Charlo followed a policy of peace with the American settlers in Southwestern Montana and with the soldiers at nearby Fort Missoula.

[1][2] After the extermination of the buffalo herds, Charlo struggled for twenty years to maintain his people's economic independence in their homeland, the Bitterroot Valley.

Charlo's people practiced a seasonal round, traveling once or twice a year to the plains to hunt buffalo.

In 1841, Jesuit priests opened St. Mary's Mission in the Bitterroot Valley, and it became a religious and social center for the tribe.

[4] Charlo married a woman named Margaret, and they had three children: Martin, Ann Felix, and Victor.

When Congressman James A. Garfield arrived to carry out the order in 1872, the conflict over land claims nearly escalated into a military clash.

Charlo's signature was forged on the published version of the agreement, and Arlee led part of the tribe to the Flathead Reservation in 1873.

Most of the Salish people remained with Charlo in the Bitterroot, and some received "permanently inalienable" patents to farms in the valley.

A speech printed in 1876 by Montana newspapers expressed the devastation and betrayal felt by Charlo towards the white settlers and the U.S. military and government representatives.

In part it read:"Since our forefathers first beheld (Lewis and Clark), more than seven times ten winters have snowed and melted ... We were happy when (the white men) first came.

(But) he has filled graves with our bones ... His course is destruction; he spoils what the spirit who gave us this country made beautiful and clean.

[11] As the tribe's situation grew desperate, Charlo began to consider the U.S. government's offer of land on the Flathead Reservation.

[13] In October 1889, retired general Henry B. Carrington arrived in Montana to negotiate with Charlo and convince him to sign an agreement that would allow the sale of his allotment in the Bitterroot.

[14] Charlo's signature would express the willingness of Bitterroot Salish to leave their ancestral homeland and move to the Flathead.

Carrington worked to gain Charlo's trust, visiting him at his farm before the negotiations began and giving him gifts of cigars and food supplies.

When the negotiations finally began in Stevensville, Montana, Carrington brought out the original 1872 Garfield agreement to corroborate Charlo's claim that he never signed it.

Charlo emphasized that he and the Bitterroot Salish had remained friendly to the whites in spite of all their broken promises.

Carrington argued that Charlo needed to remove to the Flathead to stop the young Salish men from gambling, drinking, brawling, and stealing.

Charlo and his people, counting on Carrington's promise that the move would take place in 1890, did not plant crops on their farms in the Bitterroot that spring.

Even if they had wanted to, the drought of 1889 had left them so impoverished that they could not afford seed, and in spite of its promise of assistance, the government failed to provide more than starvation rations.

By the winter of 1890, Charlo's people were forced to barter away their horses, harnesses, plows, and even stoves in order to feed themselves.

It took three days to travel the sixty miles to the Jocko Agency where agent Peter Ronan welcomed the people with a feast.

[22] After his arrival at the Flathead Indian Reservation, Charlo spent much of his time seeking fulfillment of the unfounded promises made by Carrington.

It described his attitude, "Charlot feels that he and his people were deeply injured by these officials [government negotiators] and has never forgiven the white race for this injury.