> 00:11:20,480 Speaker 1: directly up the mountains from New Mexico. By the time 161 00:11:20,600 --> 00:11:23,360 Speaker 1: Lewis and Clark arrived a century later, the Bitter Root 162 00:11:23,480 --> 00:11:26,840 Speaker 1: was already known as a horse valley and supplied many 163 00:11:26,880 --> 00:11:31,079 Speaker 1: of the expedition's mounts. In eighteen fifty seven, trader John 164 00:11:31,200 --> 00:11:35,320 Speaker 1: Owen figured the sailors had four thousand horses in the valley, 165 00:11:35,640 --> 00:11:39,880 Speaker 1: about ten per person, which required some one hundred thousand 166 00:11:40,000 --> 00:11:43,760 Speaker 1: acres of grassland to nourish them. When the Pacific Railroad 167 00:11:43,800 --> 00:11:47,280 Speaker 1: Survey arrived that same decade, John Mullen wrote that the 168 00:11:47,280 --> 00:11:51,280 Speaker 1: Bitterroot Valley was four to seven miles wide and naturally 169 00:11:51,400 --> 00:11:56,040 Speaker 1: covered with luxuriant grass over which several thousand horses were 170 00:11:56,160 --> 00:12:01,840 Speaker 1: roaming scarcely noticed. Another observer spoke tooetically of this product 171 00:12:01,840 --> 00:12:07,199 Speaker 1: of Indian ecology as constituting rolling seas of bunch grass. 172 00:12:07,480 --> 00:12:11,760 Speaker 1: In other words, by regularly refreshing their landscape. These Salish 173 00:12:11,760 --> 00:12:14,720 Speaker 1: set fires were a good part of why the ecology 174 00:12:14,760 --> 00:12:17,640 Speaker 1: of the Bitterroot country looked the way it did, and 175 00:12:17,720 --> 00:12:24,000 Speaker 1: they lived as well as they did. I, of course, 176 00:12:24,200 --> 00:12:27,400 Speaker 1: am not in a position to speak for the Salish, 177 00:12:27,440 --> 00:12:30,040 Speaker 1: but I will say that these were people with a 178 00:12:30,120 --> 00:12:33,920 Speaker 1: fine reputation. Everyone who came to know the Salish two 179 00:12:33,960 --> 00:12:37,680 Speaker 1: centuries ago thought of them as an exceptionally intelligent and 180 00:12:37,760 --> 00:12:42,160 Speaker 1: practical people. As for the religion that explained the world 181 00:12:42,160 --> 00:12:45,920 Speaker 1: to them, their religious or spiritual intelligence told them that 182 00:12:46,000 --> 00:12:49,960 Speaker 1: there was an animating power in the universe that surged 183 00:12:50,000 --> 00:12:54,000 Speaker 1: through everything and that broke the surface like islands in 184 00:12:54,040 --> 00:12:58,360 Speaker 1: a lake, and a wide host of animals, power spots, 185 00:12:58,400 --> 00:13:03,240 Speaker 1: and helpers. The Salish religion was many complex things, but 186 00:13:03,320 --> 00:13:06,520 Speaker 1: most of all, it was and still is a rational 187 00:13:06,559 --> 00:13:10,600 Speaker 1: way of explaining why things happen by dint of a 188 00:13:10,640 --> 00:13:15,760 Speaker 1: fierce and pragmatic assessment of the effects that religion produced. 189 00:13:16,600 --> 00:13:19,920 Speaker 1: As with most religions, a primary reason for trying to 190 00:13:19,960 --> 00:13:23,000 Speaker 1: figure out why things happened had everything to do with 191 00:13:23,320 --> 00:13:26,640 Speaker 1: influencing the outcome. But the Sailors had the kind of 192 00:13:26,679 --> 00:13:31,120 Speaker 1: fine intelligence that demanded proof. They did not believe anyone's 193 00:13:31,320 --> 00:13:35,360 Speaker 1: soons a religious explanation for why things happened until the 194 00:13:35,400 --> 00:13:39,000 Speaker 1: power of it could be demonstrated. What makes the rather 195 00:13:39,120 --> 00:13:42,200 Speaker 1: famous story I want to tell now a poignant one 196 00:13:42,480 --> 00:13:46,240 Speaker 1: is simply this because of change in a world of 197 00:13:46,280 --> 00:13:48,440 Speaker 1: events larger than they could conceive. 198 00:13:48,800 --> 00:13:50,000 Speaker 2: During the third. 199 00:13:49,840 --> 00:13:53,840 Speaker 1: Decade of the nineteenth century, the Bitter Root Salish apparently 200 00:13:53,960 --> 00:13:57,559 Speaker 1: began to doubt the ability of their religion to continue 201 00:13:57,600 --> 00:14:02,920 Speaker 1: to make things happen for them. Of disease, especially smallpox, 202 00:14:03,200 --> 00:14:06,760 Speaker 1: that their shamans could not combat, kept washing across the 203 00:14:06,800 --> 00:14:11,000 Speaker 1: mountains into their valley. Then there was the bizarre fifteen 204 00:14:11,080 --> 00:14:14,199 Speaker 1: year policy on the part of the Hudson's Bay Company 205 00:14:14,360 --> 00:14:17,600 Speaker 1: to keep the Americans out of Oregon by trapping a 206 00:14:17,720 --> 00:14:21,320 Speaker 1: fur desert from the Mission Valley through the Bitter Roots 207 00:14:21,360 --> 00:14:24,600 Speaker 1: and the Snake River country down to the wassage that 208 00:14:24,760 --> 00:14:29,120 Speaker 1: brought these interior mountain valleys to the brink of ecological ruin. 209 00:14:30,040 --> 00:14:32,720 Speaker 1: In the midst of the fur desert years, a mountain 210 00:14:32,840 --> 00:14:36,280 Speaker 1: man named Josiah Pilcher, who was among the sailors in 211 00:14:36,360 --> 00:14:39,840 Speaker 1: eighteen twenty eight. In eighteen twenty nine, wrote that in 212 00:14:39,920 --> 00:14:43,080 Speaker 1: the absence of game and fish, they are driven to 213 00:14:43,320 --> 00:14:48,640 Speaker 1: every extremity to sustain life, devouring every bird, beast, insect, 214 00:14:48,800 --> 00:14:52,080 Speaker 1: and creeping thing they can get hold of, and tearing 215 00:14:52,160 --> 00:14:55,960 Speaker 1: up the ground for roots. As Buffalo numbers west of 216 00:14:56,000 --> 00:14:59,400 Speaker 1: the Continental Divide began to fade away by the eighteen thirties, 217 00:14:59,680 --> 00:15:03,600 Speaker 1: sale all Shaman's attempts to call Buffalo into the Bitterroot 218 00:15:03,680 --> 00:15:07,680 Speaker 1: Valley failed, and across the divide in the Big Hole 219 00:15:07,800 --> 00:15:10,520 Speaker 1: and the Three Forks Country, where the Sailors had long 220 00:15:10,640 --> 00:15:13,400 Speaker 1: journeyed to hunt Buffalo and now love to run their 221 00:15:13,440 --> 00:15:17,560 Speaker 1: ponies after the pounding herds, the far more numerous Blackfeet 222 00:15:17,800 --> 00:15:21,640 Speaker 1: who lived east of the divide imposed and us only 223 00:15:21,880 --> 00:15:26,080 Speaker 1: moratorium on Buffalo. This was something the sailors simply could 224 00:15:26,120 --> 00:15:29,160 Speaker 1: not abide. Yet Another traveler to the Silish in their 225 00:15:29,280 --> 00:15:32,480 Speaker 1: valley home in the eighteen thirties noted that the only 226 00:15:32,680 --> 00:15:36,640 Speaker 1: cause assigned by them for their perpetual warfare is their 227 00:15:36,720 --> 00:15:41,440 Speaker 1: love of Buffalo. Another, reflecting on the frequent thrashings the 228 00:15:41,440 --> 00:15:44,760 Speaker 1: better armed Blackfeet gave them, said that the Sailish had 229 00:15:44,800 --> 00:15:48,680 Speaker 1: considered peace, but decided that going to Buffalo was just 230 00:15:48,760 --> 00:15:53,920 Speaker 1: too important to them, and anyhow, war kept their people alert, 231 00:15:54,240 --> 00:16:07,360 Speaker 1: they told him. In this situation, with their traditional religion 232 00:16:07,480 --> 00:16:10,800 Speaker 1: now shaky in protecting