The Epic of the Nez Perce - Page 1

The following data is extracted from Northwestern Fights and Fighters.

Xenophon has chronicled the retreat of the ten thousand; De Quinces has romanced about the migration of the Tartars; a thousand pens have recorded the annihilation of the Grand Army of Napoleon: the story of Joseph and his Nez Pierces is my theme - the story of the bitterest injustice toward a weak but independent people to which the United States ever set its hand. And at the outset let me confess that I am the advocates do the friend of the Indian, at least in this instance!

In 1855, Governor Isaac I. Stevens of Washington Territory negotiated an equitable, even a liberal treaty by which the Nez Pierces were confirmed in their undoubted title by immemorial occupancy to the vast region in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington, including the valleys of the Snake, the Salmon, the Clearwater, and the Grande Ronde Rivers.

The scope of the Steve's treaty was so extensive and its provisions so fair, that it is probable no question would ever have arisen had not the convention been abrogated in 1863 by a new treaty which materially diminished the Nez Pierce Reservation. This treaty was signed by a majority of the Indian tribes and has been loyally kept by them to this day. Old Joseph and other chiefs declined to sign it, refused to live on the proposed reservation, and continued to occupy the fertile valleys of the Wallowa and Imnaha, tributaries of the Grande Ronde and the Snake respectively. They also refused even to stay on the lands they claimed except when it suited them.

As the majority of the Nez Perces had signed the treaty, the United States, pressed thereto by the settlers, took the position that the action of the majority was binding upon the minority. The Nez Perce Nation was made up of a number of small tribes more or less independent of one another. The lower Nez Perces of whom Old Joseph was the recognized head, who had refused to sign the treaty, recognized no power in the majority to constrain them to acquiescence. To the non-treaty Nez Perces their position was absolutely impregnable. They were the original owners of the land. From time immemorial they had been absolutely free men, as free to go where they pleased as any people on earth.

Old Joseph died in 1872, bequeathing to his son and successor, Young Joseph, called in his own language Im-mut-too-yah-lat-lat,¹ which means Thunder-rolling-the-mountains, the policy of ignoring the treaty and retaining the land. Young Joseph thus records the eloquent dying speech of his aged father:

My son, my body is returning to my mother earth, and my spirit is going very soon to see the Great Spirit Chief. When I am gone, think of your country. You are the chief of these people. They look to you to guide them. Always remember that your father never sold his country. You must stop your ears whenever you are asked to sign a treaty selling your home. A few years more, and white men will be all around you. They have their eyes on this land. My son, never forget my dying words. This country holds your father's body. Never sell the bones of your father and your mother.

In 1873, further to complicate matters, the United States gave the Indians temporary permission to remain in the Wallowa Valley. This valley is admirably adapted for grazing and agricultural purposes. Settlers, pouring into the Northwest, recognizing no right of proprietorship among the Indians, occupied it.

The white man and the Indian have never lived together in peace. Among other Indians less forbearing there would have been instant outbreak. As it was there was a growing friction. A commission, appointed in 1876, decided - in defiance of right - that the non-treaty Nez Percés had no standing and that they must go upon the reservation of 1863
Maj.-Gen. O. O. Howard, commanding the Military Department, was ordered to carry out the decision. In May, 1877, several councils were held in quick succession at Fort Lapwai, Idaho. Joseph, attended by his young brother Ollicut, White Bird, Hush-hush-cute and Looking Glass, sub-chiefs, and by Too-hul-hul-sote, the priest, or too-at, of a peculiar religious organization called the "Dreamers" to which Joseph and the others belonged, which had evidently risen out of the disputes in connection with the land, were present.

"Joseph at this time must have been about thirty-seven or thirty-eight years old. He is tall, straight and handsome, with a mouth and chin not unlike that of Napoleon I. He was, in council, at first probably not so influential as White Bird and the group of chiefs that sustained him, but from first to last he was preeminently their `war chief.' Such was the testimony of his followers after his surrender, and such seems to be the evidence of the campaign itself.²

Source: Northwestern Fights and Fighters

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