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Article 1/26/05 |
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Indians
can manage just fine, thank you
Letter to the Editor
Missoulian
1/26/05 |
Del
Palmer's letter to the editor about the National Bison
Range dispute suggests that remembering a little history
could be useful.
There were bison in the Mission Valley long before the
creation of the Bison Range in 1908. While whites were
slaughtering the animal on the plains, an Indian named
Samuel, also known as Walking Coyote, brought two heifers
and two young bulls into the valley in the 1870s, reputedly
as a peace offering for some angry in-laws.
Two Indians, Michael Pablo and Charles Allard, bought
the little herd in 1884 and kept it growing. Allard died
in 1896, but Pablo kept his half of the herd. By the early
1900s it numbered around 700 free-ranging bison.
Then somebody decided that those Salish and Kootenai people
just had too damned much land. In 1904, our government
took it, gave each Indian a little bit and opened up the
rest to white homesteaders. Palmer talks about jobs being
placed in jeopardy. I guess the Salish and Kootenai know
a little bit about that.
That left Michael Pablo with a problem. He had all those
big, shaggy, healthy buffalo, but there was no free range
for them any more. He tried and failed to get the federal
government to do something, and finally sold the herd
to Canada, which caused a stink - that Indian selling
our buffalo off to a bunch of foreigners.
Ultimately, the National Bison Range was formed, with
bison from somewhere else, which would have been unnecessary
if the tribes still had their land. But what the whole
story illustrates, beyond offering another sad example
of governmental perfidy, is that those Indians probably
know a little bit about managing their sacred animal.
Paul W. Moomaw, Missoula
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