them, early in the eighteen thirties, 233 00:16:10,880 --> 00:16:13,920 Speaker 1: the Sailish came to the conclusion to call on the 234 00:16:13,960 --> 00:16:18,040 Speaker 1: most powerful new religion they could see anywhere on their 235 00:16:18,080 --> 00:16:21,720 Speaker 1: horizon to come to their aid. For at least two 236 00:16:21,760 --> 00:16:24,880 Speaker 1: decades before the eighteen thirties, there had lived among the 237 00:16:24,920 --> 00:16:29,280 Speaker 1: Sailish a scattering of displaced Iroquois from the Great Legs, 238 00:16:29,360 --> 00:16:32,640 Speaker 1: many of whom had been converted by Jesuit missionaries and 239 00:16:32,720 --> 00:16:36,760 Speaker 1: were at least nominally Roman Catholics. A crucial one of 240 00:16:36,760 --> 00:16:40,440 Speaker 1: these Eastern Indians come west seems to have been John Gray, 241 00:16:40,800 --> 00:16:44,000 Speaker 1: who was not only a disciple of the mysterious faith 242 00:16:44,120 --> 00:16:47,920 Speaker 1: called Christianity, but also a hand to hand fighter of 243 00:16:48,080 --> 00:16:55,040 Speaker 1: awesome reputation. Gray, in other words, manifested observable religious power. 244 00:16:55,560 --> 00:16:58,400 Speaker 1: Many of the white mountain men, French and American who 245 00:16:58,400 --> 00:17:01,400 Speaker 1: are now coming among the Salish were also men of 246 00:17:01,480 --> 00:17:05,320 Speaker 1: demonstrated power and ability, and they were adherents of this 247 00:17:05,480 --> 00:17:09,760 Speaker 1: same new religion. But when the Sailish attempted a facsimile 248 00:17:09,880 --> 00:17:11,920 Speaker 1: of the Catholic chants and prayers. 249 00:17:12,000 --> 00:17:13,680 Speaker 2: Irhois advisors like. 250 00:17:13,720 --> 00:17:18,880 Speaker 1: Ignaci la Mousse insisted that the Summis would boomerang unless 251 00:17:18,960 --> 00:17:23,320 Speaker 1: everything were done exactly right. That was an explanation that 252 00:17:23,440 --> 00:17:26,639 Speaker 1: made sense to native people, who had always insisted on 253 00:17:26,800 --> 00:17:32,439 Speaker 1: precision in their own religious ceremonies. What followed then became 254 00:17:32,560 --> 00:17:36,760 Speaker 1: famous in early Western history to secure teachers who would 255 00:17:36,760 --> 00:17:39,639 Speaker 1: show them exactly how to practice the new religion. In 256 00:17:39,720 --> 00:17:43,399 Speaker 1: eighteen thirty one, the Salish and other allies from the 257 00:17:43,440 --> 00:17:46,480 Speaker 1: Mountain West made the first of a series of legendary 258 00:17:46,560 --> 00:17:47,640 Speaker 1: journeys to Saint. 259 00:17:47,480 --> 00:17:49,400 Speaker 2: Louis to ask for priests. 260 00:17:49,920 --> 00:17:53,640 Speaker 1: They continued to do so until the Belgian Jesuit father 261 00:17:53,840 --> 00:17:58,639 Speaker 1: Jean Pierre de Smet finally established Saint Mary's mission in 262 00:17:58,680 --> 00:18:03,320 Speaker 1: the Bitterroot Valley in September of eighteen forty one. Three 263 00:18:03,400 --> 00:18:06,880 Speaker 1: years before that, in eighteen thirty eight, a Salish buffalo 264 00:18:07,000 --> 00:18:10,800 Speaker 1: hunting party had suffered a horrifying defeat by the Blackfeet 265 00:18:10,840 --> 00:18:14,000 Speaker 1: out on the plains, so their fourth journey to Saint 266 00:18:14,040 --> 00:18:24,880 Speaker 1: Louis had literally been one of desperation. Father de Smet 267 00:18:24,920 --> 00:18:28,040 Speaker 1: said that with tears in their eyes, they begged me 268 00:18:28,160 --> 00:18:31,679 Speaker 1: to return with them. All this native pleading to be 269 00:18:31,800 --> 00:18:35,840 Speaker 1: taught Christianity was just too much for missionaries back east. 270 00:18:36,160 --> 00:18:38,480 Speaker 2: The widely circulated stories drew. 271 00:18:38,400 --> 00:18:41,840 Speaker 1: De smet to the Mountain tribes and Protestants like Jason 272 00:18:41,920 --> 00:18:46,320 Speaker 1: Lee Marcus and Narcissa Whitman and Henry and Eliza Spaulding 273 00:18:46,440 --> 00:18:51,520 Speaker 1: to Oregon. The potential for religious and cultural misunderstandings between 274 00:18:51,560 --> 00:18:55,080 Speaker 1: these native people and the missionaries now arriving among them 275 00:18:55,400 --> 00:18:59,720 Speaker 1: was enormous. For their part, the Salist had only glancingly 276 00:18:59,760 --> 00:19:04,240 Speaker 1: heard of the deity these old worlders called Jesus. In 277 00:19:04,320 --> 00:19:08,960 Speaker 1: the Salish religion, animal masters and locales in the landscape 278 00:19:08,960 --> 00:19:13,000 Speaker 1: were sacred. Dreams could be evidence used in convicting somewhat 279 00:19:13,000 --> 00:19:16,520 Speaker 1: of a crime. Sexual freedom was available for both men 280 00:19:16,560 --> 00:19:20,480 Speaker 1: and women, and the Salish readily acceded women's right to divorce. 281 00:19:21,080 --> 00:19:25,159 Speaker 1: Christian missionaries to American Indians had long believed that ideas 282 00:19:25,240 --> 00:19:28,520 Speaker 1: like these meant that Indians must be disciples of the 283 00:19:28,560 --> 00:19:32,479 Speaker 1: supernatural force Christianity thought of as the source of evil. 284 00:19:33,040 --> 00:19:37,520 Speaker 1: In fact, few native peoples, the northeastern group Europeans called 285 00:19:37,520 --> 00:19:41,600 Speaker 1: the Iroquois of the hardy Nosana were an exception, but 286 00:19:41,720 --> 00:19:43,240 Speaker 1: few people believed. 287 00:19:42,920 --> 00:19:45,240 Speaker 2: There was an evil force in the world. 288 00:19:45,720 --> 00:19:49,720 Speaker 1: But to the missionaries, if Indians embraced animal deities and 289 00:19:49,800 --> 00:19:54,240 Speaker 1: knew nothing of Jesus, then they must worship Satan. This 290 00:19:54,359 --> 00:19:59,560 Speaker 1: European conviction that people holding nature sacred worshiped dark forces 291 00:19:59,640 --> 00:20:02,040 Speaker 1: led to tragedy on numerous occasions. 292 00:20:02,520 --> 00:20:03,960 Speaker 2: Long before the eighteen. 293 00:20:03,720 --> 00:20:07,680 Speaker 1: Forties, it had also produced violent backlashes against missionaries by 294 00:20:07,760 --> 00:20:12,320 Speaker 1: native people, most famously the Pueblo Revolt of sixteen eighty 295 00:20:12,400 --> 00:20:16,280 Speaker 1: in the Southwest, when persecuted Native Shamans had led an 296 00:20:16,400 --> 00:20:20,400 Speaker 1: uprising that drove Europeans from the Pueblo world for more 297 00:20:20,440 --> 00:20:28,760 Speaker 1: than a decade. When he arrived beneath the Bitter Roots, 298 00:20:29,080 --> 00:20:33,560 Speaker 1: Father met had in mind a region wide reduction of tribes, 299 00:20:33,720 --> 00:20:39,160 Speaker 1: similar to the famous Jesuit reduction in Paraguay. Utterly misperceiving 300 00:20:39,320 --> 00:20:43,400 Speaker 1: Salish motives, he interpreted their eagerness as evidence. 301 00:20:43,000 --> 00:20:45,359 Speaker 2: That they were the elect of God. 302 00:20:45,520 --> 00:20:50,680 Speaker 1: He said of people who evinced the greatest simplicity, docility, 303 00:20:51,000 --> 00:20:56,280 Speaker 1: and uprightness, and who also had the courage of heroes. Fortunately, 304 00:20:56,640 --> 00:21:01,399 Speaker 1: there were many effective points of convergence between the two religions, 305 00:21:01,720 --> 00:21:08,119 Speaker 1: both Salish Animism and Catholic Christianity embraced chants, songs, ceremony, 306 00:21:08,359 --> 00:21:09,080 Speaker 1: and prayers. 