This week on The Write Question, host Lauren Korn speaks to anthropologist Sally Thompson, author of Black Robes Enter Coyote’s World: Chief Charlo and Father De Smet in the Rocky Mountains (Bison Books; University of Nebraska Press). In this, the first part of a two part conversation, Lauren and Sally discuss how this book was conceived and they dig into the figure of Father Pierre-Jean De Smet, his history and his motivations.
Black Robes Enter Coyote’s World was the winner of the 2025 Big Sky Award from High Plains International Book Award, the Gold Medal Winner for the 2025 Will Rogers Medallion, and a finalist for the 2025 High Plains International Book Award in Non-Fiction. Congratulations, Sally!
This conversation has been edited for time and is the first part of a two-part conversation.
About the book:
Black Robes Enter Coyote’s World brings to life the complicated history of Jesuit missionaries among Montana’s Native peoples—a saga of encounter, accommodation, and resistance during the transformative decades of the mid-to-late nineteenth century. Sally Thompson tells the story of how Jesuit values played out in the lives of the Bitterroot Salish people. The famous Black Robe (Jesuit) Father Pierre-Jean De Smet actually spent little time among his “beloved Flatheads.” Instead, he traveled extensively between the Pacific and the Rockies, mapping the pathways and noting the valuable resources. His popular writings helped spark the westward movement of white settlers.
Thompson picks up the story of the Salish peoples and black-robed missionaries at a Potawatomi mission on the Missouri in 1839 and follows their intertwined experiences throughout the lifetime of Salish chief Charlo, who eventually cursed the day white immigrants came into his country. Chief Charlo attributed the missionaries’ disconnected beliefs and exploitative actions to their status as orphans rejected from their place of creation, as he had learned from the story of Eden. Despite Charlo’s valiant efforts to protect his homeland, the Salish endured a forced removal from their beloved Bitterroot Valley to the Flathead Reservation in 1891. Charlo died in 1910, just before the massive giveaway of more than half of the Salish’s treaty-guaranteed lands through implementation of the Allotment Act. Despite it all, his people endure.
In this up-close account of the Bitterroot Salish people during the lifetime of Chief Charlo, Thompson examines the fundamental differences in the ways Euro-Americans and Native Americans related to land and nature.
About Sally:
Sally Thompson is an anthropologist and cultural heritage consultant. She formerly served as founder and director of the Regional Learning Project and as Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act specialist for the University of Montana, Missoula, where, on occasion, she teaches traditional ecological knowledge. Thompson is the author of People before the Park: The Kootenai and Blackfeet before Glacier National Park and Disturbing the Sleeping Buffalo: 23 Unexpected Stories that Awaken Montana’s Past.
Mentioned in this episode:
David Kingma, now-retired archivist at Gonzaga University
Georgetown University, the first Jesuit university, founded in 1789
The Protestant Reformation, a 16th-century religious and political upheaval that challenged the papacy and the Catholic Church’s authority
Father Gregory Mengarini, a Jesuit missionary who came to Montana in 1841 alongside de Smet
Disturbing the Sleeping Buffalo: 23 Unexpected Stories that Awaken Montana’s Past by Sally Thompson (Sweetgrass Books)
The James Monroe presidential administration, including John C. Calhoun and Andrew Jackson
St. Louis University
Potawatomi mission on the Missouri, in Council Bluffs, in 1839
Jesuit exposure to Iroquois delegations/communities prior 1841
Sally Thompson recommends:
The Surrounded by D’Arcy McNickle (University of New Mexico Press), which “influenced my writing. It made me understand how important close-up storytelling is to drawing readers into a historic tale with both heart and head. Too many histories only speak to the intellect.”
Sources of the River: Tracking David Thompson Across North America by Jack Nisbet (Sasquatch Books);
Astoria: Astor and Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire: A Tale of Ambition and Survival on the Early American Frontier by Peter Stark (Ecco Press);
Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez (Scribner);
Coming into the Country by John McPhee (Farrar, Straus and Giroux); and
The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen (Penguin Random House), “all informed me about creative ways to engage readers in non-fiction.”
The Entire Sky by Joe Wilkins (Little, Brown & Company) “is a must read for Montanans. Fans of Yellowstone would learn a truer history of 20th century western life through this book, while having their hearts touched by the humanity of his struggling characters.” Listen to Lauren’s conversation with Joe here!
The Lost Journals of Sacajewea by Debra Magpie Earling (Milkweed Editions) “is truly astonishing. I had to wriggle through a narrow passage to get into this unique narrative, but once I was there, I didn’t want to leave.” Listen to Lauren’s conversation with Debra here!
Lauren Korn recommends:
Black Robes Enter Coyote’s World: Chief Charlo and Father De Smet in the Rocky Mountains (Bison Books; University of Nebraska Press), Disturbing the Sleeping Buffalo: 23 Unexpected Stories that Awaken Montana’s Past (Sweetgrass Books) and People before the Park: The Kootenai and Blackfeet before Glacier National Park (Montana Historical Society Press) by Sally Thompson
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The Write Question team is Lauren Korn, host, co-producer, and editor; and Chris Moyles, co-producer and sound engineer. This episode is supported by Chapter One Bookstore in Hamilton, Montana, a literary and community resource for the Bitterroot Valley—providing space to explore, discover, and share passions since 1974. More information can be found at Chapter1Bookstore.com.
The Write Question logo and brand (2022) was designed by Molly Russell. You can see more of her work at iamthemollruss.com and on Instagram @iamthemollruss.
Funding for The Write Question comes from members of Montana Public Radio and from the Greater Montana Foundation—encouraging communication on issues, trends, and values of importance to Montanans. A hat-tip to Humanities Montana for supporting this program since 2008.
The Write Question is a production of Montana Public Radio.
