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NATIVE BUT FOREIGN
Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands by Brenden W. Rensink, Texas A&M Press, 2018

Chapter 9, Note 54 (pages 192 and 268)

Concurrently federal officials struggled to prevent Chippewas and Crees from returning to Fort Assiniboine in anticipation of the approaching winter. (p. 192)

for further sources and discussion of Chippewa and Cree conditions in late 1913. (p. 268)

Fred Morgan felt that Rocky Boy’s band, then spread out across the state, should be forced to return to the Blackfeet Reservation and kept there under strict police supervision. Little Bear’s Crees were to be escorted under police supervision from Fort Harrison to the Flathead Agency on August 23, 1913. On August 24, Flathead Agency Superintendent Fred C. Morgan received word that Little Bear’s Crees had left and were already well on their way to Great Falls. Enraged, he reported to Commissioner Cato Sells that they had left on the 21st and were likely to arrive in Great Falls by the 1st of September. His final recommendation was, again, to confine Rocky Boy’s Chippewas on the Blackfeet Reservation until permanent solutions were found and to entice Little Bear’s Crees to accept the employment offer on the Flathead Reclamation Project.[1] With Fort Assiniboine off-limits, some turned to Hill County, where they had received aid them during the winter of 1912-13. The County proved less willing to assist in for the 1913-14 season. Should some return to Assiniboine in desperation, they faced a potential crisis of low supplies. Local General Land Office agent James Neal expressed concern that Fort Assiniboine, in its present condition, lacked necessary resources to support them the following winter.[2]

[1] Lewis Main to Fred C. Morgan, August 24, 1913, Dusenberry Fonds, GA; Fred C. Morgan to Cato Sells, August 25, 1913, Dusenberry Fonds, GA; Fred C. Morgan to Cato Sells, August 26, 1913, Dusenberry Fonds, GA; Fred C. Morgan to Cato Sells, August 28, 1913, Dusenberry Fonds, GA; and Fred C. Morgan to E. F. Tabor, September 2, 1913, Dusenberry Fonds, GA. At the same time, some of Rocky Boy’s band appeared at the Flathead Agency seeking aid. “Rocky Boy’s Band Helped Again by Morgan,” The Daily Missoulian, August 16, 1913, 2.

[2] James W. Neal to Cato Sells, September 2, 1913, RG 75, RB Files, NARA-DC. For complaints from Havre, see Victor R. Riggs to J. W. Neal, August 23, 1913, A.J. Jones to James Holland, September 8, 1913 and John Francis, Jr. To Franklin K. Lane, September 29, 1913, RG 75, RB Files, NARA-DC, Part 4; and “Asks for Removal of Indigent Indians,” Havre Plaindealer, August 30, 1913.