VERSO
Titled and dated
Artist label

Chief Charlo (Little Claw of the Grizzly Bear) was the Chief of the Salish Tribe after the death of his father Chief Victor in 1870. The Salish were living in Montana’s Bitterroot Valley at that time and Charlo was the Salish’s lead negotiator against the government, which wanted the Salish to relocate to the Flathead Reservation in the Mission Valley. Charlo wanted the tribe to stay in the Bitterroot Valley and he refused to sign the government documents presented in 1872 by orders of Congress. Charlo said, “I will never sign your paper, my heart belongs to this valley. I will never leave it.” Charlo and most of the Salish people stayed in the Bitterroot Valley until they were forced to leave in 1891 due to crop failures and hunger. Chief Charlo passed away in 1910.

PROVENANCE
The artist
A. J. Gibson, ca. 1917, gifted to
Franklin K. Rutherford, Missoula, Montana, ca. 1920s
Present owner, Arizona, by descent