Nez Perce War

Nez Perce War
Part of the American Indian Wars
Chiefs Joseph, Looking Glass and White Bird in the spring of 1877.
Date June - October 1877 Location Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming and Montana Result United States victory
Belligerents
United States	Nez Percé
Commanders and leaders
Oliver O. Howard John Gibbon Nelson A. Miles Samuel D. Sturgis	Chief Joseph Looking Glass† White Bird Ollokot Toohoolhoolzote
Strength
1,000-1,500 soldiers, civilian volunteers, Indian scouts	200 warriors, <800 total
Casualties and losses
125 killed 152 wounded	~150 killed or wounded 418 surrendered, 150-200 escaped to Canada

The Nez Perce War was an armed conflict between the Nez Perce and the United States government fought in 1877 as part of the American Indian Wars. After a fighting retreat of 1,170 miles and several battles in which both the U.S. Army and the Indians sustained significant casualties, the Nez Perce surrendered and were relocated to an Indian reservation in Oklahoma. The Nez Perce were led by several individuals, including Hienmot Tooyalakekt (better known as Chief Joseph), Ollokot, White Bird, Toohoolhoolzote and Looking Glass. The American Army was represented mainly by General Oliver Otis Howard though Colonel John Gibbon, General Nelson A. Miles and Colonel Samuel D. Sturgis were involved as well.

Background

The Nez Perce reservation in 1855 (green) and the reduced reservation of 1863 (brown). The efforts of the U.S. government to force Chief Joseph and his followers, then living in Oregon, onto the 1863 reservation caused the war.

“	"We took away their country and their means of support, broke up their mode of living, their habits of life, introduced disease and decay among them and it was for this and against this they made war. Could anyone expect less?"	”
—Gen. Philip H. Sheridan.

In 1855, the Nez Perce signed a treaty with the United States which granted them a 12,000 square mile (31,000 sq km) reservation in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. (See map) Under the terms of the treaty, no white settlers were allowed on the reservation without the permission of the Nez Perce. However, in 1860 gold was discovered and 5,000 gold-seekers rushed onto the reservation, founding the city of Lewiston, Idaho on what then was Nez Perce land. Ranchers and farmers followed the miners. The U.S. government was unable to keep settlers out of Indian lands. The Nez Perce were incensed at the failure of the US government to uphold the treaties, and at settlers who plowed up their camas prairies, which they depended on for subsistence.

In 1863, a group of Nez Perce ceded 90 percent of their reservation to the U.S. for eight cents per acre. Under the terms of the treaty all Nez Perce were to move onto the new, and much smaller, reservation in Idaho. A large number of Nez Perce, however, did not accept the validity of the treaty, refused to move to the reservation, and remained on their traditional lands. The Nez Perce who approved the treaty were mostly Christian; the opponents mostly followed the traditional religion. The “non-treaty” Nez Perce included the band of Chief Joseph who lived in the Wallowa valley in Oregon. Disputes there with White farmers and ranchers led to murders of several Nez Perce. The murderers were not prosecuted.

Tensions between Nez Perce and White settlers rose in 1876 and 1877. General Oliver Howard called a council in May 1877 and ordered the non-treaty bands to move to the reservation, setting an impossible deadline of 30 days. Howard humiliated the Nez Perce by jailing their old leader, Toohoolhoolzote, who spoke against moving to the reservation. The other Nez Perce leaders then agreed to the move. Chief Joseph considered military resistance futile and reported as ordered to Fort Lapwai, Idaho. By June 14, 1877 about 600 Nez Perce from Joseph's and White Bird's bands had gathered at Camas prairie six miles west of present-day Grangeville, Idaho. That day, three warriors, outraged at past abuses, attacked nearby White settlers, killing four men who had wronged them and in a subsequent raid the next day, a war party of 20 Nez Perce killed between twelve and fourteen additional settlers, including women and children.

