Chief Joseph & the Flight of the Nez Perce (51 page)

But the government would do no such thing. Joseph might be a celebrity in the eyes of the American public, but to the local authorities he was indolent, obstructionist, the recipient of unfair publicity and privilege, and a bad influence on Indians who were trying to better themselves in the ways of civilization.

Isolated, ill with an undiagnosed malaise that sapped his strength and spirit, encroached upon by white settlers, and resented by the other tribes among which he lived, Joseph gradually declined, his life becoming a hollow shell of itself. He spent long periods sitting quietly outside his tent or looking at the photo of his one living child, Noise of Running Feet, who lived near Lapwai under the name of Sarah Moses and whom he had never seen or been permitted to visit since that day he had put her on a horse and sent her north across the snow-covered plains at the Bear's Paw.

In 1903 he undertook another journey to Washington. Gold had been discovered on the Colville, and the entire top half of the reservation had been taken from the Indians and opened to white settlement. The remaining southern half, where Joseph and his people lived, was being encroached on by white prospectors without regard for boundaries or legal restrictions. Even the agents and government employees charged with serving the people's good spent their spare time in the hills and streams panning for gold.

The blasts of miners' dynamite in nearby valleys shook the earth, frightening the Nez Perce horses and terrifying the old people, who remembered too well the explosions of the great cannon shells at the Bear's Paw. It not only reminded them of the death and suffering they had experienced, it seemed to repeat the great injustice that had befallen the Nez Perce people when gold had been discovered on their lands forty years before. Joseph wished to do what he could to stop it.

In Washington, he was permitted an audience with the new president, Teddy Roosevelt, who was known to be a great lover of nature and the land. At a buffalo dinner arranged by General Miles, Joseph pleaded his people's case and was promised by the president that someone would come to investigate the matter.

No one ever arrived. Joseph was unaware of Roosevelt's feeling toward Indians, that “I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of every ten are, and I shouldn't like to enquire too closely into the case of the tenth.”

On his way home he stopped at Carlisle Indian Industrial School, the boarding school in Pennsylvania that had served as the model for the Chilocco School in Indian Territory, where the Nez Perce children had been taken from the Oakland agency. There he was reunited with General Howard, with whom he shared the stage as a speaker at the anniversary commemoration.

Joseph had never thought highly of Howard, either for his military prowess or his imperiously paternalistic Christian ways. Nonetheless, he graciously dined with the general and allowed himself to be photographed at the general's side. When he spoke to the audience, he said, “Ever since the war I have made up my mind to be friendly to the whites and to everybody…. I have lost many friends and many men, women, and children, but I have no grievance against any of the white people, General Howard or anyone.”

He reiterated his long-standing belief that the Indian people should learn the white man's ways in order to mingle and do business with them but that they also should be allowed to keep their own ways and to live as they pleased. He concluded with the wish that he so long had expressed, “I want to be friends to everybody.”

After he returned to his home, his health declined further. He spent long hours sitting alone, saying little. The agency doctor noted that he seemed listless. The agent in charge said that he complained of always feeling tired.

On September 21, 1904, Joseph lay quietly in his teepee. Most of the tribe was away in the Yakima Valley serving as casual laborers in white farmers' hops fields. Summoning his wife, who had remained in attendance with him, he requested that she get his headdress from the small wooden shed where he kept such items of value as his old rifle and the framed certificate he had received for participating in the parade at the dedication of Grant's Tomb. “I may die at any time,” he told her, “and I wish to die as a chief.”

While she was gone, he took his final breath.

J
OSEPH WAS BURIED
in Nespelem on the Colville reservation in accordance with the wishes of his people. The Wallowa, where he had fought his entire life to return, was now completely in the hands of the white men, who had consistently denied him even the smallest plot of land, though they had named a town “Joseph” in order to capitalize on his fame and notoriety.

His father's grave, which had seemed so meticulously kept when Joseph had visited it five years before, had, in fact, contained only part of his parent's remains. His father's skull had previously been removed by souvenir hunters and was prominently displayed on the shelf of a dentist's office in the nearby town of Baker City, Oregon.

The nine children he had fathered in the course of his life were all dead, including Sarah Moses, or Noise of Running Feet, who was reported to have been pushed in front of a moving train while standing near the siding at the Lapwai mission.

