FAR TO THE NORTH OF THE MODOCS and northwest of the fighting Sioux lived one of the most sophisticated tribes of Indians in North America—the Nez Percés. In the beautiful valleys between the Blue and the Bitterroot mountains, the Nez Percés had developed a culture that was beyond the usual nomadic level of other tribes in the West. They fished for salmon, kept herds of horses, and gathered roots and berries in season. They were a people of superior intelligence; they loved peace; and most of all they loved their land.
In 1805, Lewis and Clark had found the Nez Percés to be friends. Later explorers, missionaries, and then the settlers were also treated as friends. When artist Jacob Miller visited the Nez Percés in 1839, he observed: “These Indians are anti-belligerent and have some other qualities that are rare and commendable.” He added prophetically: “All these Indians seem to bear the impress of a doomed race.”
At the time of Miller’s visit, Dr. Marcus Whitman and the Reverend Henry Spalding were having great success in their efforts to found missions among the Nez Percés. From the numerous small bands of the tribe, three leaders—Kalkalshuatash, Tamason, and Tuekakas—were converted, changing their names, respectively, to Jason, Timothy, and Joseph.
Within a few years, however, Joseph left the mission at Lapwai and led his band back to their old home in the Wallowa valley, the Valley of Winding Waters. He did not like the talk of the people who came with the missionaries, the settlers who wanted to buy the land of the Nez Percés.
“The earth is our mother,” said Joseph. “We cannot sell you our mother.”
About the year 1850, a religious prophet arose among the Nez Percés, called Smohalla the prophet. He preached that the Indians must cling to their own mode of life, must refuse the teachings and things of the whites and be guided by the will of God as revealed to him in dreams. As the settlers became more insistent about buying the Nez Percé lands. Joseph’s band adopted the philosophy of Smohalla.
Old Joseph’s son, Young Joseph, also followed the teachings of Smohalla, and the second Joseph became the greatest of the Nez Percés, if not the greatest of all American Indians. As a young man, he had been for a time a student in one of the white schools. He had listened to his father. Old Joseph, plead with the whites, and he had seen many promises broken by them.
In 1855 when the invaders had demanded that Old Joseph move his tribe out of the Wallowa valley, the chief had refused. He had not only refused to mvoe, but he insisted that a definite line of demarcation between white territory and Nez Percé territory be drawn on the council map across the top of the Blue Mountains. The gold-seekers and the land-seekers, however, desired the Valley of Winding Waters for their exclusive use. Old Joseph was summoned to another council in 1859. “The line was made as I wanted it,” he told the commissioners this time. “Not for me, but for my children that will follow me. There is where I live, and there is where I want to leave my body. The land on the other side of the line,” he concluded significantly, “is what we gave to the Great Father. Can you not leave us in peace in our valley?”
Young Joseph heard his father’s remarks on this occasion and remembered them until the day he died. Was it possible that the whites wanted the Valley of Winding Waters in addition to all the other land the Indians had given them? He could scarcely believe this. But not long after Young Joseph became chief, his father warned him: “When you go into council with the white man, always remember your country. Do not give it away. The white man will cheat you out of your home. I have taken no pay from the United States. I have never sold our land.” In 1863, Young Joseph attended his first council as a chief. The Indian commissioners, acting under pressure from the settlers, had drawn up a treaty which removed to a reservation all the Nez Percés, including Joseph’s band in the Wallowa valley. Joseph, of course, refused to sign. He went back to his land, and warned all whites to keep out.
To avoid trouble, the government took no action against him, but cattle ranchers began grazing their herds over Joseph’s land, using pastures which the Nez Percés needed for their own cattle and ponies. More gold also had been discovered at Orofino, and the miners were coming in droves.
Chief Joseph, son of Tuekakas the original Joseph, became the great leader of the Nez Percés. As a young man he attended many treaty councils with his father, and learned how the whites broke their promises. Refusing to move his people from the Wallowa valley, the Valley of Winding Waters, he ended up fighting the U.S. Army over the course of almost 1,000 miles before finally surrendering, stating, “I will fight no more forever.” (Photograph by W. H. Jackson, courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution.)
In 1868 Timothy and Jason, with other leaders who wanted to follow the white way, traveled to Washington to sign a treaty. As heads of the Nez Percés they agreed to withdraw the entire tribe to a reservation. Chief Joseph, however, did not go to Washington, signed no treaty, and ignored all orders to move from Wallowa valley. The Office of Indian Affairs finally sent an agent to interview Joseph in 1873. and as a result of this meeting the Secretary of the Interior decided that the Wallowa valley was rightfully the property of the Nez Percés. On June 16, 1873. President Ulysses S. Grant issued an order:
“It is hereby ordered that the tract of country described be withheld from entry and settlement as public lands, and that the same be set apart as a reservation for the roaming Nez Percés, as recommended by the Secretary of Interior and the Commissioner of Indian Affairs.”
