Description of featured picture by museum: This photograph is historically significant and has great human interest as well. It may be the only extant copy in existence of F. M. Sargent’s cabinet card of Nez Perce Chief Joseph and his family in Leavenworth, where they were exiled from 1877 to 1885.
March 3, 1840 – September 21, 1904 (aged 64)
Curator’s statement: Look into Chief Josephs’s face. What was he thinking and feeling at that moment? I believe this photograph is one of the most revealing portraits in our collection. You can see great dignity, pride, intelligence, and sadness in Joseph’s face and body language as well as tension, and perhaps some anger.
Young Joseph grew up in the cold shadows of those clouds, and when his father died, leadership became his burden. He had been taught that to honor the treaty of 1863 would be to dishonor the memory of his father; he vowed to keep the Wallowa for his own people.
He is commemorated in dozens of ways. His likeness is everywhere, it seems, and his name is ubiquitous.
A town is named after him, as is a hotel, a rodeo, and a mountain. Thousands of faces and names have faded into the past, but he endures and will continue to endure as long as we honor the factual history and remember the suffering of Indians.
Their name for themselves is Nimíipuu (pronounced [nimipu]), meaning, “The People”, in their native language. In fact, Nez Percé is an exonym that was given by French Canadian fur traders who visited the area regularly in the late 18th century. Its literal meaning is “pierced nose”; an erroneous identification as nose piercing was never practiced by the tribe.
Chief Joseph’s Nimíipuu name was Hinmut-too-yah-lat-kekeht, which, when translated into English, means “Thunder Rolling In the Mountains.” He was born in 1840, probably in the Wallowa Valley. He grew up to become a chief. In his manhood, he came to be known to white men as “Young Joseph.”
White men had been coming to the Valley of the Winding Waters since about 1834. These first ones were explorers, trappers, and missionaries. They represented only a trickle; but the trickle grew, became a stream; and in the end, the stream grew into a madly-rushing river, flooding its own banks and destroying all things that had been.
In 1855, Hinmut-too-yah-lat-kekeht’s father, the man known to white men as Old Joseph, entered into a treaty with Isaac Stevens, governor of Washington. Old Joseph and a number of other chiefs gave some of the lands they had always called their own to the white man, but they made sure that the Wallowa Valley was left to them. It would never be given away or sold to “The Hairy Man” from the East.
The treaty of 1855, the first ever signed by White men and Nez Perce, was quickly broken. Annuities promised by the government either arrived late or never arrived at all. The Nez Perce were justifiably upset.
In 1863, the government decided to negotiate yet another treaty. Old Joseph attended the negotiations, but when he discovered the white men wanted possession of his valley, he refused to sign. Others, however, did sign, and the government laid claim to the sacred land. The treaty caused a split among the Nez Perce. And on all horizons, war clouds, black and angry, were gathering.
Nez Perce Resources
The first white settlers appeared in the Valley of the Winding Waters in 1871. They had been living in the Grande Ronde Valley and were in search of more and better rangeland. They looked things over, left, and returned with others. Homesteads began to dot the land; tensions between white men and Nez Percé grew. The clouds were getting darker all the time.
Young Joseph was not a war chief. He was a statesman and an orator, and according to record, he counseled his people to keep peace with the newly arrived settlers. His wisdom held for five years, from 1871 to 1876. But in the summer of 1876, the dark clouds rumbled and first blood was spilled.
The first episode involved a pair of white settlers and a Nez Perce brave named Wil-lot-yah. The settlers, Finley and McNall by name, came upon a Nez Perce camp and searched it, believing they might find some horses that had been stolen. A scuffle ensued and Finley shot Wil-lot-yah.
Joseph and his band sought justice, but found none. The two men were tried for the killing and acquitted. Animosities on both sides grew; more incidents occurred, and finally the government took a hand.
A commission set up to study the problems in the Wallowa Valley recommended that the region be cleared of Nez Perce by force, if necessary.
Young Joseph undoubtedly saw there was no holding back the flood. In May, 1877, he did what he vowed he would never do; he led his people away from the Wallowas toward Idaho and the Lapwai Reservation, which was to be their new home.
