Landless Indians

Little Shell and his followers were excluded from the Turtle Mountain rolls.  Little Shell and Red Thunder protested this action. Many of the people who were removed from the rolls, moved to Montana where they hand hunted buffalo. As time went by, the followers of Chief Little Shell became a group of Chippewa with out a home. They were known eventually as "landless Indians."

They moved from reservation to reservation, even suffering deportation effort to Canada by the US Government. The "landless" Little Shell settled around communities along the Hi-Line of Northern Montana and the east slope of the Rocky Mountains.

By the early 1900's Indian "shanty-towns" were established by Little Shell Tribal members on the outskirts of Great Falls, Havre, Helena, Lewistown, Butte and other urban areas. The Little Shell people resorted to digging in the city dump sites for material to build their shacks, pick cotton rags to sell to truck stops and scavenge scrap metals they could sell to scrap dealers.

Many Little Shell families also resided on reservations in Montana, particularly the Blackfeet, Rocky Boy and Fort Peck.

In the summer, whole clans of Little Shell families would live in tents and work on the ranches. They would stack hay, build fence or pick rock. Poaching deer was common place.