Indian Chiefs Vs. Government Agents : Politics and Law Enforcement on the Flathead Indian Reservation, Montana, 1875–1910

In Indian Chiefs vs. Government Agents Robert J. Bigart examines the years of dramatic change that occurred between 1875 and 1910 for the Salish and Kootenai tribes of the Flathead Indian Reservation in western Montana. Major changes in the tribal economy were accompanied by the growing power of the Flathead Indian agent on the reservation. The tribes moved from a hunting-gathering economy supplemented by farming and livestock in 1875 to a ranching and farming economy supplemented by hunting and gathering in 1910. After 1885 the Flathead agent directed a new tribal police force that replaced the traditional police directed by the chiefs. The agency police and, later, the Missoula County sheriff and the federal and state court systems competed with the chiefs for control of law and order on the reservation. Yet through it all the agent had to accommodate the chiefs and tribal leaders to maintain law and order.

Indians Chiefs vs. Government Agents recounts the metamorphosis of the Flathead Reservation’s economy and politics and reveals the competence and astuteness of tribal members as they resisted Office of Indian Affairs and federal impositions on their lands. The Salish and Kootenai navigated a rapidly changing world, and though they lost some political and economic battles, the tribes never stopped fighting to protect tribal members and their interests.