But the young men were bitter. Along the way, three of them broke off from the band and in rage killed four white settlers. The storm that had been brewing for so many years broke.
Joseph knew the white man would seek retribution, and so determined to lead his band to Canada. He took over 800 of his people in that direction, pursued by General O.O. Howard, the famed one-armed Indian fighter.
Howard ran the Nez Perce into the ground, finally, up in Montana. Joseph surrendered his band at a place called Bear Paw Mountain some 50 miles from the Canadian border, in October, 1877.
The fighting lasted for six days. When it was over, 275 people were dead, 150 Nez Perce and 125 U.S. Soldiers.
Following his surrender, Chief Joseph and his people were escorted, first to Kansas, and then to what is present-day Oklahoma. Joseph spent the next several years pleading his people’s case, even meeting with President Rutherford Hayes in 1879.
At the end his people were put on reservations in Oklahoma, Idaho, and Washington.
Finally, in 1885, Joseph and others were allowed to return to the Pacific Northwest, but it was far from a perfect solution. So many of his people had already perished, either from war or disease, and their new home was still miles from their true homeland in the Wallowa Valley.
Chief Joseph did not live to see again the land he had known as a child and young warrior. He died in exile at the age of 64, on September 21, 1904, and was buried in the Colville Indian Cemetery on the Colville Reservation in the state of Washington.
Today he is well remembered throughout Wallowa County. His picture is displayed in businesses, the post office, restaurants, vacation rentals, and many other places to honor a man who wanted nothing but peace for his people.
He’s the man who said: “The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it.”
“Let me be a free man, free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose. Let me be free to choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to think and talk and act for myself and I will obey every law, or submit to the penalty.”
Native American History in Wallowa County, oregon
Historically, the Nez Perce Tribe functioned as a self-governing nation. Later, treaties with the federal government preserved the tribe’s status as a sovereign nation within the United States.
For more information on the Wallowa Homeland visit: Nez Perce Wallowa Homeland
Traditional Ways
Originally, the Nimiipuu people occupied an area that included parts of present-day Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. They moved throughout this region and parts of what are now Montana and Wyoming to fish, hunt, and trade.
The Nez Perce Tribe’s government included a leader for many aspects of their traditional lifeways, such as fishing, hunting, warfare, and religion. Councils guided the decisions of each leader. The Nimiipuu people chose leaders and council members based on their knowledge and skill sets.
Today, many traditional ways remain part of the Nimiipuu tribal culture.
The Treaties
In 1855, Hinmut-too-yah-lat-kekeht’s father, the man known to white men as Old Joseph, entered into a treaty with Isaac Stevens, governor of Washington. Old Joseph and a number of other chiefs gave some of the land they had always called their own to the white man, but they made sure that the Wallowa Valley was left to them. It would never be given away or sold to “The Hairy Man” from the East.
The treaty of 1855, the first ever signed by White men and Nez Perce, was quickly broken. Annuities promised by the government either arrived late or never arrived at all. The Nez Perce were justifiably upset.
In 1863, the government decided to negotiate yet another treaty. Old Joseph attended the negotiations, but when he discovered the white men wanted possession of his valley, he refused to sign. Others, however, did sign, and the government laid claim to the sacred land. The treaty caused a split among the Nez Perce. And on all horizons, war clouds, black and angry, were gathering.
Source: https://nezperce.org:
Nimiipuu (Nez Perce) Recommended Literature and more...
The Nez Perce Indians And The Opening Of The Northwest
By Alvin M. Josephy Jr.
Is there any chapter in American history more dramatic than that of the Northwest from the time of Lewis and Clark to the tragic defeat of Chief Joseph in 1877? Heroic – and not so heroic -characters abound: explorers, fur traders, miners, settlers, missionaries, ranchers, Indian chiefs and their tribespeople. Now, when interest in Lewis and Clark and the American Northwest has never been higher, comes the first complete and unabridged paperback edition of Alvin Josephy’s masterwork.