This turn of events brought joy to the hearts of Joseph and his people; at last the U. S. government had recognized their claim. The settlers, however, so resented the government’s action that they threatened openly to exterminate all the Nez Percés in the valley. Telegraph wires across the continent hummed with indignant demands. Joseph wisely began gathering as many allies as he could: his brother Alikut; an influential disciple of Smohalla, Tu-hul-hil-sote; and two chieftains. White Bird and Looking Glass. While he was doing this, the army was sending troops into the neighboring areas.
The tension lasted for almost two years. Then the Nez Percés were dismayed to learn that President Grant had suddenly reversed his order. All their beautiful valley was to be opened to white settlers! In the spring of 1875, General O. O. Howard, commander of the Department of the Columbia, met Joser Pendleton, Oregon. Howard reported back to Washington: “I tph neahink it is a great mistake to take from Joseph and his band of Nez Percés Indians that valley. Possibly Congress can be induced to let these really peaceable Indians have this poor valley for their own.” But the government took no further action. Violent incidents began to occur here and there in the valley, and General Howard sent more troops to keep the peace.
Joseph and the general met for the second time in 1876 An Indian commission was present, and once again they asked Joseph why he refused to move to the Lapwai reservation in Idaho with the other Nez Percés.
“I have not come to talk about my land,” he replied. “For many years my father and I have talked about our land to the whites. They will not listen. It is still our land, but the whites will not stay off it.”
General Howard asked him another question: “Suppose several thousand men should come from Oregon with arms, what would you do?”
Joseph was silent for a moment, then spoke as if choosing his words carefully: The white settlers are bad enough. Your soldiers are worse. We have seen them paraded around this whole country. Three or four times they have come into the Wallowa as if to tell us they would make war at any time. We always lived at peace until the white man came. We have not made any war on the white man. But they have pushed over the limits my father set up. They have come over the limits Governor Stevens set up. Now, if soldiers come, what will we do? We will not sell the land. We love the land; it is our home.”
The commission’s reply was direct: “Unless they come to Lapwai and settle in a reasonable time, they are to be placed by force upon the reservation.” Joseph was formally notified that he had until April 1, 1877, to come on the reservation peaceably. When the Nez Percés ignored the order, General Howard went to see Joseph. All the allied chiefs came to the council, Tu-hul-hil-sote, Looking Glass, and White Bird. After long discussions, Joseph and his fellow chieftains decided they would have to bow to the power of the whites.
Yet in June when they started the long march to Lapwai from the Wallowa, White Bird, Tu-hul-hil-sote, and Joseph’s brother Alikut began to speak for war. Joseph told them it was “better to live at peace than to begin a war and lie dead.” The others called him a coward. One night a few irresponsible braves, unknown to Joseph, went on a raid. Within a few days, death was riding in the valleys of the Salmon and the Snake. Eleven white men and thirty-three Nez Percés were killed the first week. In spite of Joseph’s efforts, the war he had feared for so long had now begun.
Though he had opposed the war, now that it had come Joseph was regarded by all as the leader. Without hesitation he began preparing his defenses. The lodges of the Nez Percés were struck and the seven hundred men, women, and children moved up to the comparative safety of White Bird Creek. Joseph’s wife was expecting a child, and after the custom of the tribe he pitched their tepee to one side of the camp. Pickets were posted at the entrance of White Bird Canyon, and the Nez Percés waited the coming of the soldiers.
The troops of the First Cavalry under Colonel David Perry entered the canyon at dawn on June 17. Through the narrow passage, the soldiers could see the white gleam of the Salmon River. As the darkness lifted, two columns of smoke were visible above the Indian encampment. Perry thought he had trapped Joseph, but he did not know that he was dealing with a master strategist.
While the cavalrymen were approaching along the winding floor of the canyon, Joseph sent White Bird with a large force into concealment along one side of the defile. When the troops reached the opening into the valley, Joseph and his warriors sprang up and began a fierce attack, distracting the soldiers until White Bird could swing down from the left and turn Perry’s flank. In a few minutes the cavalrymen were routed, cut into indefensible pockets. A third of the troops were killed before they could escape in disorder through the canyon’s mouth. Even after they had reformed, they could not make a stand. Joseph drove the soldiers almost to the town of Mt. Idaho, then ordered his warriors back to the safety of the camp. “Take weapons and ammunition,” he said, “but no scalps.”
When he returned to his tepee, he found that his wife had given birth to a girl. He wondered how long it would be until the whites came again.
Ten days later, his scouts brought the news that General Howard was marching from Lapwai with very large forces. With the cunning of a fox, Joseph waited until the general was almost into the Salmon valley. Then he crossed the mountains, forcing Howard to divide his army. In a succession of masterful moves, Chief Joseph completely outmaneuvered the veteran military commander, almost wiped out one of the pursuing detachments, and raced to the Clearwater where Looking Glass was waiting with a new force of warriors.
