"Black Robes."

During the 1830s four delegations of Plateau Indians made the long journey to St. Louis, generally seeking religious instruction and assistance. The representatives of the Flatheads, influenced by the Catholic Iroquois who had settled among them, directed their appeals specifically to the Jesuit "Black Robes." In 1839 one group found Jesuit priest Pierre-Jean De Smet, who had been making little headway among the Osages and was elated at the prospect of an enthusiastic audience. With the approval of his superiors, De Smet embarked in 1840 on a grand tour of the Western tribes. Among those he visited were the Cheyennes, Mandans, Kansas, Lakotas, Crows, Blackfeet, Snakes, Bannocks, Kalispels, Nez Perces, Flatheads, Kutenais, and Coeur d'Alenes. The Belgian priest cut an imposing figure in his black cassock, and word spread among the Native Americans about this new spiritual leader. In the Pierre Hole Valley of...