"By 1870 an estimated 30,000 Montana Territory confederates, Texas cattlemen, gold miners, settlers, ranchers, farmers and businessmen had illegally emigrated to Blackfoot Confederacy lands reserved by the 1855 Treaty, violating that provision in the 1855 Treaty for the United States to protect Indians "from the depredations of white men passing through or living in their country may commit." Fort Benton whiskey traders had established illegal whiskey trading posts in Blackfoot Country that addicted the desperate Indians and broke the power of the chiefs to outlaw whiskey in the Indian camps. The chiefs strongly opposed the whiskey trade which had accelerated the extermination of the tribal buffalo herds for their hides to ship to eastern markets. The Blackfeet Indians could not escape the whiskey traders, who followed the Indians onto the reservations."
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau
pg.21-22
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