Stevensville Founders Day event tops off Montana history conference
Following more than 18 months of planning, the 2016 Founders Day took place last Saturday at Historic St. Mary’s Mission in Stevensville. No doubt the cool, cloudy fall weather was a factor in the lower than expected attendance – estimated at somewhere between 300 and 1000 – at Founders Day, but the event was nonetheless remarkable as it commemorated the historic relationship established between the Salish people and the Jesuit missionaries 175 years ago that was the beginning of what eventually became the Stevensville of today. This was also the final event of the three-day annual conference of the Montana Historical Society which took place in Hamilton. The day was filled with speakers, reenactments, demonstrations, exhibits, Salish drumming and singing. The Stevensville Main Street associated provided lunch. In the evening, an outdoor Mass was celebrated on the Mission grounds by visiting Bishop George Leo Thomas of Helena and Father Matthew Huber, followed by a potluck hosted by the Knights of Columbus.
The Founding
A light rain dampened the ground at Historic St. Mary’s Mission in Stevensville as the community turned out to commemorate the 175th anniversary of the founding of Montana’s oldest pioneer settlement. On that same day, September 24, back in 1841, Father Pierre Jean DeSmet, together with his fellow Jesuit missionaries, Fathers Gregory Mengarini and Nicolas Point, and three Lay Brothers, arrived in the Bitter Root valley with their belongings and supplies in three carts and a wagon, the first vehicles to enter the area.
A dramatic re-enactment of that first encounter between the Salish (Séliš), “The People,” and the Jesuit Missionaries, the “Black Robes,” has become a regular part of the annual commemoration of the event. The script for the re-enactment was written by Stevensville author and publisher Dale Burk.
Steve Lozar, accompanied by Keiton Flamand, performed the smudging ceremony at the beginning of the commemoration.
Dr. Brian Matz, from Fontbonne University in St. Louis, an expert on the life of Father DeSmet, spoke about the role of the Iroquois Indians that arrived in the valley with the Hudson Bay Company. The company was in the valley by as early as 1812, but around 1820 the company brought in some Iroquois trappers who ended up being adopted into the local Salish tribe.
It was these Iroquois that introduced the Salish to Christianity and their stories of the “Black Robes” and their Book.
Between 1831 and 1839, Salish Chief Tjolzhitsay (Big Face, baptized Paul) sent four delegations to St. Louis requesting the Black Robes to come to the Bitter Root valley.
When it finally happened, the missionaries were welcomed and a church was eventually built. But there was trouble, especially with the Blackfeet Indians who did not get along with the Salish. The church was sold to Major John Owen and eventually intentionally burnt down. Fort Owen was built on the site.
The trouble that came with increased settlement led to the Council Grove Treaty, known officially as the Hellgate Treaty of 1855. The Hellgate Treaty was understood by the Salish to mean the Bitter Root Valley would stay in the hands of the Salish and white settlement would be limited.
Ten years later, in 1866, the Jesuits decided to return to the Bitterroot.
The Séliš
Although the Salish (Séliš) believed the Hellgate Treaty of 1855 meant the Bitter Root Valley would stay in the hands of the Salish and white settlement would be limited, that was not what happened. Settlers kept moving into the area and Isaac Stevens, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, voiced his intent to obtain cession of ownership by the Salish in favor of expanded settlement by “Americans.”
Slem-cry-cre, Little Bear Claw, known by his Christian name Chief Victor, resisted and language was inserted that defined the Bitter Root Valley as a “conditional reservation.” Victor made his mark, believing that the treaty would support “The People” in what they considered their homeland and would limit settlement by others in the valley.
Chief Victor died of an illness on July 4, 1870 on a buffalo hunt at the Three Forks of the Missouri River and his son Charlo (Little Grizzly Bear Claw, baptized Charles) was named chief. But settlement of the area did not slow up and by 1872 the Hellgate Treaty was renegotiated by president-to-be James Garfield and the Bitter Root Valley was removed from federal protection and support and a reservation was established in the Flathead Valley.
