Page:The Indian Dispossessed.pdf/82

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The Story of the Bitter Root

vote the proceeds to their establishment on the Jocko. The terms were accepted, and in 1890, after eighteen years of endeavor as an independent people, maintaining to the last the peace they had promised to General Garfield, Charlos and his band surrendered their beloved valley of the Bitter Root.

Such a surrender arouses a mingled feeling of relief and added interest. Of relief, for the vanquished are no more under the stern displeasure that has borne them down; of added interest, for it brings opportunity to a magnanimous victor.

This is the record in the Great Book:

"The last arrangement with this unfortunate band and the delay in its consummation has entirely discouraged the Indians. They are now helpless and poverty-stricken on their land in that valley, looking forward to the promise for the sale of lands patented to certain members of that band and to their removal to this reservation. The hope was given them, when their consent was secured for an appraisement and sale of their lands and improvements, that arrangements would be made to remove them to the Jocko reservation before the 1st of March, 1890, in order to give them an opportunity to select lands on the reserve and to put in crops to harvest this year. With that view they could not be induced to plough or sow their land in the Bitter Root Valley. They are destitute of means

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