the race which has never ceased thrusting them farther back and despoiling them, would change to feelings of gratitude and good will.
In closing this letter, permit me, Reverend Father, to recommend to you in an especial manner the salvation of the Indians in your holy sacrifices, and believe me, with the profoundest respect and most sincere esteem,
University of St. Louis, Oct. 28, z855.
Reverend and Decor Father.-3
In some of my letters of 1846, I spoke of my visit to the Blackfeet. I sojourned among the four tribes, the Grosventres, Piegans,' Bloods, and Blackfeet' proper, about six weeks, and had the happiness of regenerating in the holy waters of baptism several hundred children and some adults. In the month of October, after having bid adieu to Father Point, who proposed passing the winter in the Indian
s Letter to F. Terwecoren, Editor Pricis Historiques, published as Letter of the Cinquante Nouvelles Lettres and translated thence as Letter XVIII, Western Missions and Missionaries. The latter text is here followed.
4 The tribe of the Piegans forms a portion of the six tribes known by the generic name of Blackfeet. The other five are the Blackfeet, properly so called, the Men of Blood, the Sarcees, the Little Robes, and the Grosventres. - Note by Father De Smet.
a The Blackfeet are divided into five principal tribes (about 16,0oo souls) -the Piegans, the Bloods, the Blackfeet Direct, the Sarcees and the Grosventres of the Plains. The Sarcees and Grosventres speak a distinct language, entirely different from that of the other three Blackfoot tribes. The Sarcees tell that their ancestors only came to the plains after having wandered for a long time upon an immense lake, at the mercy of the winds and floods. The Grosventres speak the same language as the Arapahos, who live on the south fork of the Platte and of [?] the Arkansas river, 1,200 miles from the plains where they dwell to-.:ay, and whither their ancestors withdrew in consequence of a quarrel-Note by Father Point.