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In 1742 Montana was visited by a party of French explorers headed by two young sons of Pierre Gauthier de Varennes de la Vérendrye, on a quest for a river leading to the Pacific.
Father Nicholas Point preached to the Blackfeet in the winter of 1846-7, laying the foundations of St. Peter's Mission which however was not permanently established until 1859. Father A. Ravalli, who shares the veneration in which the memory of the founder of St. Mary's is held, came to that mission in 1845. The county in which it was located is named in his honour
The industry which gave rise to the original settlement of Montana was mining. In 1863 gold valued at $8,000,000 came from the sluices. The next year produced double that amount. The total production of gold up to and including the year 1876 is conservatively estimated at $140,000,000. At about that time silver mining began to assume paramount importance, but about 1890 it yielded preeminence to copper, which is at present the chief metal produced. The copper mines are at Butte, while the smelters are located at Anaconda and Great Falls. A silver and lead smelter is in operation at East Helena. In 1907 there was produced copper to the value of $44,021,758, silver $6,149,619, and gold $3,286,212. Montana's stores of coal are very great. Estimates made by the authorities of the United States Geological Survey give the area of bituminous and lignitic-bituminous coal at 13,000 square miles, and the lignite areas at from 25,000 to 50,000 square miles. Coal mining is extensively carried on in the counties of Carbon, Gallatin, Cascade, and Fergus. Lumbering is an industry of the western portion of the state, where there are dense forests of pine, fir, larch, cedar, and hemlock. It is, however, by no means confined to that region, as all the mountains of any considerable height bear a more or less abundant growth of timber. Nearly 20,000,000 acres of the public lands within the state, of which there are about 50,000,000, are included within the national forest reserves.
EARLY MISSIONARIES AND MISSIONS
It is not improbable that Father C.G. Coquart, S.J., accompanied the Vérendrye brothers on their expedition into Montana. He was a member of the party when they set out from Montreal on their great enterprise and is quoted as saying that the Vérendryes on some of their excursions went beyond the great falls of the Missouri, and as far as the Gate of the Mountains near Helena. The establishment of the early missions has been mentioned. Besides those referred to, the Holy Family Mission among the Blackfeet, originally a dependency of St. Peter's, became a fixed establishment in 1885. St. Paul's, another offspring of St. Peter's, was established about the same time among the Gros Ventres and Assiniboines on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation. St. Labre, the mission among the Cheyennes, dates from 1884, when Rev. Joseph Eyler came from Cleveland with six members of the Ursuline Sisterhood, with Mother Amadeus at their head in response to a call issued by Bishop Gilmore at the appeal of Bishop Brondel, lately appointed to the newly created See of Montana. St. Xavier's, among the Crows, dates from 1887. Schools, as a matter of course, are maintained at all the missions, those at St. Ignatius particularly being models. The Ursulines have a convent at St. Peter's. The Jesuits were the pioneer missionaries to both Indians and whites in Montana. The ministrations of Father De Smet extended to all the tribes that have been mentioned, and he, as well as all of his associate "black robes", was held in the highest reverence by them. His labours were prodigious. In 1869 he induced five sisters of the community of Leavenworth to come to Helena, where they founded St. Vincent's Academy.
Pierre-Jean De Smet
Missionary among the North American Indians, b. at Termonde (Dendermonde), Belgium, 30 Jan., 1801; d. at St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A. 23 May, 1873. He emigrated to the United States in 1821 through a desire for missionary labours, and entered the Jesuit novitiate at Whitemarsh, Maryland. In 1823, however, at the suggestion of the United States Government a new Jesuit establishment was determined on and located at Florissant near St. Louis, Missouri, for work among the Indians. De Smet was among the pioneers and thus became one of the founders of the Missouri Province of the Society of Jesus.
His first missionary tour among the red men was in 1838 when he founded St. Joseph's Mission at Council Bluffs for the Pottawatomies. At this time also he visited the Sioux to arrange a peace between them and the Pottawatomies, the first of his peace missions. What may be called his life work did not begin, however, until 1840 when he set out for the Flathead country in the Far North-west. As early as 1831, some Rocky Mountain Indians, influenced by Iroquois descendants of converts of one hundred and fifty years before, had made a trip to St. Louis begging for a "black-robe". Their request could not be complied with at the time. Curiously enough, the incident excited Protestant missionary enterprise, owing to the wide dissemination of a mythical speech of one of the delegation expressing the disappointment of the Indians at not finding the Bible in St. Louis. Four Indian delegations in succession were dispatched from the Rocky Mountains to St. Louis to beg for "black-robes" and the last one, in 1839, composed of some Iroquois who dwelt among the Flatheads and Nez Percês, was successful. Father De Smet was assigned to the task and found his life-work.
He set out for the Rocky Mountain country in 1840 and his reception by the Flatheads and the Pend d'Oreilles wasan augury of the great power over the red men which was to characterize his career. Having imparted instruction,surveyed the field, and promised a permanent mission he returned to St. Louis; he visited the Crows, Gros Ventres, and other tribes on his way back, travelling in all 4814 miles. In the following year he returned to the Flatheads with Father Nicholas Point and established St. Mary's Mission on the Bitterroot river, some thirty miles south of present day]
Missoula, visiting also the Coeur-d'Alênes. Realizing the magnitude of the task before him, De Smet went to Europe in 1843 to solicit funds and workers, and in 1844 with new labourers for the missions, among them being six Sisters of Notre-Dame de Namur, he returned, rounding Cape Horn and casting anchor in the mouth of the Columbia River at Astoria.