Now that he had almost three hundred warriors armed with rifles, Joseph decided to attack Howard boldly as soon as the four hundred soldiers were in striking range. Incredible as it may seem, Joseph was again successful, outflanking the general and cutting his communications. If cavalry reinforcements had not come up from Lapwai, this might have been Howard’s last battle.
Withdrawing beyond the Clearwater, Joseph called a council of the chiefs—White Bird, Looking Glass, and Alikut. They all knew that they could never hope to return again to their beloved valley. They were already outnumbered eight to one, and more soldiers would be coming from the east. Sitting Bull of the Sioux had escaped to Canada and the soldiers dared not go there to capture him. If the Nez Percés could reach the Lolo Trail and cross the Bitterroot mountains, perhaps they might be able to reach the northern country.
And so began the long tragic flight of the Nez Percés. They could not follow the example of other tribes and retreat westward. There was no longer any “west.” There was no place to go except north toward Canada.
Although Howard guessed what the chiefs were planning and sent a detachment to block the Lolo Trail, the Indians cleverly outwitted the small force and crossed successfully into Montana. Here Joseph faced his greatest problem. He could not risk crossing the open plains of Montana, which were dotted with military posts. And the northern route was blocked by Howard’s troops.
To escape to Canada, he was forced to turn south along the chain of mountains, hoping to shake off his pursuers. His uncanny knowledge of the georgraphy of this vast area amazed the officers who were trying vainly to trap him.
Not until they reached the Big Hole did the Nez Percés meet trouble. Here General Gibbon, coming in from Montana on the night of August 9, caught the weary Indians asleep in camp. More women and children than warriors were slain in this dawn attack. After the first shock of the assult. Joseph rallied his fighting men and they drove Gibbon back, capturing one of his howitzers and two thousand rounds of ammunition. But Looking Glass, Joseph’s ablest lieutenant, had died early in the battle.
Howard had now almost overtaken the fleeing tribe. After a brief skirmish at Camas Meadows, however, the Nez Percés escaped again, by cutting across the Yellowstone. Hopefully they turned north into Montana—only to face a new disaster. A fresh force of Seventh Cavalry troops under Colonel Samuel Sturgis from Fort Keogh blocked them at Canyon Creek.
It was September now, and the nights were bitter cold. Canada was still many miles away. Desperately. Joseph once again ordered his thinning line of warriors into battle. After two days’ fighting, Sturgis’s forces were completely scattered, but there were not many fighting braves left alive.
The survivors had one more chance. They moved swiftly northward. General Nelson Miles with a large force of cavalry was racing to cut them off. Only thirty miles from the Canadian border, in the Bear Paw Mountains, the last battle was joined. Snow was falling when Miles attacked on September 30, but the Indians fought back with desperate fury.
Surrounding Joseph’s camp, Miles demanded unconditional surrender. The Nez Percés held out until October 5, when a second blizzard swept across the mountains. “I could not bear to see my wounded men and women suffer any longer,” Joseph said afterward. When he rode out to meet General Howard, who had joined Miles, Joseph was holding his rifle loosely across his thighs, both hands clasped on his saddle pommel. He dismounted from his horse with dignity, handing his gun to the general.
“I am tired of fighting,” he said. “Our chiefs are killed. Looking Glass is dead. Tu-hul-hil-sote is dead. The old men are all dead. He who led on the young men, Alikut, is dead. It is cold and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food; no one knows where they are—perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs. I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.”
The long journey was ended. After a thousand miles of fighting, only eighty-seven warriors were now alive, and half of them were wounded. Joseph’s wife was dead, his older daughter had escaped to Canada with White Bird, and only the girl papoose born on the flight was left to him. But he hoped that the remnants of his tribe would now be left in peace on the Lapwai reservation.
This was not to be, however. Orders came from Washington to remove the Nez Percés to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Joseph’s protests went unheeded. He and his people were floated on flatboats down the Missouri River to a malarious bottomland where they were cooped up during the winter of 1877-78. Accustomed to mountain water and air, one-fourth of the Nez Percés sickened and died in this new country.
In the heat of the following summer, those who survived were crowded into railroad freight cars and transported to the hot plains of Indian Territory. Suffering from desert heat and ill with nostalgia for the clean winds of the Valley of Winding Waters, they died one by one.
Bureaucrats and Christian gentlemen visited Joseph at intervals during the following years, interviewing him and making endless reports to their various organizations. Joseph was even allowed to visit Washington, but government officials by this time were bored by touring chiefs, and scarcely any attention was paid to his pleas. Finally, a small group of “good” Nez Percés was permitted to return to Lapwai. Then in 1885, Joseph was transferred to Nespelem on the Colville reservation in the territory of Washington.
Although he was back in the Northwest, he was still an exile from the valley of his fathers. When he tell suddenly dead one autumn day in 1904, his friends said that he had died of a broken heart.