Joseph and his brother Ollokot were absent from the camp during the raids on June 14 and 15. When they arrived at the camp the next day, most of the Nez Perce had departed for a campsite on White Bird Creek to await the response of General Howard. Joseph considered an appeal for peace to the Whites, but realized it would be useless after the raids. Meanwhile, Howard mobilized his military force and sent out 130 men, including 13 friendly Nez Perce scouts, under the command of Captain David Perry to punish the Nez Perce and force them onto the reservation. Howard anticipated that his soldiers "will make short work of it." The Nez Perce defeated Perry at the Battle of White Bird Canyon and began their long flight to escape from the American soldiers.

War

Map showing the flight of the Nez Perce and key battle sites

Nez Perce warriors

See also: Battle of White Bird Canyon, Battle of Cottonwood, Battle of the Clearwater, Fort Fizzle (Montana), Battle of the Big Hole, Battle of Camas Creek, Battle of Canyon Creek, and Battle of Bear Paw

Joseph and White Bird were joined by Looking Glass's band and, after several battles and skirmishes in Idaho during the next month,approximately 250 Nez Perce warriors, and 500 women and children, along with more than 2000 head of horses and other livestock, began a remarkable fighting retreat. They crossed from Idaho over Lolo Pass into Montana, traveling southeast, dipping into Yellowstone National Park and then back north into Montana, roughly 1,170 miles (1,880 km). They attempted to seek refuge with the Crow Nation, but, rebuffed by the Crow, ultimately decided to try to reach safety in Canada.

A small number of Nez Perce fighters, probably fewer than 200, defeated or held off larger forces of the U.S. Army in several battles. The most notable was the two-day Battle of the Big Hole in southwestern Montana, a battle with heavy casualties on both sides, including many women and children on the Nez Perce side. Until the Big Hole the Nez Perce had the naive view that they could end the war with the U.S. on terms favorable, or at least acceptable, to themselves. Afterwards, the war "increased in ferocity and tempo. From then on all white men were bound to be their enemies and yet their own fighting power had been severely reduced."

The war came to an end when the Nez Perce stopped to rest near the Bears Paw Mountains in Montana, 40 miles (64 km) from the Canadian border, thinking that they had shaken off their pursuers. But Nelson A. Miles, then a colonel, had quickly brought an infantry-cavalry column up from Fort Keogh to catch the Nez Perce. After a five-day conflict, on October 5, 1877 the battle—and the war—was over. Chief Joseph declared in his famous surrender speech that he would "fight no more forever."

In total, the Nez Perce engaged 2,000 American soldiers of different military units, as well as their Indian auxiliaries. They fought eighteen engagements, including four major battles and at least four "fiercely contested skirmishes." Many people praised the Nez Perce for their exemplarary conduct and skilled fighting ability. The Montana newspaper New North-West stated: "Their warfare since they entered Montana has been almost universally marked so far by the highest characteristics recognized by civilized nations. "

"One of the most extraordinary Indian Wars of which there is any record. the Indians throughout displayed a courage and skill that illicited universal praise. They abstained form scalping: let captive women go free; did not commit indiscriminate murder of peaceful families, which is usual, and fought with almost scientific skill, using advance and rear guards, skirmish lines and field fortifications."~ General William Tecumseh Sherman

Aftermath

Bear Paw battlefield, where the Nez Perce War ended.

During the surrender negotiations, Colonel Miles had promised Joseph that the Nez Perce would be allowed to return to their reservation in Idaho. However, the commanding general of the Army William Tecumseh Sherman overuled Miles and directed that they not be allowed to return to the reservation. "I believed General Miles, or I never would have surrendered," Chief Joseph said afterward.

Miles loaded them on riverboats and sent them to Fort Lincoln near Bismark, North Dakota. The destitute and semi-starved Nez Perce believed they would be executed when they arrived at their destination, but instead the townspeople greeted them with enthusiasm, giving them food and inviting Joseph to a banquet. Their reception, and the events that followed, illustrated the mixture of fear, hatred, and admiration Americans had for Indians.

