The Sisters of Providence were the first white women to travel over the Rocky Mountains into western Montana. There, in, four courageous French-speaking nuns established a convent at St. Ignatius Missions from which they built schools and hospitals for the Flathead Indians. The Ursuline nuns arrived in Montana in and built convents and boarding schools at missions serving the Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Crow and Gros Ventre-Assiniboine people.