Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/217

Rh and is said to be spoken only by those two tribes. None of the Atsinas are now found on Canadian territory, and no recent information has been obtained concerning them except from the map which accompanies the United States Indian Report for 1884, in which their name appears on the American Blackfoot Reservation.

The five tribes were reckoned, fifty years ago, to comprise not less than thirty thousand souls. Their numbers, union, and warlike spirit, made them the terror of all the Western Indians. It was not uncommon for thirty or forty war-parties to be out at once against the hostile tribes of Oregon and of the eastern plains, from the Shoshonees of the south to the Crees of the far north. The country which the Blackfoot tribes claimed properly as their own comprised the valleys and plains along the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains, from the Missouri to the Saskatchewan. This region was the favorite resort of the buffalo, whose vast herds afforded the Indians their principal means of subsistence. In the year 1836 a terrible visitation of the small-pox swept off two thirds of the people; and five years later they were supposed to count not more than fifteen hundred tents, or about ten thousand souls. Their enemies were then recovering their spirits and retaliating upon the weakened tribes the ravages which they had formerly committed.

In 1855 the United States Government humanely interfered to bring about a complete cessation of hostilities between the Blackfoot tribes and the other Indians. The commissioners appointed for the purpose summoned the hostile tribes together and framed a treaty for them, accompanying the act with a liberal distribution of presents to bring the tribes into good-humor. This judicious proceeding proved effectual. Dr. F. V. Hayden, in his account of the Indian tribes of the Missouri Valley, states that from the period of the treaty the Blackfoot tribes had become more and more peaceful in their habits, and were considered, when he wrote, the best disposed Indians in the Northwest. He remarks that their earlier reputation for ferocity was doubtless derived from their enemies, who always gave them ample cause for attacking them. “In an intellectual and moral point of view,” he adds, “they take the highest rank among the wild tribes of the West.” The recent reports of the Indian agents and other officials of the Canadian Northwest confirm this favorable opinion of the superior honesty and intelligence of the Blackfoot tribes. While constantly harassed on their reserves by the incursions of thievish Crees and other Indians, who rob them of their horses, they forbear to retaliate, and honorably abide by the terms of their late treaty, which binds them to leave the redress of such grievances to the Canadian authorities.

Since the general peace was established by the American Government, the numbers of the Blackfeet have apparently been on the increase. Dr. Hayden reports the three proper Blackfoot tribes as