In Bismark, the Nez Perce were loaded on a train and sent to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Over the protests to Sherman by the commander of the Fort, they were made to live in a swampy bottomland. “It was horrible,” a writer said, “the 400 miserable, helpless, emaciated specimens of humanity, subjected for months to the malarial atmosphere of the river bottom.” Chief Joseph went to Washington in January 1879 to plead that his people be allowed to return to Idaho or, at least, be given land in Indian Territory, what would become Oklahoma. He met with the President and Congress and was greeted with acclaim, but opposition in Idaho prevented the U.S. government from granting his petition. Instead, Joseph and the Nez Perce were sent to Oklahoma and eventually located on a small reservation near Tonkawa, Oklahoma. Conditions in “the hot country” were hardly better than they had been at Leavenworth.

In 1885, Joseph and 268 surviving Nez Perce were finally allowed to return to the Pacific Northwest. Joseph, however, was not permitted to return to the Nez Perce reservation but instead settled at the Colville Reservation in Washington. He died there in 1904.

Depictions in media

Books

Peo Peo Tholekt, a Nez Perce warrior who helped capture the mountain howitzer at the Battle of the Big Hole

From the US perspective, General Oliver Otis Howard was the commanding officer of U.S. troops pursuing the Nez Perce during the Nez Perce War of 1877 and, in 1881, would write his own historical record, Nez Perce Joseph: An Account of His Ancestors, His Lands, His Confederates, His Enemies, His Murders, His War, His Pursuit and Capture, depicting the Nez Perce campaign.

From the Nez Perce perspective, Yellow Wolf: His Own Story, published 1944, by Lucullus Virgil McWhorter, from interviews with Yellow Wolf, a Nez Perce warrior. This book is very critical of the U.S. military's role in the war, and especially of General Howard.

McWhorter was also responsible for another book, Hear Me, My Chiefs!, published after his death, which was intended to be more documentary, and has material supporting both side's claims.

Television

The 1975 David Wolper historical teledrama I Will Fight No More Forever starring Ned Romero as Joseph and James Whitmore as General Howard was well received at a time when Native American issues were receiving exposure in the news, and notable in that it attempted to present a balanced view of the events: the leadership pressures on Joseph were juxtaposed with the Army having to do an unpleasant task while an action-hungry press establishment looked on.

See also

• Yellow Wolf
• Indian Campaign Medal
• Big Hole National Battlefield

External links

• Online copy of Nez Perce Joseph : an account of his ancestors, his lands, his confederates, his enemies, his murders, his war, his pursuit and capture (1881)
• Online copy of Yellow Wolf: His Own Story (1944)
• Burial ground for Nez Perce in Oklahoma
• Timeline for the flight of the Nez Perce

Further reading

• Hampton, Bruce (1994). Children of Grace-The Nez Perce War of 1877. New York: Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 080501991X. 
• Greene, Jerome A. (2000). Nez Perce Summer-The U.S. Army and the Nee-Me-Poo Crisis. Helena, MT: Montana Historical Society Press. ISBN 0917298683. 
• Janetski, Joel C. (1987). Indians in Yellowstone National Park. Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah Press. ISBN 0-87480-724-7. 
• West, Elliott (2009). The last Indian war : the Nez Perce story. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195136753. 
• Josephy, Alvin (2007). Nez Perce Country. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 9780803276239. 

Bibliography

• Malone, Michael P., Richard B. Roeder and William L. Lang (1991). Montana: A History of Two Centuries. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press. ISBN 0295971290. 
• West, Elliott (Autumn, 2010). "The Nez Perce and Their Trials: Rethinking America's Indian Wars". Montana: The Magazine of Western History (Helena, Montana: Montana Historical Society): 3–18.