09/02/2022
Charlo (also Charlot; Claw of the Little Grizzly or Small Grizzly-Bear Claw) (c. 1830-1910) was the leader of the Bitterroot Salish from 1870 to 1910.
Charlo was born around 1830, before there was a permanent white colony in what is now Montana. His father was Chief Victor (a lot of horses or a lot of horses). Charlo grew up in the Bitterroot Valley, the ancestral home of his people, where every landscape had a coyote story, tribal event, or family history attached to it. The inhabitants of Charlo practiced a seasonal walk, going once or twice a year in the plains to hunt buffalo. During Charlo’s childhood, the Radiceamara Salish were recovering from a population decline caused by smallpox and wars fueled by the westward movement of the plains tribes who had driven the Great Plains Salish in previous generations. In 1841, Jesuit priests opened the Sainte-Marie Mission in the Bitterroot Valley, which became a religious and social center for the tribe. It also became Montana's first permanent white colony. So when Charlo came of age, his people were taken in a diplomatic dance to forge alliances with western tribes, to defend their ancestral buffalo hunting rights in the face of pressure from the plains tribes, and to maintain peace. peace with the growing white population. Charles married a woman named Margaret, and they had three children: Martin, Ann Felix and Victor.
In 1855 the Treaty of Hellgate was signed and he became a major force influencing Charlo's path. This treaty between the Salish, Pend d'Oreilles and Kootenais and the United States government provided for the Flathead Indian Reservation in the lower valley of the Flathead River and a second provisional reserve in the Bitterroot Valley. The treaty called for an inquiry into the Bitterroot Valley, after which the President would decide which valley would be "best suited to the needs of the Flathead Tribe." The treaty also promised to keep the Bitterroot Valley closed to white settlement until the investigation was completed. The treaty effectively weakened the Salish tribe's legal claims to Bitterroot Valley. Father Adrian Hoecken, SJ, watched the council's work and thought the treaty was a joke, writing: “What a tragic and ridiculous comedy the whole council has demonstrated. It would take too long to write everything down - oh well! Not a tenth of this was really understood by either side, as Ben Kyser [the translator] speaks very poorly and is not good at translating into English. Congress did not ratify the treaty until 1859, leaving the Salish people in limbo. When the treaty was finally ratified, the government messed up almost everything. In particular, the government never fully examined the valley as promised and, distracted by the civil war, languished over whether to create a reserve in the Bitterroot Valley. He also failed to keep the white settlers out of Bitterroot as promised.
Charlo spent the rest of his life trying to hold the US government accountable for keeping its promises and standing up for the rights of his people to set aside land against white efforts to open up the reservation.
