The Story of the Bitter Root
". . . Such being the case, the consequences can be easily foreseen. Either the Flatheads will not move to that new place, or they will soon abandon it, or if they should remain there the Government will have to feed and support them, since they could never become self-sustaining on it. The first remark I heard from the Indians on this subject, on my return from Helena, was simply this: 'The Great Chief has no heart for the Indians, since he intends to make them settle down on rocks.' . . .
"Besides the two objections above, there is a third one, deserving even more particular consideration. All the Flatheads are practical Catholics. There in the Bitter Root Valley they have a Catholic mission and church to themselves; two of our missionaries live among them to instruct them in their religious duties and minister to them in all their spiritual wants. . . .
"We would have no means to start a new mission for them in their new home. Consequently, those poor Flatheads will be made also necessarily to suffer in what is most dear to them, in what they value more than anything else in this world, viz., their religion and the practice of it. When the whole Flathead tribe will be notified of this fact I doubt not that their unwillingness and repugnance to move thither will be intensely increased.
"Hoping, dear sir, that you will give these my observations the consideration your kindness may
57
