“If they attempt to move us, there will be blood in this country. . . In another year you would have had all the Indians farming if you had helped us with tools to work with. Now you want us to leave our farms and we don’t propose to do it.” Kalispel chief quoted in John Fahey’s, The Kalispel Indians.
The Hell Gate Treaty of 1855 created the Flathead Reservation in western Montana. Some Kalispel moved to Montana but many remained in the Pend Oreille valley. In 1887 the federal government attempted to persuade the remaining Kalispel to relocate to the Flathead Reservation, but it was only partially successful. While one major band moved east, another, under the leadership of Victor (son of Loyola), refused to relocate.
Finally, in 1914, the Kalispel were awarded a permanent reservation in the Pend Oreille River valley when President Woodrow Wilson signed an executive order that set aside 4,629 acres as the Kalispel Reservation. While the Kalispel Reservation marked a kind of victory for the Indians who remained in the valley despite pressure from white settlers, the reservation was a mere shadow of the 230 square miles the Kalispel had traditionally utilized.
