The Nez Perce

The Nez Perce were discovered by the Clark half of the Lewis and Clark

expedition, just after they had crossed from present-day Montana into Idaho.

There were several unusual things about these Indians. They were very shy, but

friendly toward the white men. This was because the whites had helped one of

their women, Watkuweis, who had kidnapped by the Blackfeet and traded to

Canadian trappers. They had also heard that white men brought with them

useful things such as guns, pots, cloth, and beads.

They were also unusual because they had male and female elders, and

because they pierced their noses. Although they called themselves Nee Mee

Poo, this earned them the French name Nez Perce. However, they were not

merely savages with holes in their noses.

The Nez Perce were an industrious people. They hunted for buffalo and

constructed their snug tipis from buffalo skin. They fished for salmon. They

used bows and arrows to hunt deer, elk and bears. The women and children

gathered, dried and stored roots and berries. The adopted the improved

methods of the people who lived around them, and changed with the times.

They were friendly with most other tribes, but the Shoshone and the Blackfeet

were their enemies. Once, the Shoshone killed three Nez Perce. War chief

Broken Arm took forty-five Shoshone scalps in retaliation. The Nez Perce were

considered a powerful people. However, they were always willing to talk things

out in an attempt to avoid war.

When Stevens tried to get them to sign a treaty that they did not

understand, most of the Indians Perce refused to sign it. Stevens used the

Chinook Jargon, a trade language, instead of having the treaty translated into

the languages of the tribes that he was dealing with. However, a few did sign it,

so Stevens considered the treaty legal. The leaders of the Nez Perce, however,
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did not consider it legal.

Stevens held the Walla Walla council in May 1855 to persuade a

number of tribes, including the Nez Perce, to accept rule by the Bureau of Indian

affairs. The result was to stir up fear and discontent. Some tribes even went to

war, but the Nez Perce did not. The trouble got more serious when gold was

discovered on Nez Perce land. At first the Nez Perce agent, A.J. Cain, was able

to keep most miners off the land. But then the miners rushed onto the

reservation, ignoring the agent, the treaty, and the Indians.

The government commissioners tried to persuade the Nez Perce to agree

to a smaller reservation, which would leave the gold outside it. The negotiations

went on for long time. Finally, ignoring the Indians who disagreed, the federal

government cut the reservation to one tenth its original size. It cededed^ to the

government 6,932,270 acres, for which the tribe was paid less than 8 cents an

acre.

In 1876, the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapahos defeated the army at the

Battle of Little Bighorn, killing Colonel George Armstrong Custer and more than

200 of his men. The government immediately began re-negotiations with the

Nez Perce, asking them to move from the Wallowa Valley. Chief Joseph replied

that the Indians would not leave because the earth was their mother. But it

became obvious that they must leave or fight. They were forced to say good-bye

to their beloved land, with its sacred sites--mountains, hills, rivers, and valleys.

General Howard tried to negotiate a peaceful resettlement of the Indians

onto reservations, but the Nez Perce refused to go. They tried to avoid going to

the reservation by fleeing. There were many battles in the Nez Perce War, but

the Indians were mostly just trying to get away from the US cavalry. First they

went to Idaho, but the US cavalry followed them. Finally they decided to go to

Canada to live with their friends, the Sioux, who went there with Chief Sitting
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Bull. They were only 40 miles from the Canadian border when soldiers under

Colonel Miles caught up with them. Tired, starving, and freezing, the small band

of survivors surrendered. Chief Joseph gave a famous speech in which he said,

"I will fight no more forever." And he kept his word.

On the other hand, the US government did not keep its word with the

Indians. The white settlers were always cheating the Indians, and the

government cheated them, too. Not all of the white people were against the

Indians, however. Some people saw the system of reservations as a detriment

to the Indians. Even so, in 1887, the General Allotment Act was passed. This

broke the reservation up into small individual plots of land, and many of the

Indians sold their land to white people for much less than it was worth. Then

they had nothing. This allowed so many Indians to be taken advantage of that

the act was repealed in 1934.