Salish
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FOUR
DIRECTIONS INSTITUTE
Salish |
| Ethnie: | SALISH (FLATHEAD) |
| Language: | Kalispel-Pend d'Orielle |
| Family: | Southern Interior Salish |
| Stock: | Interior Salishan |
| Phylum: | Salishan |
| Macro-Culture: | Northwest Plateau |
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| The Salish were hunter/gatherer tribes of the eastern Northwestern Plateau. They were probably driven westward out of the Great Plains by the Blackfeet. Their aboriginal territory was the western slope of the Rocky Mountains from Gallatin to Helena and east to the Little Belt Ranges. They ultimately settled around Flathead Lake. |
| They were active traders with the Whites and most of the other western and northern plains tribes. Theirs was the most common trade language of the plains. They did, however, have severe conflicts with the Blackfeet and took considerable losses as a result. Thought they relinquished most of their territories with the Hell Gate Treaty of 1855, they did not settle on their present reservation until 1872. |
| Aboriginal Locations (Subdivisions) |
| MT (4) |
|
| Year | History |
| 1700 | Acquired horses by theft |
| 1760 | Smallpox epidemic |
| 1781 | Smallpox epidemic |
| 1787 | Visited by David Thompson |
| 1795 | Mentioned by Pierred Antoin Tabeau as trading with the Mandans |
| 1805 | Visited by Lewis and Clark |
| 1808 | Hudson Bay Company Jocko Finlay lived two years among tribe |
| 1809 | David Thompson established Kullyspell House trading post on Lake Pend d'Orielle |
| 1810 | David Thompson established Spokane House |
| 1811 | David Thompson explored the length of the Columbia River |
| 1812 | Flathead Post (Saleesh House) established |
| 1841 | Influx of Oregon Trail settlers began, conflicts followed; Fr. de Smet founded St. Mary's Mission in the Bitterroot Valley among the tribe |
| 1851 | Treaty of Fort Laramie |
| 1855 | Reservation established, Hell Gate Treaty |
| 1860 | Beginning of four years of gold finds in territory |
| 1865 | 50 killed in Sioux raids |
| 1869 | Acquired smallpox from Gros Ventre |
| 1870 | Crow-Sioux wars |
| 1871 | Bitterroots overrun by White settlers |
| 1872 | Established on present reservation |
| 1910 | Reservation opened |
| 1916 | Won part of $4 million judgment for acreage forfeited in 1855. |
| Year | U.S. Population | Source |
| 1700 | 2,000 | NAHDB calculation |
| 1780 | 600 | Mooney estimate (Surely low) |
| 1780 | 3,000 | Teit estimate (Probably high) |
| 1800 | 2,000 | NAHDB calculation |
| 1805 | 600 | Lewis and Clark estimate (probably incomplete) |
| 1866 | 522 | St. Mary's Census |
| 1871 | 571 | St. Mary's Census |
| 1900 | 600 | NAHDB calculation |
| 1905 | 557 | US Indian Office |
| 1909 | 598 | US Indian Office |
| 1910 | 486 | Census |
| 1930 | 2,036 | US Indian Office |
| 1937 | 3,085 | US Indian Office |
| 1973 | 2,955 | BIA |
| 1981 | 3,300 | BIA |
| 1989 | 6,200 | BIA estimate |
| 2000 | 6,900 | NAHDB calculation |
| 2003 | 1.650 | Tribe |
Last updated 02/29/08 Copyright © 2008 by Four Directions Press