'The Graves of Our Fathers'

The Overlook

By Tom Clavin

“The Overlook” appears every Wednesday at tomclavin.substack.com. An overlook is usually a place from which one can see in many if not all directions, including where one has been and where one is going. If you enjoy the column, please "like" it and let me know what you think by commenting (check out previous ones while you're at it). All support is appreciated. Don't forget to hit the ‘Subscribe’ button – it’s free!

          It was 119 years ago this week that Chief Joseph died, which brings to mind the Nez Perce War of 1877. Okay, that was written with tongue in cheek because few people will give that conflict much thought. It was a rather dramatic one, but it was overshadowed by the Little Bighorn battle the previous year.  

Fought between June and October, the 1877 war stemmed from the refusal of several bands of the Nez Perce, dubbed "non-treaty Indians," to give up their ancestral lands in the Pacific Northwest and move to an Indian reservation in Idaho Territory. This forced removal was in violation of the 1855 Treaty of Walla Walla, which had granted the tribe 7.5 million acres of their ancestral lands and the right to hunt and fish on lands ceded to the U.S. government.

After the first armed engagements in June, the Nez Perce embarked on an arduous trek north initially to seek help from the Crow tribe. After the Crows' refusal of aid, the Nez Perce sought sanctuary with the Lakota Sioux led by Sitting Bull. They found, though, that Sitting Bull had fled to Canada to avoid being captured or possibly killed to avenge the deaths of Lt. Col. Custer and his men at Little Bighorn the previous summer.

The Nez Perce were pursued by elements of the U.S. Army with whom they fought a series of battles and skirmishes on a fighting retreat of 1170 miles. The war ended after a final five-day battle fought alongside Snake Creek at the base of Montana's Bears Paw Mountains only 40 miles from the Canada–U.S. border. A large majority of the surviving Nez Perce, represented by Chief Joseph of the Wallowa band of Nez Perce, surrendered to Brigadier Generals Oliver Otis Howard and Nelson Miles. White Bird, of the Lamatta band of Nez Perce, managed to elude the Army after the battle and escape with an undetermined number of his band to Sitting Bull's camp in Canada. The 418 Nez Perce who surrendered, including women and children, were taken prisoner.

Although Chief Joseph is the most well known of the Nez Perce leaders, he was not the sole overall leader. The Nez Perce were led by a coalition of several leaders from the different bands who comprised the "non-treaty" Nez Perce. Brigadier General Howard was head of the U.S. Army's Department of the Columbia, which was tasked with forcing the Nez Perce onto the reservation and whose jurisdiction was extended by General William Tecumseh Sherman to allow Howard's pursuit. It was at the final surrender of the Nez Perce when Chief Joseph gave his famous "I Will Fight No More Forever" speech, which was translated by the interpreter Arthur Chapman. An 1877 New York Times editorial discussing the conflict stated, "On our part, the war was in its origin and motive nothing short of a gigantic blunder and a crime.”

About Chief Joseph: He was born in March 1840 in the Wallowa Valley of northeastern Oregon. He was known as Young Joseph during his youth because his father was baptized with the same Christian name and later become known as "Old Joseph" or "Joseph the Elder.”

While initially hospitable to the region's white settlers, Joseph the Elder grew wary when they demanded more Indian lands. Tensions grew as the settlers appropriated traditional Indian lands for farming and livestock. Isaac Stevens, governor of the Washington Territory, organized a council to designate separate areas for natives and settlers in 1855. Joseph the Elder and the other Nez Perce chiefs signed the Treaty of Walla Walla, with the U.S. establishing a Nez Perce reservation encompassing 7,700,000 acres in present-day Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. The 1855 reservation contained much of the traditional Nez Perce lands, including Joseph's Wallowa Valley. It is recorded that the elder Joseph requested that Young Joseph protect their homeland and guard his father's burial place.

In 1863, however, an influx of new settlers, attracted by a gold rush, led the government to call a second council. Government commissioners asked the Nez Perce to accept a new, much smaller reservation of 760,000 acres around the village of Lapwai in western Idaho Territory. In exchange, they were promised financial rewards, schools, and a hospital for the reservation. Chief Lawyer (yes, that was his name) and one of his allied chiefs signed the treaty on behalf of the Nez Perce Nation, but Joseph the Elder and several other chiefs were opposed to selling their lands and did not sign.

Their refusal to sign caused a rift between the "non-treaty" and "treaty" bands of Nez Perce. The "treaty" Nez Perce moved within the new reservation's boundaries, while the "non-treaty" Nez Perce remained on their ancestral lands. Joseph the Elder demarcated Wallowa land with a series of poles, proclaiming, "Inside this boundary all our people were born. It circles the graves of our fathers, and we will never give up these graves to any man."

