Allotment and Fee-Patenting on the Flathead Indian Reservation, 1904–1934

Historical Research Associates senior historian Ian Smith examines the impact of the federal government’s allotment and fee-patenting policies on the Flathead Indian Reservation. A product of the United States’ broader assimilationist agenda, the fee-patenting of Flathead allotments, which reached its peak in 1917, led to massive land loss by Salish and Kootenai tribal members before the policy was halted in 1934.