State's first white Christmas

Young Ross Cox kept a diary when he came up the Columbia River to Spokane House in 1812, and when he worked with great difficulty, eastward to the Flathead country the following year. His boss in the Northwest Fur Company gave orders that if he and the "brigade" men got to starving he should kill the skinniest horses for food. A measure of this English teacher's personality was when the hunger arrived, he ate the fattest horse.

Ross and his weary band of fur traders reached the confluence of the Flathead and Clark's Fork rivers, about 40 miles below Flathead Lake, on Dec. 24, 1813. Another trader, McMillan, who also worked for Astor, had already erected a fort at that spot but he had nothing to trade to the Indians. Cox had the goodies, ammunition, tobacco, rice, tea, coffee, and the greatest prize, 15 gallons of "prime rum." A major band of Salish Indians, wrongly called Flatheads, were camped near McMillan's buildings. They were delighted to see those provisions, brought from New York around the horn of South America by Astor's ships.

On Christmas day, word reached the teenage Ross Cox a warrior band of the Salish had just returned from the high plains where they had captured a mixed group of their hated and dreaded enemies, the Blackfeet. Now it was time to torture them to death one by one, so Ross went over to the Indian camp to watch. The slow death of a Blackfeet warrior tied to a tree and killed by inches was almost more than he could stand.

When Ross objected to the torture games, several of the Salish revenge seekers jeered him, saying the Blackfeet treated captured Salish the same and it was a part of their historic rituals. They also said they were not about to give up this form of gratification because of foolish and womanish feelings of white men. Then a 15- or 16-year-old girl was brought out and an old Salish priestess took charge of putting her to death. Cox drew the line. He said, "As much as we esteem your fine furs and value your friendship, the trading post will be closed and the white men will leave with the guns and trade goods… if the tortures are not discontinued."

It was a risky ultimatum, but, in spite of the furious old priestess, the girl was returned to the other prisoners. There followed considerable howling from the pro-torture group who even called those weakened "cowards and fools with the hearts of fleas." Cox told the cooler heads it would be better for the Salish to have guns to protect themselves from the stronger and more numerous Blackfeet. He eventually talked them into giving the prisoners enough food and equipment to make it back to Blackfeet country.

These actions actually did result in less warfare between the two tribes in following years.

Native hunters had shot mountain sheep in the cliffs above the camp, so with fresh meat, spices, smokes and rum, the first white man's Christmas in Montana came to a joyful end those 194 years ago. All this made it possible for us to have pro football on TV, McDonald's, shopping malls and the Interstate. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

(Note: Ross Cox lived to return to his home and wrote a book, "Cox's Adventures on the Columbia River." In his 1890 "Historical Sketch of the Flathead Indian Nation," Major Ronan says the Cox book was published in England in 1818). (This column is a reprint).

G. George Ostrom is the news director of KOFI radio and a Hungry Horse News columnist.