The non-treaty Nez Perce suffered many injustices at the hands of settlers and prospectors, but out of fear of reprisal from the militarily superior Americans, Young Joseph never allowed any violence against them, instead making many concessions to them in the hope of securing peace. A handwritten document recounts an 1872 experience by Oregon pioneer Henry Young and two friends in search of acreage at Prairie Creek, east of Wallowa Lake. Young's party was surrounded by 40–50 Nez Perce led by Chief Joseph. The chief told Young that white men were not welcome near Prairie Creek and Young's party was forced to leave without violence.

The following year, Chief Joseph negotiated with the federal government to ensure his people could stay on their land in the Wallowa Valley. But in 1877, the government reversed its policy, and General Howard threatened to attack if the Wallowa band did not relocate to the Idaho reservation with the other Nez Perce. Joseph reluctantly agreed. Before the outbreak of hostilities, General Howard held a council at Fort Lapwai to try to convince Chief Joseph and his people to relocate. The leader finished his address to the general, which focused on human equality, by expressing his disbelief that “the Great Spirit Chief gave one kind of men the right to tell another kind of men what they must do." Howard reacted angrily, interpreting the statement as a challenge to his authority.

The day following the council, Chief Joseph and his colleagues White Bird and Looking Glass accompanied Howard to examine different areas within the reservation. Howard offered them a plot of land that was inhabited by whites and Native Americans, promising to clear out the current residents. Joseph and his chieftains refused, adhering to their tribal tradition of not taking what did not belong to them. Unable to find any suitable uninhabited land on the reservation, Howard informed Joseph that his people had 30 days to collect their livestock and move to the reservation. Joseph pleaded for more time, but Howard told him he would consider their presence in the Wallowa Valley beyond the 30-day mark an act of war.

Returning home, Chief Joseph called a council among his people. At the council, he spoke on behalf of peace, preferring to abandon his father's grave over war. In June, the Wallowa band began making preparations for the long journey to the reservation, meeting first with other bands at Rocky Canyon. At this council, too, many leaders urged war, while Joseph continued to argue in favor of peace. While the council was underway, a young man whose father had been killed rode up and announced that he and several other young men had retaliated by killing four white settlers. Still hoping to avoid further bloodshed, Joseph and other non-treaty Nez Perce leaders began moving people away from Idaho.

But the break had occurred and the Nez Perce War was on. Like other conflicts between Native American tribes and the U.S. government – with the notable exception of Red Cloud’s War in 1866-68 – this one ended badly for the Nez Perce.

By the time Joseph had surrendered, 150 of his followers had been killed or wounded. Their plight, however, did not end. Although Joseph had negotiated with Miles and Howard for a safe return home for his people, General Sherman overruled this decision and forced Joseph and 400 followers to be taken on unheated rail cars to Fort Leavenworth, where they were held as prisoners of war for eight months. Toward the end of the following summer, the surviving Nez Perce were taken by rail to a reservation in Oklahoma, where they lived for seven years. Many of them died of epidemic diseases while there.

In 1879, Chief Joseph went to Washington D.C. to meet with President Rutherford B. Hayes and plead his people's case. Although Joseph was respected as a spokesman, opposition in Idaho prevented the U.S. government from granting his petition to return to the Pacific Northwest.  In 1885, Chief Joseph and his followers were taken to the Colville Indian Reservation in Washington, far from both their homeland in the Wallowa Valley and the rest of their people in Idaho.

Chief Joseph continued to lead his Wallowa band on the Colville Reservation, at times coming into conflict with the leaders of the 11 other unrelated tribes also living on the reservation. In his last years, he spoke eloquently against the injustice of United States policy toward his people and held out the hope that America's promise of freedom and equality might one day be fulfilled for Native Americans as well. In 1897, he visited Washington D.C. again to plead his case. He rode with Buffalo Bill Cody in a parade honoring the late President Ulysses Grant.

In 1903, Chief Joseph visited President Theodore Roosevelt in Washington D.C. Everywhere he went, it was to make a plea for what remained of his people to be returned to their home in the Wallowa Valley, but it never happened. Chief Joseph died on September 21, 1904, according to his doctor, "of a broken heart.” He was buried near the village of Nespelem, Washington, where many of his tribe's members still live.

Tom Clavin is the bestselling author/co-author of 25 books, including Follow Me to Hell, published in April by St. Martin’s Press. The trade paperback edition of The Last Hill (with Bob Drury) was released last week. Please go to your local bookstore or to Bookshop.org, Amazon.com, BN.com, or tomclavin.com to purchase a copy.