The Swan Valley Massacre was an incident in 1908 in which four Pend d'Oreilles Indians, members of an eight-person hunting party, were killed by a state game warden and his deputy in the Swan Valley in northwestern Montana. The state of Montana did not honor off-reservation hunting permits, although the hunting right was established by federal treaty. The game warden confronted the Pend d'Oreilles party and a gunfight ensued. Background The Bitterroot Salish (Flathead) and Pend d’Oreille (Kalispel) tribes of the Northern Rocky Mountain (Plateau) region of the Western United States had long occupied the area around Flathead Lake as their traditional territory. Their culture included hunting and gathering for their food. The Salish were known to war with the Blackfeet and Shoshone. With the rise of the fur trade with Europeans in the late eighteenth century, many Salish and Pend d’Oreilles became involved as trappers and traders. The Salish were visited by the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1805, who traded gifts of goods and horses with them. In the early 19th century, Jesuit Catholic missionaries, primarily French-speaking, came to live among the Salish in the Bitterroot Valley with the intent of converting the natives. They built a church. During the Steven’s Treaty era, Washington Territory Governor Isaac Stevens called the Salish, Pend d’Oreilles, and Ksanka Band of Kootenai together in 1855 to negotiate the Hellgate Treaty. By this treaty, the U.S. government established a reservation for and a peaceful confederation of these tribes. Confrontation According to the 1855 treaty, the confederated tribes retained the right to hunt, gather, and fish in their aboriginal territory, some of which was outside the reservation boundaries. After Montana acquired statehood in 1889, it established its own hunting and fishing regulations, to be enforced by game wardens. Only the federal government had jurisdiction within reservation borders, but in other areas, Montana state officials believed they had authority to regulate Native Americans as well as non-Native Americans. In September 1908 a party of eight Pend d’Oreille entered the ancient hunting grounds of the Swan Valley on the eastern side of the Mission Mountain range. The party members included Atwen Scwi, his wife, son, and daughter; Little Camille Paul and his pregnant wife; and two elders, Mary and her husband Martin Yellow Mountain. Before they had left the reservation, they purchased state hunting permits to avoid trouble, although this was not required under the Hellgate