The Chippewa Cree Tribe is a mixed group of Native Americans in Montana, among the last to come into the state. They are descended from Cree that had come south from Canada, and from Chippewa that had moved west from the Turtle Mountains in North Dakota.
The Chippewa-Chief Asiniiwin and Cree-Chief Little Bear were the founders of the Rocky Boy Indian Reservation in north central Montana for whom the Reservation was named. They petitioned President Theodore Roosevelt in January 1902 for land and a reservation to call home so their band of men, women and children could get an education. The members were counted in a 1909 census conducted by Thralls B. Wheat, an allotting agent of the Department of the Interior. This census was certified by the agency in April 1909.
Congress passed legislation on September 7, 1916, (39 Stat. 739) creating the Rocky Boy Indian Reservation. In May 1917 the Interior Department generated a new census that consisted mainly of Cree and Métis who were found to have been born in Canada . Less than 45 of the 451 names that comprised the "Tentative Roll of the Rocky Boy Indian Reservation" were actual Chippewa from the earlier 1909 roll . The Cree are descendants of Chief Little Bear (Imasees) and the Métis are descendants of the Louis Riel band of Métis . In spite of major deficiencies in the 1917 roll, it was approved by the Department of the Interior in July 1917. The Cree and Métis are present upon the Rocky Boy Reservation under self declared adopted status, as worded in the Chippewa Cree Tribal Constitution, certified by the Department of the Interior in 1935.
This same constitution has eliminated many of Asiniiwin’s descendants and his clan's descendants under a ten year absentee provision, though the Chippewa Cree Business Committee recently repealed this act; it has retained its ability to address "abandonment of tribal membership." The Cree and Métis make up over 90% of "tribal enrollees," the remnants of Chief Asiniiwin’s people are scattered throughout the towns of the Pacific Northwest, a good segment of them bought plots of land on Hill 57, outside Great Falls, Montana after leaving the reservation; therefore; their names were not included in the governments May 1917 census.
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