The Nez Perce Surrender

The Nez Perce Surrendered. Several hundred of the people did indeed make it to Canada, but the Nez Perces ended up without horses and with no clear means of escape, despite by all means winning the initial battle when they were attacked by surprise. The sad thing is that hundreds of Nez Perce went on to die in captivity. When Chief Joseph surrendered, he was told they would go back to Idaho. That didn't happen for EIGHT more years. They were stuck in a malarial swamp with insufficient medicine and supplies. Most of their children died. How much does that suck? Promises broken over and over and over again, and the near destruction of a generation of Nez Perces. Chief Joseph worked the system the best he could (pretty masterfully) to eventually get his people sent back to Idaho, but it still took eight years.

The Nez Perce stop short

Ahhhhh! The Nez Perces were ahead of Howard by 150 miles! They had only 70ish left to go before they reached the Canadian border. Instead of maintaining their grueling pace and getting to safety, they oust their current leader in favor of one who wants to take it easy, to relax and rejuvenate because they don't believe Howard will catch up to them. Little do they know someone else is on their way! This astonishingly terrible choice baffles me. Get to safety first! Don't go back to the leader who had you go slow and relaxedly the LAST time you got caught and had a bunch of people get killed. Dah! Right now they're about 25 miles from the Canadian border. The end is at hand.

The race is on

In this part of the book I really just feel bad for the Nez Perce. They fought a bunch in Idaho and outmaneuvered the whites, managing to escape through to Montana. When they finally got into Montana, they assumed they were free and clear. They had no qualms with the whites there and assumed they would be able to live peacefully. It displays a total lack of understanding of the scope and nature of the US Army, as well as a poor understanding of the capabilities of the telegraph system. In fact, they were allowed to move peacefully across the plains, purchasing goods from local whites, and it wasn't until they were in the next mountain range that they were attacked, losing many of their women and children. They decided then that all whites must be against them and did not treat civilians kindly thereafter (though they still refrained from killing women and children, I think).

Gold!

The Nez Perce were living peacefully on the reservation when somebody found gold. Immediately, a flood of settlers moved onto the reservation. The government made some small effort at the beginning to stop people but there were too many people and too little military in the area to keep people out, and so they flooded in. Though public and government opinion agreed that the miners were there illegally, instead of trying to get them to move out, they decided instead that the old treaty was untenable and that they would have to renegotiate and force the Nez Perce onto a smaller reservation. If this doesn't sound like a recipe for war, I don't know what would.

Nez Perce and the White Missionaries

Today I learned that the expedition that went to St. Louis was really comprised of 3 Nez Perce and 1 half-blood Nez Perce/Flathead (Salish). They most likely went to St. Louis with dual purposes of opening trade opportunities and acquiring copies of the bible and/or a missionary to teach them. However, the meeting was popularized and spread as four wise men from the west coming to be converted to Christianity and ready to abandon their "heathen" ways. Needless to say, when the missionaries actually came, things didn't go as expected. Whitman and Spalding came down, and the Whitmans ended up settling among the Cayuse while the Spaldings settled among the Nez Perces. The missionaries had some small successes... the natives came to the school and attended some religious services, but they had problems because the missionaries expected the natives to pretty much adopt the culture of the white men. They were expected to learn English, to give up hunting in favor of farming, to move closer to the missions, and basically adopt all the laws and customs of the Americans. They also expected the natives to come to an understanding that they are sinful creatures and are inherently bad without the redemption of Christ. The Nez Perce viewed themselves as essentially good and so this notion of going to hell without Christ's atonement was completely foreign and frankly unacceptable. They did have a few baptisms but it's hard to say if they had any true converts. The Nez Perce held beliefs about spirit animals and a person's successes and failures were linked to their spirit animal (which they discovered on a quest when they were 8-10 years old). Power was linked to spirits and they were probably trying to find additional spiritual power from Christianity to add to their religion, rather than to replace it.

Serious problems didn't come up until Whitman led the first big group of settlers into the Oregon territory. It comprised approximately 125 settlers and thousands of livestock. The author estimated that the group of settlers was about a third of the current Nez Perce population. Within a few years there were thousands. They weren't settling in Nez Perce country, preferring instead the comfortable Willamette valley, but the numbers must have been disconcerting. Also, they brought the measles, and, as I think I said in another post, the white missionaries were blamed for the outbreaks. The Whitmans were eventually massacred and the Spaldings were lucky to escape with their lives. What I didn't realize before was that the missionaries were providing medical aid but since the native populations were so much more susceptible to the diseases, their children were killed in droves while the missionaries were much more successful in helping white children (and adults). I can see how the natives could think it was purposeful.

Nez Perce meet the white men

Today I learned that Lewis and Clark were the first white men that the Nez Perce met. Of course they had heard of them and had long since acquired and bred horses. They already had six guns though no powder or shot to use with them. They debated between friendship and enmity and chose friendship. They developed good relations with Lewis and Clark and expected a mutually beneficial, amicable relationship between equals. The next people to come were from the group headed for Astoria, at the mouth of the Columbia. They would only trade for beaver pelts, which the Nez Perce did not want to collect, and were generally unfriendly. Finally, settlers started to arrive and with them came a government sub-agent named White who was appointed to deal with the Natives in the Pacific Northwest, despite the fact that "ownership" of the territory had not yet been decided between the Americans and the British. White and the settlers again set up friendly and beneficial trade relations but White imposed a bunch of rules on the Indians, primarily designed to protect white settlers, though nominally intended to also protect the Natives. He also wanted the Nez Perce to elect a Head Chief, which is an idea that doesn't fit into their social hierarchy at all. They named a young headman as the so-called "Head Chief" and it's probable that they saw the appointment as for a liaison to meet and talk with the whites, since they chose a young man who had spent time in Canada and spoke passable English.

Nez Perce

Today I started reading The Last Indian War by Elliot West which is one book in a series called Pivotal Moments in American History. I'm only a chapter in so far but it is much better than the Pacific Northwest Indian Wars, which was entirely too dry. Today I learned that Nez Perce is pronounced "Nezz Purse" and that the tribe traveled over 1500 miles during the course of the war. They were trying to make it to Canada but were finally stopped just 40 miles shy of the border. I don't know why we didn't just let them go. I am really interested to read this story because everything I've read about the Pacific Northwest tribes to date has painted the Nez Perce as very cooperative with whites and very peaceful.

The Nez Perce lived in a vast area that encompassed part of southeastern Washington, northeastern Oregon, and Idaho all the way to the Bitterroot Mountains. They lived in villages and primarily fished, gathered, and hunted with stunning bows. They became excellent horsemen and horse breeders. There was a cool Origin story about how some great monster came and ate up all the people (animals) that lived on the land and the coyote thought that was messed up so he brought in knives and cut out the monster's heart so that it died, then he scattered bits all around and it made up the surrounding tribes (the Cayuse, Palouse, Wallowas, etc, etc), and the Nez Perce were the tribe that ended up at the heart of the monster, small, but powerful.