307 00:21:09,680 --> 00:21:12,120 Speaker 2: Both spoke of a sacred. 308 00:21:11,720 --> 00:21:16,320 Speaker 1: Yearly round, sacred colors and objects, power spots, the use 309 00:21:16,400 --> 00:21:19,600 Speaker 1: of water and incense for purification. 310 00:21:19,240 --> 00:21:20,560 Speaker 2: And feast days. 311 00:21:20,600 --> 00:21:24,760 Speaker 1: To the Salish, their spirit helpers seemed similar to the 312 00:21:24,840 --> 00:21:30,640 Speaker 1: Catholic saints, just with different names. Despite the infectious enthusiasm 313 00:21:30,760 --> 00:21:35,080 Speaker 1: all around from the start, the priest noticed some trouble spots. 314 00:21:35,600 --> 00:21:38,760 Speaker 1: For one, the Salish not only lacked notions of good 315 00:21:38,800 --> 00:21:41,480 Speaker 1: and evil, they had no sense of a heaven and 316 00:21:41,520 --> 00:21:44,800 Speaker 1: a hell, and the more they heard about this particular idea, 317 00:21:44,920 --> 00:21:48,160 Speaker 1: the less they liked it. To the priests who actually 318 00:21:48,359 --> 00:21:51,639 Speaker 1: ran brand new Saint Mary's mission, twenty year old Father 319 00:21:51,840 --> 00:21:56,040 Speaker 1: Gregory Mangerini and forty two year old Father Nicholas point 320 00:21:56,359 --> 00:22:00,760 Speaker 1: noticed right off that Salish prayers consisted in asking to 321 00:22:00,920 --> 00:22:04,880 Speaker 1: live a long time, to kill plenty of animals and enemies, 322 00:22:04,920 --> 00:22:08,360 Speaker 1: and to steal the greatest number of horses possible. What 323 00:22:08,440 --> 00:22:12,400 Speaker 1: the Catholics offered was salvation of the soul and its 324 00:22:12,520 --> 00:22:15,640 Speaker 1: journey to heaven. What the Sailish appeared to want from 325 00:22:15,640 --> 00:22:20,920 Speaker 1: religion was something else. Entirely dassumes our power to make 326 00:22:21,040 --> 00:22:26,840 Speaker 1: things happen in this world. The sky is to him nonexistent. 327 00:22:27,240 --> 00:22:28,600 Speaker 2: The Jesuits rope. 328 00:22:28,720 --> 00:22:32,439 Speaker 1: The Indian thinks only of the Earth and wants only 329 00:22:32,520 --> 00:22:36,000 Speaker 1: the Earth, since it is the Earth that gives existence 330 00:22:36,080 --> 00:22:40,199 Speaker 1: to everything anyone knows. Thus it is to the Earth 331 00:22:40,280 --> 00:22:50,120 Speaker 1: that he addresses his first prayers. Among the Europeans, it 332 00:22:50,240 --> 00:22:54,600 Speaker 1: was Pointed a Frenchman with a manic, depressive personality and 333 00:22:55,040 --> 00:22:58,240 Speaker 1: a fine thing for us today, also a wanna be 334 00:22:58,480 --> 00:23:02,400 Speaker 1: artist with some rudimentary art skills, who labored to preserve 335 00:23:02,720 --> 00:23:08,119 Speaker 1: the details of this classic interaction of ideas, Points paintings, 336 00:23:08,119 --> 00:23:12,800 Speaker 1: and drawings. Along with a book he wrote, Wilderness Kingdom 337 00:23:13,240 --> 00:23:18,160 Speaker 1: Indian Life in the Rocky Mountains are founding historical documents 338 00:23:18,160 --> 00:23:22,320 Speaker 1: in Montana history. He portrayed, for starters, the romantic setting 339 00:23:22,359 --> 00:23:25,480 Speaker 1: of Saint Mary's Mission, with the Bitterroot River and mountains 340 00:23:25,480 --> 00:23:29,720 Speaker 1: behind it, capturing with that romance the high hopes of 341 00:23:29,800 --> 00:23:33,720 Speaker 1: the priests who were the first American settlers in present Montana. 342 00:23:34,520 --> 00:23:40,119 Speaker 1: But Point also had an anthropologist's curiosity about Indians living 343 00:23:40,280 --> 00:23:45,320 Speaker 1: presumably like the progenitors of modern Man. He found the Salish, 344 00:23:45,440 --> 00:23:51,200 Speaker 1: their lives and their worldview an exciting counterpoint to European ideas. 345 00:23:51,800 --> 00:23:55,359 Speaker 1: Point closely observed their religion and would journey with them 346 00:23:55,400 --> 00:23:59,520 Speaker 1: to the buffalo plane. The Frenchmen persuaded a distinguished saless 347 00:23:59,560 --> 00:24:04,200 Speaker 1: warrior the missionaries called Ambrose. His real name was shil 348 00:24:04,359 --> 00:24:08,600 Speaker 1: Cha Lumila, which meant five crows, to allow him to 349 00:24:08,720 --> 00:24:12,800 Speaker 1: paint a version of the warrior's pictograph of war exploits. 350 00:24:13,200 --> 00:24:16,359 Speaker 1: That's a one of a kind combination in the history 351 00:24:16,400 --> 00:24:23,920 Speaker 1: of Western art. Here, as Point wrote, deep in the 352 00:24:24,000 --> 00:24:28,280 Speaker 1: rocky mountains, surrounded by scenes about which I had often 353 00:24:28,440 --> 00:24:33,159 Speaker 1: dreamed as the beautiful ideal of all natural perspectives, he 354 00:24:33,359 --> 00:24:37,240 Speaker 1: studied a saleless religion that took him by surprise. They 355 00:24:37,320 --> 00:24:43,680 Speaker 1: assigned manitou or spirit, to phenomena like the sun, the thunder, 356 00:24:44,000 --> 00:24:44,800 Speaker 1: and so forth. 357 00:24:45,080 --> 00:24:45,760 Speaker 3: He marveled. 358 00:24:46,280 --> 00:24:49,960 Speaker 1: Their practice of religion centered on the application of what 359 00:24:50,000 --> 00:24:55,160 Speaker 1: they called medicine or sumis, and Point perceived three versions 360 00:24:55,200 --> 00:24:59,520 Speaker 1: of it. The first and most important was medicine of 361 00:24:59,680 --> 00:25:04,320 Speaker 1: util or the power to acquire, with the least possible effort, 362 00:25:04,480 --> 00:25:09,320 Speaker 1: the greatest possible abundance of things necessary for life. Medicine 363 00:25:09,400 --> 00:25:14,720 Speaker 1: was also important for purposes of ostentation, for dress, and status, 364 00:25:15,200 --> 00:25:19,600 Speaker 1: and medicine was likewise called on when one intended malice 365 00:25:19,840 --> 00:25:23,720 Speaker 1: towards another. Medicine, in effect, was the power to make 366 00:25:23,800 --> 00:25:27,760 Speaker 1: things happen in this world. It did not focus on 367 00:25:28,000 --> 00:25:32,239 Speaker 1: outcomes in a second life. Despite the missionary's hopes of 368 00:25:32,320 --> 00:25:35,679 Speaker 1: saving souls, it's clear enough that they came face to 369 00:25:35,720 --> 00:25:39,359 Speaker 1: face with this reality pretty quickly. As much as the 370 00:25:39,400 --> 00:25:42,520 Speaker 1: Salsh wanted to please their instructors in this new religion, 371 00:25:42,680 --> 00:25:45,560 Speaker 1: the Indian sense was that it was a mastery of 372 00:25:45,640 --> 00:25:50,920 Speaker 1: religious detail that was important to produce worldly success. One 373 00:25:50,920 --> 00:25:56,560 Speaker 1: of points paintings, which he called Ignase's Medicine Power, presumably 374 00:25:56,640 --> 00:26:00,840 Speaker 1: made that clear. In it, the Frenchman showed a famous 375 00:26:01,000 --> 00:26:05,840 Speaker 1: Iroquois Salish known as Young Ignasse, in a trance like 376 00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:10,880 Speaker 1: state outside a sweat lodge. Surrounding him were the animal 377 00:26:10,960 --> 00:26:17,280 Speaker 1: helpers horse, elk, dog, wolf, beaver, deer, perhaps a lynx. 378 00:26:17,600 --> 00:26:21,040 Speaker 1: That were his special aids to make things happen in 379 00:26:21,080 --> 00:26:25,280 Speaker 1: the material world, to live long, to have many lovers, 380 00:26:25,680 --> 00:26:28,919 Speaker 1: to be a successful hunter and horse stealer, and to 381 00:26:29,119 --> 00:26:30,720 Speaker 1: vanquish foes in battle. 