Nez Perce exile
The Nez Perce exile refers to the forced relocation and suffering of the Nez Perce people following their surrender during the Nez Perce War in 1877. Originally located in the Northwest, particularly in the Imnaha and Wallowa Valleys, the Nez Perce were recognized through a treaty in 1855 that granted them ownership of their lands. However, pressures from white settlers, spurred by events such as the Civil War and gold discoveries, led to a revised treaty in 1863 that stripped the Nez Perce of their territories, resulting in increasing tensions.
Under the leadership of Chief Joseph and his fellow leaders, the Nez Perce resisted the new treaty and attempted to flee to safety in Canada after violent conflicts with U.S. Army forces. Despite their remarkable efforts to evade capture during a lengthy retreat across several states, they were ultimately surrounded and surrendered on October 5, 1877. Following their surrender, the Nez Perce were subjected to imprisonment and harsh conditions, being moved multiple times, including to Fort Keogh and later to reservations in Kansas.
After years of hardship and numerous deaths from disease, the survivors were finally allowed to return to the Northwest in 1885, although Chief Joseph continued to seek the right to return to their ancestral lands until his death in 1904. The Nez Perce exile stands as a significant chapter in the history of Native American resistance and resilience in the face of U.S. expansionism.
Nez Perce exile
Significance: From June 15 to October 5, 1877, Chief Joseph led his people in retreat for fifteen hundred miles in one of the most remarkable American Indian war campaigns of US history.
During the nineteenth century, the Nez Perce tribes occupied various areas of the Northwest, including Washington, Idaho, and Oregon. There were five separate groups, each under the leadership of an autonomous chief. One group occupied Oregon territory in the Imnaha and Wallowa Valleys and was under the leadership of Joseph the Elder, or Old Chief Joseph. In 1855, the governor of the Oregon Territory signed a celebrated treaty with him and numerous other Nez Perce leaders, allowing the tribe ownership of all the land in the Imnaha and Wallowa Valleys. The treaty was ratified by the United States Senate.
The treaty of 1855 proved short-lived, however: The Civil War and the discovery of gold at Orofino, Idaho, in 1860, led to an ever-increasing surge of immigration of white settlers into the valleys and territories claimed by the Nez Perce. Because of increasing tensions between the whites and the natives, in 1863 a new treaty was negotiated. The new terms excluded the Imnaha and Wallowa Valleys and other vast areas of land that had been dedicated to the Nez Perce in 1855. The revised treaty was signed by James Reuben and Chief Lawyer, but Chiefs Old Joseph, White Bird, and Looking Glass refused to ratify it. Thus, the treaty was recognized as having treaty Nez Perce and nontreaty Nez Perce.
The Accession of Chief Joseph
In 1871, Old Chief Joseph died, leaving the leadership of the Wallamwatkins to his son, the new Chief Joseph, or Joseph the Younger. The continuing influx of white immigrants into the Nez Perce lands caused increasing problems between the Nez Perce and whites. In 1876, a commission was appointed to investigate complaints, and it was decided that the nontreaty Nez Perces had no standing and that all groups should go onto designated reservations. In 1877, the US Department of the Interior issued instructions to carry out the commission’s recommendations. Preparing for the transition, a council of tribal leaders and US government officials was set to meet on May 3, 1877. Chief Joseph and his brother, Alokut, represented the Nez Perce, while General Oliver O. Howard represented the US government. The final understanding was that the nontreaty Indians would be on the designated reservations by June 14, 1877.
On June 15, 1877, word was received at Fort Lapwai, Idaho, that the Wallamwatkins had attacked and killed several settlers around Mount Idaho, Idaho. US Army troops were sent from Fort Lapwai to counterattack. On June 17, troops headed into Whitebird Canyon and engaged in a bitter encounter with the Wallamwatkins. The US Army lost thirty-four troops and numerous horses; the Nez Perce, numbering only seventy warriors, had only four wounded in the battle. On July 1, regular troops and Idaho volunteers under Captain Stephen C. Whipple attacked Looking Glass’s village. The troops shot, destroyed property, and looted at random. As a result, Looking Glass joined the war effort with Chief Joseph.
Retreat
By July 13, after numerous skirmishes with General Howard’s troops and other soldiers, Chief Joseph led approximately four hundred of his people eastward toward the Lolo Trail in the Bitterroot Mountains. On July 15, Looking Glass urged escape to Montana and proposed joining with the Crow of the plains. Chief Joseph agreed, Looking Glass became supreme war leader, and on July 16, the nontreaty Nez Perces summarily left their homeland.
