Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation was the last Indian reservation created in Montana and its creation marked a turning point in the lives of many Montana Chippewa-Cree. Created in reaction to the poverty of Montana’s urban Indians, the reservation owes its existence to persistent efforts of Cree leader Little Bear, Chippewa leader Rocky Boy, and their white allies, particularly writer and politician Frank Bird Linderman, artist Charles M. Russell, Great Falls founder and senator Paris Gibson, and Great Falls Tribune newspaper publisher William Bole. Examine how this style of taking a stand--of pursuing a specific goal succeeded when many different cultural leaders combined their efforts.
Secondary Sources
Dusenberry, Verne, "The Rocky Boy Indians: Montana's Displaced People" Montana The Magazine of Western History 4(1) 1954, 1-15
River, Celeste. A mountain in his memory : Frank Bird Linderman, his role in acquiring the Rocky Boy Indian Reservation for the Montana Chippewa and Cree, and the importance of that experience in the development of his literary career. 1990.
Shane, Ralph, "Brief History of the Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation Montana, 1969" [970.5 Sh3]
Wessel, Thomas A History of the Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation [Done under Contract to the BIA]
Primary Sources at the Montana Historical Society
Frank Bird Linderman Papers, 1911-1936
Wandering American-Born Indians of RockyBoy's Band, Montana, Senate Reports, Vol. 4, 58th Cong. 2nd Sess., Report No. 1020, 1904
Primary and Secondary Sources on the Internet
Montana: Stories of the Land (Helena, MT, 2008), 304-305 (good brief background)
"Montana's Landless Indians and the Assimilation Era of Federal Indian Policy: A Case of Contradiction" (Montana Historical Society andMontana Office of Public Instruction, 2015).
Vertical Files at the Montana Historical Society
Little Bear
Rocky Boy
Rocky Boy Indian Reservation
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