In 1841 Jesuit missionaries, led by Pierre-Jean DeSmet, established the St. Mary’s Mission among the Flathead Indians (also known as the Bitterroot Salish) in present-day Stevensville, Montana. The Mission was established at the request of the Flatheads who had heard about the power of the Blackrobes (the Indian term for the Jesuits) from Iroquois trappers sent into the area by the Canadian fur companies.
According to Indian agent Peter Ronan, in his 1890 book History of the Flathead Indians:
“On the 3d day of December, 1841, about one-third of the Flathead tribe were baptized into the Catholic faith, and the others who were under religious instructions were received into the fold on Christmas day of that same year.”
In his book Charlo’s People: The Flathead Tribe, Adolf Hungry Wolf reports:
“But after all their efforts to learn about the Catholic religion, the Flatheads were soon discouraged by the attitudes of the priests. The People wanted to add Catholicism to their own Ways of Life—not to exchange their Ways for the ways that the priests demanded.”
(See also Indians 201: Christianity Comes to the Flathead Indians)
Accompanying DeSmet were two other Jesuit priests—the scholarly priest Gregory Mengarini and the artist missionary Nicholas Point—and three lay brothers. Jesuit scholar Wilfred Schoenber, in his chapter in Religion in Montana: Pathways to the Present, reports:
“Mengarini produced several significant works in the Flathead language. Point painted Indians, gradually amassing a collection that compares favorably with that of Catlin and other early frontier artists.”
Father Anthony Ravalli arrived in 1844. Ravalli designed buildings, carved statues, made furniture, and practiced medicine. However, Ravalli was unable to learn an Indian language.
By 1846, there was much unrest among the Bitterroot Salish due to the ongoing battles with the Blackfoot who often ventured from their homelands east of the Rocky Mountains to capture Salish horses, which were often regarded as very fine. DeSmet, not understanding Indian ways, travelled to the Blackfoot to bring them Christianity. From a Salish perspective, this was a form of treason. The Salish felt that the spiritual power of the Blackrobes had helped them defeat the Blackfoot in battle. To give this power to their traditional enemies was cultural betrayal.
As a side note regarding DeSmet’s preaching to the Blackfoot, Father Lawrence Palladino, S.J., in his 1893 book Indian and White in the Northwest: A History of Catholicity in Montana 1831 to 1891, reports:
“As soon as he had finished his instruction, one of the chiefs came down to shake hands with him, saluting him in very good English and telling him, besides, that he had a rather poor interpreter.”
When asked where he had learned English, the man replied: “In Ireland.” The “chief” was actually an Irishman who had married into the Blackfoot tribe.
By 1847, it was obvious to the Jesuits that that fervor which the Bitterroot Salish had once shown for Christianity was gone. Father Ravalli, in his report to Rome, indicated that the Indians were now giving the missionaries a “chilly” reception. Ravalli notes that following DeSmet’s journey to convert the Blackfoot that:
“…they had given themselves up to their old war dances to savage obscenity and shameless excesses of the flesh.”
Ignorant of Salish culture, history, and language, Ravalli makes no connection between DeSmet’s betrayal and the Salish apostasy. He wrote to Rome:
“We knew that we were not to blame for such a change and we bewailed it all the more when we saw that they went on constantly getting worse.”
In 1850, the Jesuits closed St. Mary’s Mission and sold the property to a local trader who turned it into Fort Owen which served as a trading post for the Bitterroot Valley. The Jesuits abandoned the mission because they had little protection from Blackfoot attacks and many Salish had abandoned the mission (known historically as the Flathead Apostasy). Indian agent Peter Ronan, appointed to his post by the Catholic Church, in his 1890 book History of the Flathead Indians, blamed the lack of Salish protection for the mission on the traders:
“Those men—licentious, immoral and impure generally, who accept from the great fur companies of the west, situations as trappers, hunters, etc., lead wild and desolate lives, and in their career of debauchery among the simple natives, brooked no opposition, and looked with jealous eyes upon the missionaries’ teachings of Christianity and virtue, and in the councils of the Indians began to sow the seed of discontent against the missionaries for the new order of things, which deprived the Christianized Indian from as many wives as he choose to take and in prohibiting debauchery of the Indian women by those lewd camp followers.”
The remaining Jesuits—Father Joset and Brother Claessens—with a few remaining Christian Indians, loaded four wagons and three carts with the mission records, altar supplies, books, medicines, and tools, and left the mission.
In 1866, the Jesuits returned to restore the St. Mary’s Mission.
Since 1988 the Historic St. Mary’s Mission Complex in Stevensville, Montana has been administered by a non-profit organization as an educational experience for students, historians, travelers, and others. The Complex is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Shown below are photographs of the Chapel.
While St. Mary’s Mission was founded in 1841 by Father Pierre DeSmet, the chapel building in the Historic St. Mary’s Mission Complex was built in 1866. It was enlarged in 1879. The Mission was closed in 1891 when the U.S. Army force-marched the Bitterroot Salish to the Jocko Reservation (now called the Flathead Reservation). The chapel was re-opened in 1922 and served as a parish church until 1954.
Indians 101
Twice each week—on Tuesdays and Thursdays—this series looks at various American Indian topics. More from this series:
Indians 101: Salish artifacts in the Historic St. Mary's Mission Museum (museum tour)
Indians 101: Bitter Root Salish Through Jesuit Eyes (museum tour)
Indians 101: Bitterroot Salish Encampment (photo diary)
Indians 101: The Plateau Indian vision quest
Indians 101: Plateau Women's Gathering Bags (Photo Diary)
Indians 101: Plateau Horse Regalia (Photo Diary)
Indians 101: The Plateau Culture Area
Indians 101: Reborn Rez Wrecks (museum tour)