Monseigneur. (28)
The year 1845 will be a memorable epoch in the sad annals of the Blackfeet nation. It has been a year of disasters. In two skirmishes with the Flatheads and Kalispets, they lost twenty-one warriors. The (:sees have carried off a great number of their horses, and twenty-seven scalps. The Crows have struck thern a mortal blow-fifty families, the entire band of Little Robe,' were lately massacred, and i6o, women and children have been led into captivity.
What a dreadful state for these unfortunate beings! In the first excitement, numbers of the captives were sacrificed by the Crow squaws to the manes of their husbands, brothers, fathers or children. The survivors were con demned to slavery. The scarlet fever shortly after made its appearance in the conquerors' camp, and spread rapidly from lodge to lodge. The Crows thought themselves attacked by smallpox. The Blackfeet had suffered from this scourage a few years previous, and thousands had fallen victims to it
The Crows, therefore, interrogated their captives to know by what means they had escaped death. A dark spirit of vengeance seized the latter; they counseled cold baths as
only efficacious remedy to stop the progress of the disease. The sick immediately plunged into the water, and mothers went to the river to bathe their little children. Some plunged into their graves; others gave up their last sigh while endeavoring to reach the shore-and disconsolate mothers returned to their cabins with dead or expiring infants in their arms. Cries of despair succeeded to the shouts of victory - desolation and mourning replaced the
30 Letter dated Fort of the Mountains, October 30, 1845.
29 This statement no doubt explains the disappearance from contemporary Indian literature of the Little Robe band of Blackfeet. Catlin spoke them in the early 3o's, but they seem to have been little known, and were probably not a large band.