Two days after, De Smet went by canoe to Fort Vancouver to confer with Bishop Blanchet, and on his return foundedSt. Ignatius Mission among the Kalispels of the Bay, who dwelt on Clark's Fork of the Columbia river, forty milesabove its mouth. Ten years later the mission was transferred to its present site in Missoula County, Montana
As the Blackfeet were a constant menace to other Indians for whom De Smet was labouring, he determined to influence them personally. This he accomplished in 1846 in the Yellowstone valley, where after a battle with the
Crows, the Blackfeet respectfully listened to the "black-robe". He accompanied them to Fort Lewis in their own country where he induced them to conclude peace with the other Indians to whom they were hostile, and he left Father Point to found a mission among this formidable tribe. His return to St. Louis after an absence of three years and six months marks the end of his residence among the Indians, not from his own choice but by the arrangement of his religious superiors who deputed him to other work at St. Louis University.
Fathers Point, Mangarini, Nobili, Ravalli, De Bos, Adrian and Christian Hoecken, Joset and others,made De Smet's foundations permanent by dwelling among the converted tribes. De Smet was now to enter upon a new phase of his career. Thus far his life might be called a private one, though crowded with stirring dangers from man and beast, from mountain and flood, and marked by the successful establishment of numerous stations over the Rocky Mountain region. But his almost inexplicable and seemingly instantaneous ascendancy over every tribe with which he came in contact, and his writings which had made himfamous in both hemispheres, caused the United States Government to look to him for help in its difficulties with the red men, and to invest him with a public character. Henceforth he was to aid the Indians by pleading theircause before European nations and by becoming their intermediary at Washington. In 1851 owing to the influx of whites into California and Oregon, the Indians had grown restless and hostile. A general congress of tribes wasdetermined on, and was held in the Creek Valley near Fort Laramie, and the Government requested De Smet's presence as pacificator. He made the long journey and his presence soothed the ten thousand Indians at thecouncil and brought about a satisfactory understanding.
In 1858 he accompanied General Harney as a chaplain in his expedition against the Utah Mormons, at the close of which campaign the Government requested him to accompany the same officer to Oregon and Washington Territories, where, it was feared, an uprising of the Indians would soon take place. Here again his presence had the desired effect,for the Indians loved him and trusted him implicitly. A visit to the Sioux country a the beginning of the Civil War convinced him that a serious situation confronted the Government. The Indians rose in rebellion in August, 1862, and at the request of the government De Smet made a tour of the North-west. When he found that a punitive expedition had been determined on, he refused to lend to it the sanction of his presence. The condition of affairs becoming more critical, the government again appealed to him in 1867 to go to the red men, who were enraged by white men's perfidy and cruelty, and "endeavour to bring them back to peace and submission,and prevent as far as possible the destruction of property and the murder of the whites." Accordingly he set out for the Upper Missouri, interviewing thousands of Indians on his way, and receiving delegations from the most hostile tribes, but before the Peace Commission could deal with them, he was obliged to return toSt. Louis, where he was taken seriously ill.
In 1868, however, he again started on what Chittenden calls (Life, Letters and Travels of Pierre Jean De Smet, "the most important mission of his whole career." He travelled with the Peace Commissioners for some time, but later determined to penetrate alone into the very camp of the hostile Sioux. General Stanley says "Father De Smet alone of the entire white race could penetrate to these cruel savages and return safe and sound." The missionary crossed the Bad Lands, and reached the main Sioux camp of some five thousand warriors under the leadership of Sitting Bull. He was received with extraordinary enthusiasm. His counsels were at once agreed to, and representatives sent to meet the Peace Commission. A treaty of peace was signed, 2 July, 1868, by all the chiefs. This result has been looked on as the most remarkable event in the history of the Indian wars. Once again, in 1870, he visited the Indians, to arrange for a mission among the Sioux. In such a crowded life allusion can be made only to the principal events.
His strange adventures among the red men his conversions and plantings of missions, his explorations and scientific observations may be studied in detail in his writings. On behalf of the Indians he crossed the ocean nineteen times,visiting popes, kings, and presidents, and traversing almost every European land. By actual calculation he travelled 180,000 miles on his errands of charity.
His writings are numerous and vivid in descriptive power, rich in anecdote, and form an important contribution to our knowledge of Indian manners, customs, superstitions, and traditions. The general correctness of their geographical observations is testified to by later explorers, though scientific researches have since modified some minor details. Almost childlike in the cheerful bouyancy of his disposition, he preserved this characteristic to the end, though honoured by statesmen and made Chevalier of the Order of Leopold by the King of the Belgians.
That he was not wanting in personal courage is evinced by many events in his wonderful career. Though he had frequent narrow escapes from death in his perilous travels, and often took his life in his hands when penetrating among hostile tribes, he never faltered. But his main title to fame is his extraordinary power over the Indians, a power not other man is said to have equalled. To give a list of the Indian tribes with whom he came in contact, and over whom he acquired an ascendancy, would be to enumeratealmost all the tribes west of the Mississippi. Even Protestant writers declare him the sincerest friend theIndians ever had. The effects of his work for them were not permanent to the extent which he had planned, solely because the Indians have been swept away or engulfed by the white settlers of the North-west.
If circumstances had allowed it, the reductions of Paraguay would have found a counterpart in North America. The archives of St. Louis University contain all the originals of De Smet's writings known to be extant. Among these is the "Linton Album", containing his itinerary from 1821 to the year of hisdeath, also specimens of various Indian dialects, legends, poems, etc. ( source: The principal works of
Father De Smet are: "Letters and Sketches, with a Narrative of a Year's Residence among the Indian Tribesof the Rocky Mountains" (Philadelphia, 1843), translated into French, German, Dutch, and Italian; "Oregon Missions and Travels over the Rocky Mountains in 1845-46" (New York, 1847), translated into French and Flemish; "Voyage au grand désert en 1851" (Brussels, 1853); "Western Missions and Missionaries" (New York, 1863),
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