Nez Perce Country
By Alvin M. Josephy Jr. and Jeremy FiveCrows
The rivers, canyons, and prairies of the Columbia Basin are the homeland of the Nez Perce. The Nez Perce, or Nimiipuu, inhabited much of what is now north central Idaho and portions of Oregon and Washington for thousands of years. The story of how western settlement drastically affected the Nimiipuu is one of the great and at times tragic sagas of American history.
Thunder in the Mountains:
Chief Joseph, Oliver Otis Howard, and the Nez Perce War
By Daniel J. Sharfstein
Oliver Otis Howard thought he was a man of destiny. Chosen to lead the Freedmen’s Bureau after the Civil War, the Union Army general was entrusted with the era’s most crucial task: helping millions of former slaves claim the rights of citizens. He was energized by the belief that abolition and Reconstruction, the country’s great struggles for liberty and equality, were God’s plan for himself and the nation.
Chief Joseph's Own Story
by Chief Joseph - compiled by by George Percés Burrows
Joseph’s speeches from when he traveled to Washington, D.C. First hand, his words.
I Will Fight No More Forever: Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce War
by Merrill D. Beal
Unpublished letters and diaries by eyewitnesses, interviews with decedents, an intimate knowledge of the country enrich this narrative of the heroic Nez Perce Indian War waged in 1877 against relocation.
The result is a well documented chronicle offering new perspective on prewar Indian-white relations, United States government pressures and nontreaty rebellions, the five battles, subjection and surrender, and on the character of the leaders on both sides.
The Last Indian War: The Nez Perce Story
(Pivotal Moments in American History)
By elliot West
To tell the story, West begins with the early history of the Nez Perce and their years of friendly relations with white settlers. In an initial treaty, the Nez Perce were promised a large part of their ancestral homeland, but the discovery of gold led to a stampede of settlement within the Nez Perce land. Numerous injustices at the hands of the US government combined with the settlers’ invasion to provoke this most accomodating of tribes to war. West offers a riveting account of what came next: the harrowing flight of 800 Nez Perce, including many women, children and elderly, across 1500 miles of mountainous and difficult terrain.
CHIEF JOSEPH AND THE FLIGHT OF THE NEZ PERCE
by Kent Nerburn
Hidden in the shadow cast by the great western expeditions of Lewis and Clark lies another journey every bit as poignant, every bit as dramatic, and every bit as essential to an understanding of who we are as a nation – the 1,800-mile journey made by Chief Joseph and 800 Nez Perce men, women, and children from their homelands in what is now eastern Oregon to Montana. There, only 40 miles from the Canadian border and freedom, Chief Joseph, convinced that the wounded and elders could go no farther, walked across the snowy battlefield, handed his rifle to the US military commander who had been pursuing them, and spoke his now-famous words, “From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever.”
lewis and clark among the nez perce
Strangers in the Land of the Nimiipuu
by Allen V. Pinkham and Steven R. Evans
This extraordinary new look at Lewis and Clark among the Nez Perce represents a breakthrough in Lewis and Clark studies. Lewis and Clark Among the Nez Perce is the first richly detailed exploration of the relationship between Mr. Jefferson’s Corps of Discovery and a single tribe.
James Ronda’s groundbreaking Lewis and Clark Among the Indians (1984) reversed the lens for the first time, to look broadly at the Lewis and Clark expedition through the Native American point of view.
Yellow Wolf: His Own Story
by L.V. McWhorter
The Nez Perce campaign is among the most famous in the brief and bloody history of the Indian wars of the West. Yellow Wolf was a contemporary of Chief Joseph and a leader among his own men. His story is one that had never been told and will never be told again. A first person account, through author L.V. McWhorter of the Nez Perce’s ill-fated battle for land and freedom.
Hear Me My Chiefs!: Nez Perce Legend and History
by L.V. McWhorter
McWhorter uses interviews with other Nez Perce and available documents to tell pre-War stories of Nez Perce origins, their battles with other Indians, of missionaries and treaties and then of the War itself.