Newspapers around the country took note of his death, usually mentioning him in regard to the epic journey his people had undertaken and praising him as a friend of the white people. The
New York Times,
in its short death notice, referred to him as “the Napoleon of Indians,” later adding to that with a quarter-page article celebrating him as the “Noblest Indian of them all, the Washington of his people,” and noting that “the world will hardly see his like again.”

But Edwin Latham, the agency physician who had attended the chief during his last years, may have provided him with the most fitting epitaph.

“Chief Joseph,” he said, “died of a broken heart.”

It was an apt memorial for a man who had entreated the U.S. government, “Treat all men alike. Give them the same law. Give them all an even chance to live and grow… For this time the Indian people are waiting and praying.”

That prayer had never come to pass.

In writing
Chief Joseph & the Flight of the Nez Perce,
I did not set out to write an academic treatise. As an Ojibwe elder once told me, “People learn best by hearing stories.” And telling a story is exactly what I wanted to do.

But even a story, if told conscientiously, must adhere to the historical record.
Chief Joseph & the Flight of the Nez Perce
is undergirded by almost four years of research into primary documents, historical texts, scholarly articles, and personal interviews, as well as twenty thousand miles of travel across the United States to sites significant to the Nez Perce and their history. It is, to the best of my ability, accurate in its specifics and facts.

Nonetheless, choices had to be made. The historical record is rife with instances of substantial disagreement about numbers, facts, and interpretations. To take only a single example, here are but a few of the contested issues regarding the siege and surrender at the Bear's Paw:

       
Did the Nez Perce know the soldiers were coming?

       
Was Looking Glass killed before or after Joseph's parley with Miles?

       
Did the soldiers or the Indians raise the white flag for the first peace discussion?

       
Was there one instance of a white flag, or were there many?

       
Was Joseph bound and gagged during his detention or merely kept under guard?

       
Was Lieutenant Jerome's reconnaissance done on his own or at Miles's request?

       
Did Joseph hand his rifle to Howard or to Miles?

       
What did Joseph actually say at the surrender, and when did he say it?

A narrative that addressed each of these contested issues within the body of the text would cease to be a narrative at all. And this is what has happened to many of the best books on the Nez Perce and Chief Joseph. They have devolved into exercises in documentation, clarification, and qualification. They analyze well but read poorly.

Such books have their place, and I highly recommend them to anyone interested in weighing the pros and cons of disputed information. But I wanted to offer you a story with the pulse of life running through it. So, rather than interrupt the narrative with intellectual arguments and controversies underlying the text or break its momentum by littering the pages with footnotes, I made the best choices I could from the best materials available and presented them as part of the story as I have come to understand and believe it.

I cannot promise to be correct, any more than anyone else can promise to be correct. But what I can promise is this: At no point have I strayed beyond the historical record, whether written or oral. Each moment, each occurrence in this saga as I have recreated it, is as at least one participant or firsthand observer understood it to have happened. And the choices I have made reflect what in my estimation is the most plausible interpretation of disputed events.

Readers who wish to dig more deeply into the many fascinating questions about the Nez Perce's past should consult the copious endnotes of such fine historians as Alvin Josephy and Jerome Greene, whose works are cited below. There the questions of interpretation and controversy are laid bare for deeper analysis and discussion.

A final note: History is indeed a tapestry of individual stories imperfectly woven. It is my hope that, since I tried to tell the story in a way that preserves the heartbeat of human experience, others who have information—passed on by elders, in letters wrapped in ribbons in the attic, or merely held in memory from some distant source—will be encouraged to tell their stories as well. Only then will this tapestry reveal its full richness. Only then will this story, with its many faces and many voices, get the belated hearing in the American public that it so richly deserves.

Bibliography

The long sweep of the Nez Perce story has been told in various ways by various people. These retellings constitute important secondary sources that a researcher must keep by his or her side to serve as road maps to the journey. They all cover much of the same historical terrain, but each has a different emphasis and point of view. I note them in the individual note sections if they are especially relevant to that chapter.

The following list represents those works I found most interesting or valuable in giving a meaningful shape to this sprawling story. They do not all agree on either facts or interpretation, but each represents a worthy attempt to give a reader access to the story of the Nez Perce and their journey into exile.