382 00:26:31,080 --> 00:26:32,399 Speaker 2: Those were the whole intent. 383 00:26:33,040 --> 00:26:36,560 Speaker 1: As for his and the missionary's own feelings about such quests. 384 00:26:36,600 --> 00:26:40,840 Speaker 1: The Frenchman countered Ignossi's ideas with a painting he called 385 00:26:41,160 --> 00:26:47,280 Speaker 1: Worshiping False Idols. Its dark evocations of licking flames, a 386 00:26:47,400 --> 00:26:53,600 Speaker 1: rhythmic tambourine, and shamanistic incantations capable of sumbling forth devilish 387 00:26:53,600 --> 00:26:56,960 Speaker 1: spirit forces struck at the heart of the problem the 388 00:26:57,000 --> 00:27:06,719 Speaker 1: priests believed they faced in turning the Saless towards Christianity. 389 00:27:07,480 --> 00:27:10,760 Speaker 1: Before very long at all, a road test for the 390 00:27:10,800 --> 00:27:14,520 Speaker 1: new religion was at hand. It was time for the 391 00:27:14,520 --> 00:27:18,080 Speaker 1: fall buffalo hunt on the Prairies, and the Sailish and 392 00:27:18,119 --> 00:27:22,960 Speaker 1: their mountain allies, the nest Perse and the Pondereys, assemble 393 00:27:23,040 --> 00:27:26,600 Speaker 1: for the journey. As they made preparations to cross the 394 00:27:26,640 --> 00:27:30,440 Speaker 1: divide that autumn of eighteen forty one, Nicholas Points sat 395 00:27:30,520 --> 00:27:33,880 Speaker 1: down to his sketch books to capture just why these 396 00:27:33,960 --> 00:27:37,359 Speaker 1: Indians had tried so valiantly to get the Jesuits to 397 00:27:37,400 --> 00:27:41,200 Speaker 1: come to their valley. Point gave his painting an obvious name, 398 00:27:41,720 --> 00:27:46,119 Speaker 1: Blessing of the Arms, before leaving for the hunt. It 399 00:27:46,280 --> 00:27:50,240 Speaker 1: showed a presiding Catholic sacred heart, as well as a 400 00:27:50,320 --> 00:27:54,400 Speaker 1: priest with suspended angels. One of the angels in fact 401 00:27:54,480 --> 00:27:58,840 Speaker 1: fully armed, hovering over the gathered Indians who were holding 402 00:27:58,880 --> 00:28:00,280 Speaker 1: their weapons alone. 403 00:28:00,080 --> 00:28:02,359 Speaker 2: Off for blessings. Why do that? 404 00:28:03,200 --> 00:28:06,760 Speaker 1: To make their guns impervious to misfires and to the 405 00:28:06,800 --> 00:28:10,680 Speaker 1: whims of bad spirits who might draw a ball off 406 00:28:10,680 --> 00:28:14,800 Speaker 1: its mark? As the missionary surely must have realized, none 407 00:28:14,800 --> 00:28:19,119 Speaker 1: of this was about saving souls. The Salish intended Christianity 408 00:28:19,240 --> 00:28:22,879 Speaker 1: as a salvation of a people in real time. Point 409 00:28:23,000 --> 00:28:27,960 Speaker 1: and the young Italian priest Gregory Mengarini accompanied this assemblage 410 00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:31,199 Speaker 1: on their journey across the mountains to the Buffalo Plains beyond. 411 00:28:31,640 --> 00:28:34,880 Speaker 1: But Point quickly found that the number of bison, as 412 00:28:34,920 --> 00:28:37,520 Speaker 1: he put it, has so diminished that the hunting camp 413 00:28:37,600 --> 00:28:40,320 Speaker 1: with which I was traveling had to march twenty four 414 00:28:40,440 --> 00:28:43,240 Speaker 1: days before finding any trace of a herd. 415 00:28:44,120 --> 00:28:45,080 Speaker 2: Why so few? 416 00:28:45,680 --> 00:28:49,160 Speaker 1: It's the result of the campaign of extermination carried on 417 00:28:49,440 --> 00:28:54,320 Speaker 1: by American commerce, he wrote. Trade of manufactured status goods 418 00:28:54,360 --> 00:28:58,520 Speaker 1: and firearms was part of it, But the compensation destroyed 419 00:28:58,640 --> 00:29:03,640 Speaker 1: Indian men and an slaved Indian women. Point believe the 420 00:29:03,680 --> 00:29:09,120 Speaker 1: Frenchman's painting Father, Mother and Daughter on the Hunt depicts 421 00:29:09,120 --> 00:29:13,440 Speaker 1: what he called the barbarous euphoria that drew the sailors 422 00:29:13,520 --> 00:29:17,360 Speaker 1: from their protected valley out into open country and into 423 00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:22,080 Speaker 1: harm's way. But for the now slightly Christianized Indians, the 424 00:29:22,200 --> 00:29:25,160 Speaker 1: telling moment for the new religion was when they confronted 425 00:29:25,200 --> 00:29:29,320 Speaker 1: the Blackfeet, and that moment came quickly. The Ponderet group 426 00:29:29,520 --> 00:29:32,320 Speaker 1: were caught in a surprise Blackfeet attack and were on 427 00:29:32,360 --> 00:29:37,760 Speaker 1: the verge of being wiped out when a miraculous event occurred. Culix, 428 00:29:38,280 --> 00:29:42,720 Speaker 1: a woman warrior among them, rallied them and they managed 429 00:29:42,880 --> 00:29:46,720 Speaker 1: to kill twenty eight of the enemy under her leadership. 430 00:29:47,240 --> 00:29:50,400 Speaker 1: That routed the Blackfeet into a panic retreat. 431 00:29:50,800 --> 00:29:52,840 Speaker 2: Then another miracle followed. 432 00:29:53,200 --> 00:29:57,160 Speaker 1: In one hunt surround, the sailors took down one hundred 433 00:29:57,200 --> 00:30:01,280 Speaker 1: and fifty three buffalo. With those kinds of obvious successes, 434 00:30:01,440 --> 00:30:05,240 Speaker 1: the watching Blackfeet refused to attack the mountain tribes again, 435 00:30:05,600 --> 00:30:16,520 Speaker 1: they were too powerful. The New Religion had worked. This 436 00:30:16,680 --> 00:30:18,960 Speaker 1: is probably a story that ought to have a happier 437 00:30:19,080 --> 00:30:22,480 Speaker 1: ending for the two principles Priests and Silish, but in 438 00:30:22,520 --> 00:30:26,200 Speaker 1: the real world it naturally could not turn out that way. 439 00:30:26,480 --> 00:30:32,280 Speaker 1: Indian expectations and Jesuit expectations were arrows shot from different 440 00:30:32,400 --> 00:30:37,080 Speaker 1: bows that flew past one another in flight. Following the 441 00:30:37,120 --> 00:30:41,920 Speaker 1: Paraguay model of offering Christianity to all the regional tribes, 442 00:30:42,160 --> 00:30:46,320 Speaker 1: De Smet and the missionaries decided to extend their hands to. 443 00:30:46,280 --> 00:30:47,600 Speaker 2: The Blackfeet too. 444 00:30:48,360 --> 00:30:51,280 Speaker 1: At one point, when a party of enemy Blackfeet was 445 00:30:51,320 --> 00:30:54,480 Speaker 1: at the mercy of a Salish hunting party, the priests 446 00:30:54,520 --> 00:30:58,920 Speaker 1: actually intervened to save the doomed Blackfeet party, to the 447 00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:03,000 Speaker 1: complete confusion of the Sailish. There were other problems and 448 00:31:03,200 --> 00:31:06,800 Speaker 1: offering the power of the new religion to enemies. Young 449 00:31:06,840 --> 00:31:09,240 Speaker 1: men among the Saless soon came to resent the notion 450 00:31:09,560 --> 00:31:10,959 Speaker 1: of universal brotherhood. 451 00:31:11,720 --> 00:31:13,360 Speaker 2: How was one supposed. 