The Indian Dispossessed
surveyed and examined in accordance with the eleventh article of the treaty of July 16, 1855, concluded at Hell Gate, in the Bitter Root Valley, between the United States and the Flathead, Kootenai, and Upper Pend d'Oreilles Indians, which was ratified by the Senate March 8, 1859, has proved, in the judgment of the President, not to be better adapted to the wants of the Flathead tribe than the general reservation provided for in said treaty; it is therefore deemed unnecessary to set apart any portion of said Bitter Root Valley as a separate reservation for Indians referred to in said treaty. It is therefore ordered and directed that all Indians residing in said Bitter Root Valley be removed as soon as practicable to the reservation provided for in the second article of said treaty. . . ."
This effectually cleared the land of the Indian title. One would infer that the general reservation must have been a better land than the Flathead home, although the best portions of the Jocko had long since been taken by the tribes already there. The missionary to the Flatheads wrote an earnest letter of protest, and this is his opinion of the land:
"I am satisfied to say—and I know the ground, every inch—that in that whole flat not a couple of hundred acres of middling farming-land can be taken. Besides, what there is of good land is in small, narrow strips, spots, and patches, far apart one from the other. Hence the necessity of fenc-
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