Beal, Merrill.
I Will Fight No More Forever: Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce War.
New York: Ballantine, 1973. A no-nonsense, no-frills recounting of events, divided into many short chapters that locate the reader in the story better than any other account.

Brown, Mark.
The Flight of the Nez Perce.
Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982. Copiously researched with an unapologetic bias toward the U.S. government and military's point of view. Brings the reader closer to the military thinking than any other document.

Curtis, Edward.
The North American Indian,
vol. 8. Norwood, MA: Plimpton Press, 1911. Using personal conversations and sources within the Nez Perce community, the famous photographer presents a compelling picture of Nez Perce culture and the Nez Perce journey that is often at odds with other accounts.

Fee, Chester Anders.
Chief Joseph: Biography of a Great Indian.
New York: Wilson Ericson, 1936. Somewhat fanciful reconstruction of Joseph, with strong material about Joseph's boyhood and the world of the whites in the area at the time.

Greene, Jerome.
Nez Perce Summer, 1877: The U.S. Army and the Nee-Me-Poo Crisis.
Helena: Montana Historical Society Press, 2000. The best historical assessment of the war period; tries to give an honest appraisal of both military and Indian points of view. Used all available military, settler, and Indian sources to create a foundation document for the war period that is as essential as Josephy's work is for the prewar period.

Gulick, Bill.
Chief Joseph Country: Land of the Nez Perce.
Caldwell, ID: Caxton Printers, 1981. The only heavily illustrated history. Contains maps, photographs of participants and locations, and reproductions of newspaper accounts. Magazine journalism and style with solid historical grounding.

Haines, Francis.
The Nez Percés: Tribesmen of the Columbia Plateau.
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1955. One of the best solid histories of the Nez Perce. Incorporates many direct quotes and integrates historical detail into a highly readable text.

Hampton, Bruce.
Children of Grace: The Nez Perce War of 1877.
New York: Holt, 1994. Along with David Lavender's work, the most readable historical account.

Howard, Helen Addison.
Saga of Chief Joseph.
Caldwell, ID: Caxton Printers, 1965. Often maligned for its overemphasis on Joseph's leadership role, it tries, more than any other, to bring the chief's story to the fore. Very readable and undervalued.

Howard, O. O., General.
Nez Percé Joseph: An Account of His Ancestors, His Lands, His Confederates, His Enemies, His Murders, His War, His Pursuit and Capture.
New York: Da Capo Press, 1972. Written by the general who pursued the Nez Perce, the account is obviously biased toward the military point of view. It is also heavily criticized for factual inaccuracy regarding the Nez Perce. But it provides a detailed and insightful assessment of the entire journey as understood, after the fact, by a key military player.

Joseph, Chief. “Chief Joseph's Own Story.”
North American Review
, 128 (April 1879) 412–33. This is the text of the article published after Joseph's visit to Washington. It is purported to be an approximation of the speech he gave during that visit. It is the only account in Joseph's words of why his people fled and what transpired during their flight and exile. Whether because of the translator, the editor, or the chief himself, it has the problematic aspect of making Joseph the prime architect of all the events of the journey. As a result, it contributed greatly to the mythologizing of Joseph and the subsequent misinterpretation of events that has persisted to this day.

Josephy, Alvin.
The Nez Perce Indians and the Opening of the Northwest.
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1965. The fundamental resource work for any study of the Nez Perce from a historical point of view. The only work that focuses primary attention on the preflight period.

Lavender, David.
Let Me Be Free: The Nez Perce Tragedy.
New York: HarperCollins, 1992. An engaging presentation of the time of contact with Lewis and Clark to the Bear's Paw surrender. Perhaps the best written account, it rises to literature while still managing to be historically accurate.

McDonald, Duncan. “Through Nez Perce Eyes.” In
In Pursuit of the Nez Perces: The Nez Perce War of 1877,
compiled by Linwood Laughy. Wrangell, AK: Mountain Meadow Press, 1993. Written by a reporter of mixed Nez Perce and Scots ancestry, this recounting is based on a series of articles written during the actual flight and published in the
New Northwest,
a newspaper published in Deer Lodge, Montana. It offers anecdotes and insight found nowhere else and hence cannot be corroborated. It keeps a journalist's distance while providing an insider's insight to the Nez Perce war and journey. Follows White Bird to Canada rather than Joseph to Kansas and Oklahoma.