Chief Charlo, with the remaining band, continued to resist moving and kept his small band in the area of St. Mary’s Mission. Life was difficult, railroad tracks were run through their lands and the only support was primarily from the Jesuit missionaries. The pressure continued to build and in 1891 the remaining Salish were forced to march on their own ‘Trail of Tears’ to the Jocko Reservation.
The Salish group did not return to the Bitter Root until October of 1911 when a pilgrimage was made back to their homeland along the banks of the Bitterroot River. Since then it has become an annual event for many tribal members. Some of the Salish have made the annual pilgrimage to the Bitterroot valley since they were little children.
Mary “Dolly” Linsebigler is one of those pilgrims. Her grandfather, Baptiste Dominic Finley, was born near the Mission at Stevensville. She said her grandfather’s sister Mary Peche (Anirs) told her many stories about life in the Bitterroot Valley before they were forced out.
“We still think of this place as our home,” she said. She and her family drumming group, “Snylemn,” filled the air with a rhythm and sang in a tongue that the place itself surely recognizes, since this kind of drumming and singing has filled the air in the Bitter Root valley for thousands of years.
As Bruce Whittenberg, from the Montana Historical Society, put it, the pioneer settlement of the Bitterroot valley is a very short story compared to the time the tribe has called it home, for about 10,000 years.
In honor of the first inhabitants, Historic St. Mary’s Mission has established a permanent Salish “encampment” on the grounds. The sign was made by Chris and Marina Weatherly and reads, “This encampment was built in humble respect to the Séliš (Bitterroot Salish) people, who called the valley home for many generations and whose spirit will forever dwell here.” It is accompanied by a quote from Salish elder Louise Vandeberg, “When we go home I think about our old people, I walk lightly when I walk around. The bones of my grandparents and their grandparents are all around here…”
Father Ravalli
Father Anthony Ravalli, S.J. born in Ferrara, Italy in 1812, is the most famous of the Jesuits who served at St. Mary’s Mission. A world away from his roots, he became the beloved priest, physician, pharmacist, sculptor, architect, machinist and friend to Native Americans of the Northwest, serving from 1845 to 1884, and never returning to Italy, according to the mission’s website.
The county is named after him.
The first descendant of Father Anthony Ravalli’s family to come to the valley since the 1800’s was Carlo Ravalli with his wife Cristina from Ferrara, Italy who visited the Mission in August of 2005.
Last Saturday, Guglielmo Ravalli, Carlo’s son, came all the way from New York City, where he lives, to give a commemoration speech in honor of his distant relative.
Here is an excerpt from his speech:
“Visiting St Mary’s mission yesterday was for me a very special and touching experience: I immediately felt the hardship and the challenges of those early days, but I also felt how significant was the contribution of those extraordinary individuals who dedicated their lives to the people living in this region.
“I wish I could have come here telling you that in the Ravalli family we are all like Father Anthony. That it is all in the genes…
“Don’t get me wrong, we are good people, some intelligent, many highly educated: engineers, doctors, architects, artists.
“The difference is that Antonio Ravalli combined all those skills and competences in only one man.
“He arrived in this place when he was more or less my age. He came from Italy, from Ferrara, my hometown, with only a trunk, his brains and an enormous heart.
“He built his own tools, he designed and erected this church, he healed suffering people, he contributed to deploy agriculture in the region. And I am forgetting many more of his achievements.
“What else can one accomplish in a lifetime?
“Even more remarkably, Father Anthony dedicated himself, he gave himself, to the physical and mental well-being of complete strangers.
“This was his choice, his real purpose in life. And I am delighted to be here today to honor his memory as one of the founding fathers.
“Tomorrow morning I will travel back to my wife and my children and, besides showing them pictures of the tepee tents (for which they will get extremely excited), I will tell them what a great man Antonio Ravalli was, and what fantastic friends he managed to connect us with here in Montana, almost two centuries later.”