Days with Chief Joseph
by Erskine Wood
This is the century old diary of a young white boy who lived in the Nez Perce camp of Chief Joseph following exile to Colville, WA. Erskine’s father, aide-de-camp to General O.O. Howard, befriended Chief Joseph and sent his son to live with Joseph & his wives in their teepee at Nespelem, WA, for two seasons in 1892 & 1893.
The Nez Perce Indians And The Opening Of The Northwest
by Alvin M. Josephy
The encyclopedic account, beginning in 1805, of the settlement of Oregon and Washington as it relates to the Nez Perce people.
I Will Tell of My War Story: A Pictorial Account of the Nez Perce War
by Scott M. Thompson
A middle school art teacher and scholar of Native American culture presents, discusses, and interprets the contents of a valuable firsthand pictorial account of events during and after the 1877 Nez Perce war. Produced by an anonymous Nez Perce warrior who participated in the conflict, the small pocket notebook (simply titled Cash Book ) illustrated with red, blue, and black pencil is reproduced in the present volume, which also discusses the circumstances surrounding the volume’s preservation and analyzes the drawings.
A Little Bit of Wisdom: Conversations With a Nez Perce Elder
by Horace P. Axtell
In A LITTLE BIT OF WISDOM, Horace Axtell, a contemporary Nez Perce elder and spiritual leader, recounts to Margo Aragon his family’s history and his own personal journey. It is a book about growing up Christian while maintaining a strong tribal identity, about going first to war and then to prison, and then coming home to rediscover the Long House and the sacred practice of the Seven Drum Religion and the Sweat House.
Nez Perce Women in Transition, 1877-1990
by Caroline James
Includes unique individual accounts recorded directly from personal interviews with Nez Perce women ranging in age from twenty to ninety. The narratives, in combination with a broad selection of photographs, present some of the major historical, political, and cultural changes that have occurred and provide an opportunity to view Nez Perce women as they made and continue to make dramatic transitions.
Treaties Nez Perce Perspectives Paperback
by Nez Perce Tribe
Writings by members of the Nez Perce tribe on the perspectives of past Nez Perce leaders
From the Wallowas
by Grace Bartlett
A collection of essays about people and places around the county, includes a few details of early settler interaction and understanding of the Nez Perce.
The Wallowa Country 1867-1877
by Grace Bartlett
Almost a day-by-day account of the last years of Indian tenure and first years of white occupation of the Wallowa Country. Includes some early photographs.
Salmon and His People: Fish & Fishing in Nez Perce Culture
by Dan Landeen
Details, stories and quotes exploring the role of fish in Nez Perce life.
ČÁW PAWÁ LÁAKNI: SAHAPTIAN PLACE NAMES OF THE CAYUSE, UMATILLA, AND WALLA WALLA
by Eugene S. Hunn
This ethnogeographic atlas of Native place names presents a compelling account of interactions between a homeland and its people. A project of the Tamástslikt Cultural Institute at the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation – composed of the Cayuse, Umatilla, and Walla Walla Tribes in eastern Oregon – Cáw Pawá Láakni documents and describes more than four hundred place names. The full-color, detailed maps and the narrative that introduces and supports them paint a picture of a way of life. This meticulous assemblage of memory and meaning echoes cultural and geographical information that has all but disappeared from common knowledge.
Unlikely Alliances: Native Nations and White Communities Join to Defend Rural Lands
by Zoltán Grossman (Author), Winona LaDuke (Foreword)
Often when Native nations assert their treaty rights and sovereignty, they are confronted with a backlash from their neighbors, who are fearful of losing control of the natural resources. Yet, when both groups are faced with an outside threat to their common environment―such as mines, dams, or an oil pipeline―these communities have unexpectedly joined together to protect the resources. Some regions of the United States with the most intense conflicts were transformed into areas with the deepest cooperation between tribes and local farmers, ranchers, and fishers to defend sacred land and water.