McWhorter, Lucullus.
Hear Me, My Chiefs! Nez Perce History and Legend.
Caldwell, ID: Caxton Printers, 1983. As unapologetically pro-Indian as Mark Brown is pro-military. Developed from McWhorter's own correspondence with Nez Perce. The point of view and interpretation subscribed to by most Nez Perce.

McWhorter, Lucullus.
Yellow Wolf: His Own Story.
Caldwell, ID: Caxton Printers, 1940. This work was written from actual conversations with Yellow Wolf, who participated in the entire war experience. He escaped with White Bird at the time of the surrender and later rejoined Joseph's band in exile. Along with Joseph's recounting, it is the most compelling Nez Perce record of events, and McWhorter has endeavored to allow Yellow Wolf to speak in his own voice. An essential work.

Moeller, Bill, and Jan Moeller.
Chief Joseph and the Nez Perces: A Photographic History.
Missoula, MT: Mountain Press Publishing, 1995. A small book of color photographs that place the reader in the landscape of the entire Nez Perce journey.

Stadius, Martin.
Dreamers: On the Trail of the Nez Perce.
Caldwell, ID: Caxton Press, 1999. An earnest attempt to combine the author's personal journey of the Nez Perce Trail with a historian's recounting of the events along the way. Written in a conversational style, it endeavors to make the story of the exodus feel immediate. It ends abruptly with the surrender at the Bear's Paw.

Wilfong, Cheryl.
Following the Nez Perce Trail: A Guide to the Nee-Me-Poo National Historic Trail with Eyewitness Accounts.
Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 1990. A large-format, mile-by-mile travelers' guide to the entire journey of the Nez Perce, including the flight of White Bird's band into Canada and the Leavenworth and Indian territory exile. Weak only on the Quapaw and Oakland stays, and a bit sketchy on the post-surrender journey, it is by far the best traveling companion for the trail. It also contains well-researched quotes and illuminating photographs of the areas under discussion, allowing the armchair traveler and reader to stay well oriented in space and time.

Sources by Chapter

My chapter notes are meant to be a reader's guide to major secondary sources that are especially relevant for a particular chapter. They are, in effect, a reading list for the interested generalist, similar to one I might give students wishing to construct their own story of the Nez Perce history, flight, and exile. I have also confined my referenced works to those readily available to a general reader with access to a good public library or historical bookstore. The only exceptions have been when a particular article is especially salient or essential.

Part 1: A Time of Hope
1. “We Thought They Might Be Descended from Dogs”

The fine work of Alvin Josephy,
The Nez Perce Indians and the Opening of the Northwest
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1965), is the fundamental background work for any serious study of the Nez Perce. The photographer Edward Curtis, who was also an accomplished ethnographer, gives a clear, first-person view of Nez Perce culture in
The North American Indian,
vol. 8 (Norwood, MA: Plimpton Press, 1911). Herbert Spinden's
The Nez Percé Indians,
a monograph published by the American Anthropological Association (Lancaster, PA: New Era Print, 1908), offers an ethnographic assessment of Nez Perce culture and habits, as does Deward Walker's
Indians of Idaho
(Moscow: University of Idaho Press, 1978). Caroline James's
Nez Perce Women in Transition, 1877–1890
(Moscow: University of Idaho Press, 1996) uses oral histories and personal interviews to provide an inside look at the role and activities of women in Nez Perce culture and history. Lillian Ackerman's
A Necessary Balance: Gender and Power Among Indians of the Columbia Plateau
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003), does the same, with a slightly wider geographic reach. The book
Salmon and His People: Fish and Fishing in Nez Perce Culture
(Lewiston, ID: Confluence Press, 1999), by Dan Landeen and Allen Pinkham, provides a deep understanding of the physical and spiritual role of the salmon in Nez Perce life.
Tales
of the Nez Perce,
by Donald Hines (Fairfield, WA: Ye Galleon Press, 1984), presents many of the Nez Perce traditional tales and stories.