452 00:31:12,880 --> 00:31:16,120 Speaker 1: To earn status and war honors if there was peace 453 00:31:16,200 --> 00:31:20,960 Speaker 1: with everyone. The final straw came when the missionaries persuaded 454 00:31:21,240 --> 00:31:25,000 Speaker 1: the Ponderey headman Loyola to give up buffalo hunting in 455 00:31:25,040 --> 00:31:29,760 Speaker 1: favor of becoming a farmer. Almost at once, Loyola, who 456 00:31:29,760 --> 00:31:33,760 Speaker 1: had been a wealthy example of Indian success, became impoverished 457 00:31:33,880 --> 00:31:37,720 Speaker 1: and lost status in his tribe. At this juncture, the 458 00:31:37,880 --> 00:31:42,600 Speaker 1: Salish shaman Bear Track, or Alexander, as the priest called him, 459 00:31:42,760 --> 00:31:47,600 Speaker 1: turned from Christianity back to his white buffalo medicine. He 460 00:31:47,720 --> 00:31:52,160 Speaker 1: remained aloof from the missionaries after that, yet remained respected 461 00:31:52,320 --> 00:31:58,200 Speaker 1: among the Salish. Most tellingly of all, Sailish summis didn't 462 00:31:58,320 --> 00:32:02,640 Speaker 1: keep working until eighteen forty five. The Mountain tribes enjoyed 463 00:32:02,800 --> 00:32:06,800 Speaker 1: unprecedented successes over the Blackfeet, but after the Blackfeet got 464 00:32:06,800 --> 00:32:10,720 Speaker 1: their own mission founded by De Smet himself, Salish fortunes 465 00:32:10,840 --> 00:32:14,719 Speaker 1: seemed to worsen. Then word came from Oregon that the 466 00:32:14,800 --> 00:32:19,760 Speaker 1: Cayuses had murdered Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, and in the 467 00:32:19,920 --> 00:32:26,680 Speaker 1: aftermath no Indian had suffered some divine retribution. With that, 468 00:32:27,080 --> 00:32:32,240 Speaker 1: nesper Shamans began disrupting mass at Saint Mary's, leading the 469 00:32:32,280 --> 00:32:36,800 Speaker 1: new priest, father Anthony Ravalli, to report to his superiors 470 00:32:36,840 --> 00:32:41,440 Speaker 1: that the majority gave up private prayer and vented insult 471 00:32:41,600 --> 00:32:46,000 Speaker 1: and injury every day upon the missionary. When word got 472 00:32:46,040 --> 00:32:50,080 Speaker 1: out that the Blackfeet Shamans had decided all the Christian 473 00:32:50,120 --> 00:32:54,360 Speaker 1: missionaries should be assassinated, the Salish went out on their 474 00:32:54,400 --> 00:32:58,000 Speaker 1: fall buffalo hunt and never even discussed the trip with 475 00:32:58,120 --> 00:32:58,880 Speaker 1: the missionaries. 476 00:33:01,160 --> 00:33:04,560 Speaker 2: In eighteen fifty, the Jesuits. 477 00:33:03,880 --> 00:33:08,960 Speaker 1: Finally abandoned Saint Mary's mission in the Bitterroot Valley. This 478 00:33:09,080 --> 00:33:13,560 Speaker 1: particular morning so many long years later, as I walk 479 00:33:13,600 --> 00:33:16,880 Speaker 1: along Lolo Creek, with the Bitterroot slopes rising in a 480 00:33:16,920 --> 00:33:21,120 Speaker 1: series of dark green humps both north and south, I 481 00:33:21,240 --> 00:33:25,680 Speaker 1: look for, but do not find, that Summus shrine to 482 00:33:25,760 --> 00:33:29,520 Speaker 1: the Grizzly. I do know that the Sailish still visit 483 00:33:29,600 --> 00:33:34,080 Speaker 1: Sumi's spots, like the medicine tree farther up the Bitterroot River, 484 00:33:34,520 --> 00:33:38,480 Speaker 1: and of course nowadays the cross is in prominent display 485 00:33:38,960 --> 00:33:42,880 Speaker 1: in every little town in the valley, a rapprochement. 486 00:33:42,320 --> 00:33:43,480 Speaker 3: Of swords, I suppose. 487 00:33:44,360 --> 00:33:45,760 Speaker 2: But then I walk past. 488 00:33:45,520 --> 00:33:48,040 Speaker 1: The tourists again to get to my jeep, and this 489 00:33:48,200 --> 00:33:52,520 Speaker 1: time they're arguing over what. I can't be certain, although 490 00:33:52,560 --> 00:33:56,320 Speaker 1: for a long moment it sure sounds like an argument 491 00:33:56,560 --> 00:33:57,320 Speaker 1: over religion. 492 00:34:11,680 --> 00:34:15,520 Speaker 3: Sedan. In this episode, you tell the story of Saint 493 00:34:15,560 --> 00:34:19,279 Speaker 3: Mary's mission and the arrival of the Jesuits among the 494 00:34:19,280 --> 00:34:24,920 Speaker 3: bitter at Salish. And it's really an interesting story because 495 00:34:25,080 --> 00:34:28,520 Speaker 3: I think for a long time it was sort of told, 496 00:34:28,880 --> 00:34:32,320 Speaker 3: or you might find, like in a local tourism brochure, 497 00:34:33,760 --> 00:34:38,640 Speaker 3: this very simple narrative of you know, they sought out 498 00:34:38,960 --> 00:34:43,160 Speaker 3: priests and the Jesuits came and they lived together peacefully 499 00:34:43,280 --> 00:34:46,759 Speaker 3: for a number of years, right, But there's so much 500 00:34:46,800 --> 00:34:52,080 Speaker 3: more going on underneath the surface. And so I wonder 501 00:34:52,120 --> 00:34:56,960 Speaker 3: if you can just begin by talking about the different 502 00:34:57,040 --> 00:35:01,560 Speaker 3: understandings of faith, I mean, the two sort of main 503 00:35:01,680 --> 00:35:06,480 Speaker 3: actors in this story, and how just a fundamental difference 504 00:35:06,640 --> 00:35:11,719 Speaker 3: in what religion is or what faith is sort of 505 00:35:11,760 --> 00:35:15,279 Speaker 3: set this off on a course that was was sort 506 00:35:15,320 --> 00:35:18,680 Speaker 3: of inevitably resulted in a breakdown. 507 00:35:19,320 --> 00:35:23,080 Speaker 1: Yeah, it did result in a breakdown, you know. And 508 00:35:23,120 --> 00:35:27,880 Speaker 1: so this is the beginning the sort of the founding 509 00:35:27,960 --> 00:35:31,720 Speaker 1: story of the state of Montana. I mean, there certainly 510 00:35:31,840 --> 00:35:34,960 Speaker 1: obviously had been a lot of history played out by 511 00:35:35,040 --> 00:35:37,000 Speaker 1: Native people there for a long time, and there had 512 00:35:37,040 --> 00:35:40,040 Speaker 1: been fur trappers from the Hudson's Bay and from the 513 00:35:40,080 --> 00:35:42,520 Speaker 1: American Fur Company and all that coming back and forth 514 00:35:43,160 --> 00:35:46,960 Speaker 1: through the valley. But this was through Montana even but 515 00:35:47,080 --> 00:35:50,200 Speaker 1: this was the first time there had ever been an 516 00:35:50,200 --> 00:35:54,000 Speaker 1: attempt to actually settle on the part of people who 517 00:35:54,040 --> 00:35:58,360 Speaker 1: weren't Native. And you know, this was not just a 518 00:35:58,400 --> 00:36:00,839 Speaker 1: fur trading post. This was something I mean, in the 519 00:36:00,960 --> 00:36:03,640 Speaker 1: church is still there. I mean, it's a you know, 520 00:36:03,960 --> 00:36:07,600 Speaker 1: it's kind of a tourist attraction in Stevensville, Montana. Today. 521 00:36:09,480 --> 00:36:11,200 Speaker 3: But it's a story. 