The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.46-47

The 1888 Blackfeet Agreement implemented the United States Indian policy of purchase of Indian lands and a promise of tribal sovereignty in America.  The policy made by Congress is that Indian Reservations established by treaty and ratified by Congress are to be governed under the Indian Trade and Non-Intercourse Acts passed by Congress beginning in 1790 and ending in 1834.  The Congressional acts made it illegal for States or citizens to purchase Indian property absent the prior approval of Congress and consent of the Indians.  The intent of the Indian Trade and Non-Intercourse Acts introduced by President George Washington are to prohibit white citizens in introducing alcohol in Indian Country and prevent land speculators robbing title to Indian property.  Rules and Regulations of the Indian Department stated the Blackfoot Indians possessed sole rights of occupancy to the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, and could "alienate" Blackfeet lands only by sale to the United States:  "The fee to the reservation is in the United States, the right of the Indians to their use and occupancy is as sacred as that to the Government to the fee." The Indians have the treaty right to apply to their own use and benefit the entire products of the Reservation, whether the result of their own labor or of natural growth, so they do not commit waste.  Department of the Interior Indian Department Regulations provided penalties for grazing trespass upon Indian reservations and introducing whiskey on Indian lands.  Item No.529 stated that no one could graze stock on an Indian reservation without the permission of the Indians and their agent, and a grazing fee had to be approved by both the Agent and the Indian Office.  It is illegal even to drive stock across and Indian reservation unless there was an approved cattle trail subject to the approval of the agent.  By 1865 there were hundreds of thousands of head of white stockmen's cattle, sheep, and horses driven across the Blackfeet reservation to Canada.  The official opening of Blackfoot Confederacy lands hardly seemed necessary, given the open use of Blackfeet Indian grazing lands by Montana stockmen since the 1860's.  Old time cowboy John Hall told senate Indian committee investigator Walter W. Liggitt that he estimated there were upwards of 265,000 head of cattle on the Blackfeet reservation by the 1860's, twenty five years before the Indian lands were ceded to the United States.  In the years 1884-1885 the Texas cattle herds increased in number and size until an agitation was started to divide the Blackfeet reservation north of the Marias and Missouri rivers, and open this large area to the white stockmen.  Cattle herds continued to arrive by the tens of thousands and were thrown on the already overstocked and depleted range.  Millions of acres of fine grazing lands including the Marias and Milk River Valleys were added to the public domain but the cattlemen had already moved in.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau    
pg.46-47