"A Great Many of Us Have Good Farms": Agent Peter Ronan Reports on the Flathead Indian Reservation, Montana, 1877-1887

Peter Ronan (1839–93) was the government agent for the Salish and Kootenai tribes of the Flathead Indian Reservation in western Montana from 1877 until his death. It was a period of rapid cultural and economic change for the tribes as hunting and gathering resources declined and the surrounding white population exploded in western Montana. As an ex-newspaperman, Ronan provided reports to the commissioner of Indian Affairs with unusually full and...