522 00:36:10,760 --> 00:36:13,520 Speaker 1: That I mean, I completely agree Randall with your take 523 00:36:13,560 --> 00:36:17,880 Speaker 1: on it. It's a story that has often been simplified 524 00:36:18,560 --> 00:36:22,680 Speaker 1: as here's the beginning of Montana. These native people journeyed 525 00:36:22,719 --> 00:36:25,960 Speaker 1: repeatedly to Saint Louis to get priests to come visit 526 00:36:26,000 --> 00:36:31,040 Speaker 1: them and the clergy. The Jesuits finally did and it 527 00:36:31,080 --> 00:36:35,000 Speaker 1: was a wonderful thing, and it's the beginning Montana. Well, 528 00:36:35,360 --> 00:36:40,239 Speaker 1: the truth, of course is that it featured a classic 529 00:36:40,520 --> 00:36:48,359 Speaker 1: kind of early contact misunderstanding between the native people in 530 00:36:48,600 --> 00:36:54,320 Speaker 1: western Montana. And these these priests were largely Europeans. I 531 00:36:54,360 --> 00:36:58,120 Speaker 1: mean one of them, Father de Smet was Belgian. Nicholas 532 00:36:58,160 --> 00:37:02,680 Speaker 1: Point was a Frenchman. The other guy, the other guy 533 00:37:02,680 --> 00:37:06,279 Speaker 1: who was their primary sort of go to guy, was 534 00:37:06,320 --> 00:37:12,160 Speaker 1: an Italian. And so they were sort of Old Worlder 535 00:37:12,320 --> 00:37:17,040 Speaker 1: slash Americans who brought the Western world view to it, 536 00:37:17,160 --> 00:37:20,680 Speaker 1: the idea, you know that we're going to take the 537 00:37:20,719 --> 00:37:24,520 Speaker 1: true religion to these indigenous people and lift them up 538 00:37:24,560 --> 00:37:28,839 Speaker 1: and civilize them. And that's what the Jesuits thought they 539 00:37:28,840 --> 00:37:32,200 Speaker 1: were doing. And they were really excited about the fact 540 00:37:32,239 --> 00:37:36,480 Speaker 1: that here are Native people who have actually journeyed repeatedly 541 00:37:36,600 --> 00:37:39,200 Speaker 1: to get us to come, and when they got there, 542 00:37:39,280 --> 00:37:41,600 Speaker 1: what they discovered, and the reason we know this really 543 00:37:41,600 --> 00:37:44,960 Speaker 1: well is because of Nicholas points work, particularly that book 544 00:37:45,000 --> 00:37:51,040 Speaker 1: he wrote. What they discovered was that they had a 545 00:37:51,080 --> 00:37:54,560 Speaker 1: different conception of what they were doing than the sailors did. 546 00:37:55,239 --> 00:38:01,680 Speaker 1: The salors were caught in a situation where their valley 547 00:38:01,760 --> 00:38:06,560 Speaker 1: which they had lived in for three thousand years, and 548 00:38:06,600 --> 00:38:10,760 Speaker 1: they had long not only lived well in that valley, 549 00:38:10,800 --> 00:38:13,439 Speaker 1: but they had also long gone to Buffalo just over 550 00:38:13,480 --> 00:38:18,080 Speaker 1: the divide, only about a three days travel and less 551 00:38:18,080 --> 00:38:22,360 Speaker 1: than that by horse once they acquired horses. They were 552 00:38:22,920 --> 00:38:26,160 Speaker 1: sort of in the throes of a really bad period 553 00:38:26,280 --> 00:38:31,960 Speaker 1: because the fur trappers were competing with one another for 554 00:38:32,080 --> 00:38:34,799 Speaker 1: control of the West, and the Hussin's Bay Company had 555 00:38:34,840 --> 00:38:38,400 Speaker 1: come up with this strategy of imposing a fur desert 556 00:38:39,000 --> 00:38:43,760 Speaker 1: through the Mission Valley, the Bitterroot Valley, the lim High Valley, 557 00:38:44,440 --> 00:38:48,879 Speaker 1: the Snake River Country, the Wasatch and so for fifteen years, 558 00:38:48,560 --> 00:38:53,000 Speaker 1: these brigades of trappers came up and down these valleys 559 00:38:53,040 --> 00:38:55,880 Speaker 1: and basically wiped out not only the fur bears, but 560 00:38:56,200 --> 00:38:58,600 Speaker 1: they killed off a lot of the game that the 561 00:38:58,719 --> 00:39:01,360 Speaker 1: sale list were existing on. So the soulis you're in 562 00:39:01,400 --> 00:39:03,719 Speaker 1: a herd. They were in a hard place and they 563 00:39:03,719 --> 00:39:07,680 Speaker 1: were looking for some way to get out of it. 564 00:39:08,120 --> 00:39:09,920 Speaker 1: And one of the ways, of course you do that 565 00:39:10,160 --> 00:39:13,879 Speaker 1: is you appeal to your deities, your appeal to religion, 566 00:39:14,320 --> 00:39:18,240 Speaker 1: to help you escape this situation. So that's why they 567 00:39:18,920 --> 00:39:23,680 Speaker 1: were sending their dignitaries to Saint Louis to try to 568 00:39:23,680 --> 00:39:29,960 Speaker 1: bring the Jesuits out. And once everybody got arrayed at 569 00:39:30,000 --> 00:39:35,520 Speaker 1: Saint Mary's Mission, then it began to occur to Nicholas 570 00:39:35,520 --> 00:39:39,480 Speaker 1: Point in particular, who sort of had an anthropologist interest 571 00:39:39,520 --> 00:39:42,560 Speaker 1: in Indian religion. Wow, this is not exactly what we 572 00:39:42,640 --> 00:39:45,600 Speaker 1: thought it was going to be. What they want from 573 00:39:45,719 --> 00:39:50,040 Speaker 1: religion is for everything in the present day world to 574 00:39:50,160 --> 00:39:54,000 Speaker 1: work well. And what we want, of course is to 575 00:39:54,080 --> 00:39:57,680 Speaker 1: save their souls, convert them to Christianity, send them on 576 00:39:57,760 --> 00:39:58,680 Speaker 1: to an afterlife. 577 00:39:59,160 --> 00:40:01,600 Speaker 2: And they don't even have a concept of anything like that. 578 00:40:02,000 --> 00:40:07,640 Speaker 3: Yeah. You you make that point that the missionaries are 579 00:40:07,640 --> 00:40:10,640 Speaker 3: trying to save souls and the Salish wanted them to 580 00:40:10,719 --> 00:40:15,279 Speaker 3: save their world. Yeah, And to the Salish, there's not 581 00:40:17,520 --> 00:40:21,920 Speaker 3: It's hard to see value in a system of religious 582 00:40:21,960 --> 00:40:23,880 Speaker 3: belief if it doesn't produce results. 583 00:40:25,239 --> 00:40:32,800 Speaker 1: That's precisely what became the rub in this situation because 584 00:40:33,280 --> 00:40:37,600 Speaker 1: and the sales were they were they were very practical. 585 00:40:37,840 --> 00:40:45,040 Speaker 1: I mean, religious power was all about demonstrated results, and 586 00:40:45,120 --> 00:40:50,520 Speaker 1: so you couldn't just tell us that if we, you know, 587 00:40:50,680 --> 00:40:53,759 Speaker 1: adopt the practices of your religion, then things are going 588 00:40:53,800 --> 00:40:56,600 Speaker 1: to be better. You're going to have to show us, right, 589 00:40:57,080 --> 00:40:59,799 Speaker 1: So that became one of the interesting aspects of this 590 00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:05,160 Speaker 1: story too. And of course the field trial of how 591 00:41:05,239 --> 00:41:08,759 Speaker 1: well Christianity was working for them was how they were 592 00:41:08,800 --> 00:41:11,520 Speaker 1: going to do when they crossed the divide into black 593 00:41:11,560 --> 00:41:16,200 Speaker 1: Feet country and went to Hunt Buffalo where the Black 594 00:41:16,239 --> 00:41:21,359 Speaker 1: Fate were trying to keep them away, and that then 595 00:41:21,480 --> 00:41:23,959 Speaker 1: became an interesting aspect of the story too. 596 00:41:24,719 --> 00:41:25,319 Speaker 2: Yeah, the. 597 00:41:27,320 --> 00:41:33,400 Speaker 3: I think it's it's interesting because one of the interesting 598 00:41:33,440 --> 00:41:39,400 Speaker 3: aspects of this is that from the Western perspective, religious 599 00:41:39,440 --> 00:41:47,480 Speaker 3: conversion is sort of a wholesale replacement of theology, right 600 00:41:47,520 --> 00:41:50,120 Speaker 3: as if there's sort of a form, you know, blank 601 00:41:50,120 --> 00:41:52,279 Speaker 3: space and a form and you cross out the old 602 00:41:52,320 --> 00:41:57,400 Speaker 3: religion and you write in Catholicism, what have you. But 603 00:41:57,440 --> 00:42:00,160 Speaker 