"Agent Young reported, "I.G. Baker and Rice of Fort Benton pasturing 12,000 head of cattle on reservation, has been incorporated into Benton and St. Louis Cattle Co. have once again strayed on reservation. R.S. Ford, Texas Cattle King feels sure that report of his cattle being stopped at Birch Creek and permission refused to cross reservation in error." The Texas cattlemen then tried to spark an Indian massacre; and "expressed concern for their safety and protection of their cattle herds and property from the Blackfeet Indians." Captain Moale from Fort Shaw assured the Fort Benton merchants and Texas cattlemen of Choteau County that "the idea of those poor starved and unarmed wretches going on the warpath was laughable." There was no Blackfeet uprising-despite the deaths of some 600 Blackfeet Indians from starvation in the winter of 1883-1884. The most damning evidence of government neglect of the Indians was provided by Inspector C.H. Howard, who warned the Indian Office that there were already Blackfeet Indians starving to death in November of 1883, "It was my first experience in witnessing actual starvation; I have never before visited an agency where there was so complete destitution. Children and adults are dying for want of proper nourishment when sick. There are thousands of cattle roving over the hills and valleys surrounding the reservation. I have even seen them on the land which still remains a part of the domain of this tribe."
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau
pg.36-37
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