Note: This was not intended to be a followup to Ojibwa's excellent diary on the Nez Percé. It's just a coincidence, and since there is little overlap, I decided to let it fly. I recommend reading Ojibwa's diary first.
"Tell General Howard I know his heart. What he told me before, I have it in my heart. I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed; Looking Glass is dead, Too-hul-hul-sote is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say yes or no. He who led on the young men is dead. It is cold, and we have no blankets; the little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are—perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children, and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever."
These words, perhaps the saddest and most poetic ever spoken in surrender, are attributed to the Great Nez Percé Chief Joseph, also known as "Hinmuuttu-yalatlat" ("Thunder Rolling Down the Mountain"), at the time of his defeat in 1877. The speech was made to an interpreter in the presence of the one-armed Civil War hero General Howard, and is reported to have been translated on the spot by Lieutenant Charles Erskine Scott Wood.
There is not among these three hundred bands of Indians one which has not suffered cruelly at the hands either of the Government or of white settlers. The poorer, the more insignificant, the more helpless the band, the more certain the cruelty and outrage to which they have been subjected. This is especially true of the bands on the Pacific slope. These Indians found themselves of a sudden surrounded by and caught up in the great influx of gold-seeking settlers, as helpless creatures on a shore are caught up in a tidal wave. There was not time for the Government to make treaties; not even time for communities to make laws. The tale of the wrongs, the oppressions, the murders of the Pacific-slope Indians in the last thirty years would be a volume by itself, and is too monstrous to be believed.
-Helen Hunt Jackson, "A Century of Dishonor"
I find no explanation why the migration of the Nez Percé tribe to Canada had to be stopped. They were frequently referred to as the "hostile tribe", yet Chief Joseph eschewed violence. He peacefully signed a treaty that allowed them to remain on their lush (see photo below), sacred land in Northeast Oregon as part of a 7.7 million acre territory awarded to Indians. Later, the white men, having discovered gold on Nez Percé territory, tried to ram a new treaty down their throats, which cut the Indian land by 90% and displaced Chief Joseph's tribe, taking the sacred ground where his father was buried. Cheif Joseph refused to accept that treaty. His refusal was considered an act of war. To avoid conflict, Chief Joseph led his people on a journey to Canada so they could live peacefully and autonomously, without being subjected to the will and whim of White Americans. Thus began the "Nez Percé War".
Why it had to pass, that a calvary of 2000, relatively well provisioned and armed with superior weapons, needed to forcibly stop this migration of families that, including women and children numbered all of 800, is unclear. Opportunity for a medal for Captain Miles seems as good as explanation as any. Why an accomplishment of this sort would warrant decoration is equally puzzling. Such a victory should have been as unimpressive and undignified as sluicing ducks in a pond.
2000 soldiers, with more advanced artillery, went after a band of 800 Nez Percé, remnants of a once great tribe that numbered 6000. Of the 800 Nez Percé, 200 were warriors. They were outnumbered 10 to one. Their leader, Chief Joseph, did not start the war. He was distinguished as a man of peace. He never wanted war, and, in fact, was retreating from Northeast Oregon to Canada specifically to avoid war, and lead his people to safety. The pursuit by the calvary was not a war in any real sense. It was a mission to avenge the deaths of a handful of white settlers that were killed in retaliation for themselves killing Nez Percé and stealing their land.
For this military engagement, every single one of the soldiers that participated were awarded a medal, a decoration that grew in stature as the Chief became known as "the Red Napoleon", the most worthy warrior chief since Sitting Bull annihilated Custard's army at Bighorn. Rather an ironic title for a pacifist, I think.
"Joseph Younger", as he was named after his father, was a stoic, peaceful, hospitable man that despised war and fled his homeland with his tribe. It was a retreat – an attempted escape to safety from the vengeance of an occupying force. Our generals simply could not tolerate such an outcome.
After the surrender, the nearly 600 surviving followers of Chief Joseph were split. Some wound up at a reservation in Idaho, most were sent to a POW camp in Kansas for 8 months, then to a reservation in Oklahoma where a good any of them soon perished from epidemic. Eventually the remnants of Chief Joseph's tribe were sent to the Colville reservation in Washington, where he died in 1904. Cause of death, said his doctor, was "a broken heart".
Prologue
Tucked away in the Northeast corner of Oregon are small communities surrounded by an incredible natural beauty as diverse as the individuals that make it home. From World-Class Bronze Foundries to exceptional Hay and Beef, Wallowa County is everything that defines The American Spirit at its best.
–Wallowa County Chamber of Commerce Website