3: the Salors really have sort of a piecemeal approached too. 604 00:42:00,920 --> 00:42:06,560 Speaker 3: Aspects of Catholicism that they like and other aspects that 605 00:42:06,600 --> 00:42:08,400 Speaker 3: they don't like, and so they don't adopt it. And 606 00:42:08,400 --> 00:42:10,600 Speaker 3: I think that speaks to like the you know, the 607 00:42:10,719 --> 00:42:15,880 Speaker 3: utilitarian vision that that you described earlier, Like they don't 608 00:42:16,000 --> 00:42:21,960 Speaker 3: like the idea of damnation and hell because it's unpleasant, 609 00:42:22,040 --> 00:42:24,000 Speaker 3: So why would you have that as part of your. 610 00:42:24,600 --> 00:42:27,120 Speaker 1: And the more they heard about it, the less I 611 00:42:27,239 --> 00:42:28,400 Speaker 1: really enjoyed that line. 612 00:42:28,480 --> 00:42:35,680 Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. The Blackfeet story is like they they initially 613 00:42:35,719 --> 00:42:38,120 Speaker 3: when they go over and the Buffalo hunt, they initially 614 00:42:38,480 --> 00:42:42,399 Speaker 3: have some success, right, they have a good hunt, and 615 00:42:42,800 --> 00:42:47,920 Speaker 3: there's a a woman Salish woman who's a warrior who 616 00:42:47,960 --> 00:42:51,640 Speaker 3: demonstrats she she takes out a bunch of black Feet. 617 00:42:51,760 --> 00:42:55,080 Speaker 2: Warriors and its. 618 00:42:54,000 --> 00:42:57,120 Speaker 3: Well for the for the missionaries. 619 00:42:56,600 --> 00:43:01,239 Speaker 1: Right Indeed, I mean that that first trip across the divide, 620 00:43:01,360 --> 00:43:05,000 Speaker 1: I mean for it's difficult to find Buffalo for a while, 621 00:43:05,840 --> 00:43:09,040 Speaker 1: they do find the black Feet, and it's a it's 622 00:43:09,080 --> 00:43:11,600 Speaker 1: a kind of an amalgamation of the mountain tribes who 623 00:43:11,640 --> 00:43:17,400 Speaker 1: often went to Buffalo together. So it's uh nespers bands, 624 00:43:17,760 --> 00:43:23,920 Speaker 1: it's ponderay groups, and it's a ponderay contingent that actually 625 00:43:24,280 --> 00:43:27,399 Speaker 1: is about to be wiped out by the black Feet. 626 00:43:27,560 --> 00:43:34,360 Speaker 1: When this particular female warrior, clix is her name, suddenly 627 00:43:34,560 --> 00:43:39,880 Speaker 1: rallies the troops and manages to turn the battle around. 628 00:43:40,160 --> 00:43:46,680 Speaker 1: And I mean, and Nicholas Point actually painted a watercolor 629 00:43:46,719 --> 00:43:50,040 Speaker 1: of this scene of her leading a charge on the 630 00:43:50,400 --> 00:43:55,400 Speaker 1: Blackfeet camp, and the Blackfeet are scattering in panic and 631 00:43:55,560 --> 00:43:57,840 Speaker 1: a lot of I mean. What you have to remember 632 00:43:57,880 --> 00:44:03,000 Speaker 1: about about these these kinds of encounters is that often 633 00:44:03,480 --> 00:44:08,239 Speaker 1: Native people would gauge how successful their particular power was 634 00:44:08,440 --> 00:44:11,600 Speaker 1: on a certain day, and if things did not look good, 635 00:44:12,120 --> 00:44:17,200 Speaker 1: even though the black Feet probably outnumbered the Pondres, suddenly 636 00:44:17,200 --> 00:44:21,919 Speaker 1: it looked like the Pondres had more power than one 637 00:44:21,960 --> 00:44:25,760 Speaker 1: would expect ordinarily. Blackfeet, no doubt, had heard something about 638 00:44:26,120 --> 00:44:29,760 Speaker 1: the Jesuits going to them and teaching this new religion. 639 00:44:29,880 --> 00:44:34,719 Speaker 1: So the black Feet panicked and scattered across the landscape. 640 00:44:34,760 --> 00:44:37,319 Speaker 1: And that, of course was a kind of a miraculous 641 00:44:37,360 --> 00:44:39,600 Speaker 1: outcome of a battle that looked like it was doomed. 642 00:44:40,480 --> 00:44:41,840 Speaker 3: And then the other thing. 643 00:44:41,680 --> 00:44:45,760 Speaker 1: That happened is within a few days, this combined group 644 00:44:45,800 --> 00:44:49,000 Speaker 1: of mountain tribes finds a herd of buffalo and one 645 00:44:49,440 --> 00:44:52,080 Speaker 1: surround they kill more than one hundred and fifty of them, 646 00:44:52,440 --> 00:44:56,640 Speaker 1: and so man everything looks good at this point, this 647 00:44:56,760 --> 00:45:02,560 Speaker 1: new religion, absolutely because, as as one of the sailors 648 00:45:02,800 --> 00:45:06,759 Speaker 1: told Nicholas, point, this is another kind of line I've 649 00:45:06,760 --> 00:45:08,200 Speaker 1: always loved about this story. 650 00:45:08,840 --> 00:45:10,799 Speaker 2: What do you want out of religion? Well, what we 651 00:45:10,880 --> 00:45:12,920 Speaker 2: want is I want to have a lot of lovers. 652 00:45:13,640 --> 00:45:17,520 Speaker 1: I want to steal more horses than anybody has ever 653 00:45:17,560 --> 00:45:19,279 Speaker 1: heard of. And I want to be able to kill 654 00:45:19,320 --> 00:45:22,400 Speaker 1: all my enemies anytime I want to. That's what religion 655 00:45:22,480 --> 00:45:24,200 Speaker 1: is supposed to produce. 656 00:45:24,640 --> 00:45:29,160 Speaker 3: And that's a sticking point because the Jesuit, the sort 657 00:45:29,200 --> 00:45:34,200 Speaker 3: of universalist impulse of the Jesuit missionaries is to bring 658 00:45:34,239 --> 00:45:39,480 Speaker 3: everybody together. Oh yes, and the Salish have a real 659 00:45:39,640 --> 00:45:45,880 Speaker 3: issue with the Jesuits extending their teachings to the enemies 660 00:45:45,920 --> 00:45:51,520 Speaker 3: of the Salish right and also to try to, you know, 661 00:45:51,640 --> 00:45:54,279 Speaker 3: get them to avoid engaging in hostilities by which they 662 00:45:54,840 --> 00:45:58,359 Speaker 3: achieve social standing. Yeah, that's right, that's exactly. So there's 663 00:45:58,400 --> 00:45:59,560 Speaker 3: these robbing points that. 664 00:46:00,440 --> 00:46:03,960 Speaker 1: Yeah, these are the points at which the story doesn't 665 00:46:04,320 --> 00:46:10,120 Speaker 1: go so well, because, yeah, the Christian missionaries are trying 666 00:46:10,280 --> 00:46:19,000 Speaker 1: to trying to apply the beliefs of universal brotherhood among 667 00:46:19,719 --> 00:46:24,960 Speaker 1: the sails, and two things basically happen because Father de 668 00:46:25,080 --> 00:46:27,440 Speaker 1: Smet has the notion that they're going to do a 669 00:46:27,600 --> 00:46:30,640 Speaker 1: region wide reduction of tribes, and so we're also going 670 00:46:30,719 --> 00:46:33,920 Speaker 1: to take the religion to the Blackfeet and the Crows 671 00:46:34,080 --> 00:46:36,680 Speaker 1: and whoever wants it. So we're going to also go 672 00:46:36,800 --> 00:46:40,480 Speaker 1: to your enemies and build a mission, he informs the 673 00:46:40,600 --> 00:46:43,279 Speaker 1: Mountain tribes. And the other thing, of course, is that 674 00:46:43,440 --> 00:46:47,759 Speaker 1: the doctrine of universal brotherhood, it gets to occur to 675 00:46:48,000 --> 00:46:51,080 Speaker 1: some of the young men among the Salish, well, how 676 00:46:51,120 --> 00:46:54,080 Speaker 1: do you get war honors? How do you rise in 677 00:46:54,320 --> 00:46:57,520 Speaker 1: status and marry the woman you want to marry and 678 00:46:58,600 --> 00:47:04,120 Speaker 1: acquire wealth if everybody is a universal brother And so 679 00:47:05,000 --> 00:47:07,640 Speaker 1: that sort of flies in the face again of something 680 00:47:07,719 --> 00:47:12,560 Speaker 1: that they had brought as part of their cultural tradition 681 00:47:13,160 --> 00:47:17,319 Speaker 1: to this whole game, not expecting that the missionaries were 682 00:47:17,320 --> 00:47:19,960 Speaker 1: going to say, well, we're gon We're going to try 683 00:47:20,040 --> 00:47:22,880 Speaker 1: to get you all to establish peace with one another. 