Chief Joseph and Looking Glass kept track of Howard’s position and were able to stall and otherwise frustrate Howard’s advance. As a result, the chiefs led the Wallamwatkins through Lolo Trail and into the Missoula area. General Howard subsequently contacted Colonel John Gibbon at Fort Shaw, Montana, and instructed him to take up the pursuit. Gibbon was able to muster 146 men of the Seventh Infantry and thirty-four civilians.
Chief Joseph and Looking Glass crossed the Continental Divide and encamped their weary followers in the Big Hole Valley, unaware of Colonel Gibbon’s pursuit and position. On August 9, Colonel Gibbon’s troops made a surprise attack on the Wallamwatkins’ camp and engaged in a long and difficult battle. Many Nez Perce lives—mostly of women and children—were lost in the initial confrontation. Chief Joseph and White Bird outflanked Gibbon’s troops and led the families to safety, while the warriors under Alokut and Looking Glass split Gibbon’s forces. After holding the Army in siege for several days, the warriors eventually broke off the engagement, and the Nez Perce continued their retreat through the Montana territory.
The Bear Paws Battle
By August 27, Chief Joseph had led the Wallamwatkins into Yellowstone Park, with General Howard and his troops in continuing pursuit. By September 6, Chief Joseph and Looking Glass had made their retreat through the northeast corner of Yellowstone Park. Continuing north, Chief Joseph led his people up through the Snowy Mountains and finally into the northern foothills of the Bear Paw Mountains, an easy day’s ride from the Canadian border. Unknown to Chief Joseph, Colonel Nelson A. Miles had been notified by General Howard and was in pursuit from Fort Keogh paralleling Chief Joseph’s trail from the north. On September 30, Colonel Miles’s troops made a surprise attack on the Wallamwatkins’ camp. The fighting during the Bear Paws Battle was intense. The army lost fifty-three men and the Nez Perce lost eighteen warriors, including Alokut, Tulhulhutsut, and Poker Joe. On the night of October 4, General Howard rode into Miles’s camp and provided the reinforcements that would ensure a final surrender from Chief Joseph. On October 5, General Howard sent terms of surrender to the Nez Perce. A brief skirmish evolved, and Looking Glass was fired on and killed. Colonel Miles assured Chief Joseph that he and his tribe would be allowed to return home to the Northwest in peace. Feeling that he could do so with honor, Chief Joseph offered one of the most famous surrendering speeches ever documented. Turning to the interpreter, Chief Joseph said:
Tell General Howard I know what is in his heart. What he told me before, I have in my heart. I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. Looking Glass is dead. Tulhulhutsut is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say yes or no. He [Alokut] who led on the young men is dead. 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.
Thus ended the Nez Perce War, one of the most remarkable American Indian war campaigns of US history.
Exile
Chief Joseph surrendered with 86 men, 148 women and 147 children. The Nez Perces were transported to Fort Keogh for temporary holding. On November 1, despite Colonel Miles’s assurances that the tribe would be allowed to return to the Northwest, he was ordered to take his prisoners farther south, to Fort Lincoln, near Bismarck, North Dakota. On November 27, Chief Joseph and his people were moved again (by train) to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Kept in unsanitary conditions, plagued by disease and twenty deaths, in July 1878, Chief Joseph and his people were again moved to the Quapaw Reservation in Kansas territory. By the end of the year, nearly fifty more tribe members had died from disease.
After repeated requests to return to the Northwest, in 1885, eight years after their surrender, the 268 survivors of the nontreaty bands taken into captivity were allowed to return to the Northwest. About half of them were housed at Lapwai, Idaho, and Chief Joseph’s Wallowa band was housed at Nespelem on the Colville Reservation in eastern Washington. From the time of his return to the Northwest until his death, September 21, 1904, Chief Joseph attempted in vain to gain permission to return his people to his homeland in the Wallowa Valley in eastern Oregon.
Bibliography
Adkison, Norman B. Indian Braves and Battles with More Nez Perce Lore. Grangeville: Idaho County Free, 1967. Print.
Adkison, Norman B. Nez Perce Indian War and Original Stories. Grangeville: Idaho County Free, 1966. Print.
Beal, Merrill D. I Will Fight No More Forever: Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce War. Seattle: U of Washington P, 1963. Print.
Carson, Kevin. The Long Journey of the Nez Perce: A Battle History from Cottonwood to the Bear Paw. Yardley: Westholme, 2011. Print.
Gidley, Mick. Kopet: A Documentary Narrative of Chief Joseph’s Last Years. Seattle: U of Washington P, 1981. Print.
Tonkovich, Nicole. The Allotment Plot: Alice C. Fletcher, E. Jane Gay, and Nez Perce Survivance. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2012. Print.