Native American History Resources - As it Really happened
Murder State: California's Native American Genocide, 1846-1873
By Brendan C. Lindsay
In the second half of the 19th century, the Euro-American citizenry of California carried out mass genocide against the Native population of their state, using the processes and mechanisms of democracy to secure land and resources for themselves and their private interests. The murder, rape, and enslavement of thousands of Native people were legitimized by notions of democracy – in this case mob rule – through a discreetly organized and brutally effective series of petitions, referenda, town hall meetings, and votes at every level of California government.
An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846-1873
Between 1846 and 1873, California’s Indian population plunged from perhaps 150,000 to 30,000. Madley describes pre-contact California and precursors to the genocide before explaining how the Gold Rush stirred vigilante violence against California Indians. He narrates the rise of a state-sanctioned killing machine and the broad societal, judicial, and political support for genocide. Many participated: vigilantes, volunteer state militiamen, U.S. Army soldiers, U.S. congressmen, California governors, and others.
American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History Since 1492
This demographic overview of North American Indian history describes in detail the holocaust that, even today, white Americans tend to dismiss as an unfortunate concomitant of Manifest Destiny. They wish to forget that, as Euro-Americans invaded North America and prospered in the “New World,” the numbers of native peoples declined sharply; entire tribes, often in the space of a few years, were “wiped from the face of the earth.”
The Earth Is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West
With the end of the Civil War, the nation recommenced its expansion onto traditional Indian tribal lands, setting off a wide-ranging conflict that would last more than three decades. In an exploration of the wars and negotiations that destroyed tribal ways of life even as they made possible the emergence of the modern United States, Peter Cozzens gives us both sides in comprehensive and singularly intimate detail.
American Indian Sovereignty and the U.S. Supreme Court : The Masking of Justice
In this book, David Wilkins charts the “fall in our democratic faith” through fifteen landmark cases in which the Supreme Court significantly curtailed Indian rights. He offers compelling evidence that Supreme Court justices selectively used precedents and facts, both historical and contemporary, to arrive at decisions that have undermined tribal sovereignty, legitimated massive tribal land losses, sanctioned the diminishment of Indian religious rights, and curtailed other rights as well.
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
by David Grann
In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, they rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe.
Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed off. The family of an Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, became a prime target. Her relatives were shot and poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more and more members of the tribe began to die under mysterious circumstances.
The Journey of Crazy Horse: A Lakota History Kindle Edition
Drawing on vivid oral histories, Joseph M. Marshall’s intimate biography introduces a never-before-seen portrait of Crazy Horse and his Lakota community.
Most of the world remembers Crazy Horse as a peerless warrior who brought the U.S. Army to its knees at the Battle of Little Bighorn. But to his fellow Lakota Indians, he was a dutiful son and humble fighting man who—with valor, spirit, respect, and unparalleled leadership—fought for his people’s land, livelihood, and honor. In this fascinating biography, Joseph M. Marshall, himself a Lakota Indian, creates a vibrant portrait of the man, his times, and his legacy.
Black Elk Speaks: The Complete Edition
By John G. Neihardt
Black Elk Speaks, the story of the Oglala Lakota visionary and healer Nicholas Black Elk (1863–1950) and his people during momentous twilight years of the nineteenth century, offers readers much more than a precious glimpse of a vanished time. Black Elk’s searing visions of the unity of humanity and Earth, conveyed by John G. Neihardt, have made this book a classic that crosses multiple genres. Whether appreciated as the poignant tale of a Lakota life, as a history of a Native nation, or as an enduring spiritual testament, Black Elk Speaks is unforgettable.
courage beyond expectations
Prophets said they would come. Now Northwest Indians are facing miners and play-soldiers, raping, killing and robbing natives who only want to be left alone. Set in the Northwest before the Civil War, this true story captures the spirit of natives who displayed Courage Beyond Expectations in their futile efforts to retain their traditional way of life. In researching the history of his people, a contemporary Indian writer, finds the long-lost journal of a Bavarian artillery corporal. Hans Schüler had recorded his part in this tragic campaign.
In turning his discovery into a book, Clyde Mullan is startled to uncover a link to his ancestry. The Indian side of the conflict is seen through the eyes of a young Spokan brave.