684 00:47:23,680 --> 00:47:25,879 Speaker 1: And they kind of decided, you know, that's not really 685 00:47:26,600 --> 00:47:27,560 Speaker 1: what we want. 686 00:47:28,440 --> 00:47:33,399 Speaker 3: And so the story it's the story ends with sort 687 00:47:33,440 --> 00:47:37,520 Speaker 3: of a whimper rather than a big blowout. And you 688 00:47:37,680 --> 00:47:43,120 Speaker 3: mentioned in this episode the Payblow revolt and also the 689 00:47:43,760 --> 00:47:48,719 Speaker 3: Whitman massacres, it's commonly known, right, and so there are 690 00:47:48,760 --> 00:47:54,440 Speaker 3: these very prominent instances in the West of religious missionaries 691 00:47:55,360 --> 00:48:01,880 Speaker 3: coming to violent ends with indigenous folks. And then in 692 00:48:01,960 --> 00:48:04,400 Speaker 3: the case of the Sailish, it sort of seems that 693 00:48:04,480 --> 00:48:06,960 Speaker 3: they just sort of lost interest and there developed some 694 00:48:07,239 --> 00:48:13,799 Speaker 3: sort of you know, a standoff, and the missionaries abandoned 695 00:48:14,600 --> 00:48:17,759 Speaker 3: Saint Mary's. So I wonder if you can sort of 696 00:48:19,120 --> 00:48:23,280 Speaker 3: explain in your thinking why things ended this way instead 697 00:48:23,320 --> 00:48:25,200 Speaker 3: of perhaps in violence. 698 00:48:26,600 --> 00:48:30,400 Speaker 1: Well, I think the Sailish, for one thing, they wanted 699 00:48:30,480 --> 00:48:34,560 Speaker 1: to please the missionaries, they wanted to please the priest, 700 00:48:34,719 --> 00:48:39,600 Speaker 1: and I think they were not inclined to act violently 701 00:48:39,719 --> 00:48:44,120 Speaker 1: toward them. Although Father Ravali, who Anthony Ravolli, who becomes 702 00:48:44,160 --> 00:48:46,800 Speaker 1: the last priest to serve it Sat Mary's mission, I 703 00:48:46,880 --> 00:48:49,520 Speaker 1: mean in about eighteen forty nine eighteen fifty, and they 704 00:48:49,520 --> 00:48:52,359 Speaker 1: abandoned the mission in eighteen fifty. He says that every 705 00:48:52,400 --> 00:48:55,920 Speaker 1: time they tried to whole mass you know, there were yeah, 706 00:48:55,960 --> 00:48:59,919 Speaker 1: there were nesper Shamans coming in and casting a spur 707 00:49:00,440 --> 00:49:06,279 Speaker 1: and detigrating Jesus. And so it didn't turn out to 708 00:49:06,360 --> 00:49:10,400 Speaker 1: be a violent end, not like the Whitman massacre in 709 00:49:10,560 --> 00:49:14,680 Speaker 1: Oregon where those missionaries actually were killed by the Cayuses, 710 00:49:14,760 --> 00:49:19,000 Speaker 1: but or the Pueblo revolt in New Mexico, either where 711 00:49:19,280 --> 00:49:23,160 Speaker 1: you had several Franciscans who ended up being killed. The 712 00:49:23,280 --> 00:49:27,040 Speaker 1: sailors didn't do that, but they and the nest person, 713 00:49:27,120 --> 00:49:30,640 Speaker 1: the Pondres, made it known, i think, to the missionaries 714 00:49:30,960 --> 00:49:34,960 Speaker 1: after this ten year experiment, it lasted basically about ten 715 00:49:35,080 --> 00:49:39,759 Speaker 1: years that we brought you here. We wanted you to 716 00:49:39,840 --> 00:49:43,480 Speaker 1: come for one reason. You seem to want us to 717 00:49:43,600 --> 00:49:46,160 Speaker 1: do something that we didn't really want to do, and 718 00:49:47,920 --> 00:49:52,520 Speaker 1: then you took your religion to our enemies across the mountains. 719 00:49:53,239 --> 00:49:55,959 Speaker 1: We're not really interested in what you have to teach 720 00:49:56,040 --> 00:49:56,560 Speaker 1: us anymore. 721 00:49:56,920 --> 00:49:57,200 Speaker 3: And so. 722 00:49:58,840 --> 00:50:03,759 Speaker 1: The Saint Mary's experiment that founds Montana it comes to 723 00:50:03,920 --> 00:50:10,799 Speaker 1: an end. The building still remains and it's rebuilt now. 724 00:50:11,480 --> 00:50:13,680 Speaker 1: But one of the things that the existence of the 725 00:50:13,719 --> 00:50:18,880 Speaker 1: mission did was it allowed a host of other whites, 726 00:50:19,000 --> 00:50:22,000 Speaker 1: non natives to come to the Bitterroot Valley. John Owens, 727 00:50:22,040 --> 00:50:25,920 Speaker 1: a trader, ended up establishing a post there about a 728 00:50:26,000 --> 00:50:28,440 Speaker 1: mile and a half away from the mission during the 729 00:50:28,560 --> 00:50:32,360 Speaker 1: last few years that the mission existed, and so that 730 00:50:32,680 --> 00:50:38,239 Speaker 1: became ultimately the permanence, the permanent settlement that around which 731 00:50:38,400 --> 00:50:39,920 Speaker 1: Montana kind of coalesced. 732 00:50:40,600 --> 00:50:45,840 Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think it also worth mentioning that's what 733 00:50:46,160 --> 00:50:49,680 Speaker 3: ultimately led to the dispossession of the sail is because 734 00:50:49,680 --> 00:50:53,440 Speaker 3: the story doesn't end with now, the story doesn't end 735 00:50:53,480 --> 00:51:00,000 Speaker 3: with the missionaries retreating the sailors within a few decades 736 00:51:00,080 --> 00:51:02,120 Speaker 3: is they're removed to the Flathead Reservation and kind of 737 00:51:02,160 --> 00:51:05,400 Speaker 3: one of the more tragic removal stories in Montana. 738 00:51:05,560 --> 00:51:08,319 Speaker 1: Yeah, it is, and it's so only five years after 739 00:51:09,200 --> 00:51:14,640 Speaker 1: the Jesuits abandoned Saint Mary's the saleesh Are, they sign 740 00:51:14,719 --> 00:51:21,120 Speaker 1: a treaty Stevens Treaty. Isaac Stevens, the territorial governor, signs 741 00:51:21,160 --> 00:51:24,319 Speaker 1: a treaty with them in eighteen fifty five where they're 742 00:51:24,360 --> 00:51:27,840 Speaker 1: going to be removed from the bitter Root Valley and 743 00:51:28,000 --> 00:51:31,960 Speaker 1: settled in the Mission Valley about seventy miles to the north, 744 00:51:32,360 --> 00:51:37,439 Speaker 1: but a contingent of the bitter Root Salish refused to leave, 745 00:51:37,560 --> 00:51:41,040 Speaker 1: and they remain in the valley until the eighteen eighties 746 00:51:41,040 --> 00:51:45,520 Speaker 1: when they're basically forcibly removed. And that's one of the 747 00:51:45,760 --> 00:51:49,480 Speaker 1: signal events of that part of Montana, when the Bitterroot 748 00:51:49,520 --> 00:51:52,960 Speaker 1: Sale Ish Are. Finally they crossed the bridge over the 749 00:51:53,040 --> 00:51:57,120 Speaker 1: Clark Fork River in Missoula, and of course, in the 750 00:51:57,280 --> 00:52:01,800 Speaker 1: courthouse in Missoula there are paintings of Charlow and this 751 00:52:02,040 --> 00:52:06,000 Speaker 1: last group of bitter Roots sailors crossing the Lark Fork 752 00:52:06,120 --> 00:52:11,160 Speaker 1: River and heading north to the to the Mission Mountain Reservation. 753 00:52:12,760 --> 00:52:16,080 Speaker 3: Well, Dan, appreciate it. You Bet Randall, good questions. 754 00:52:16,120 --> 00:52:22,360 Speaker 1: Thanks, Thanks M. M.