The Nez Perce tribe of Indians, like other tribes too large to be
united under one chief, was composed of several bands, each distinct in
sovereignty. It was a loose confederacy. Joseph and his people occupied
the Imnaha or Grande Ronde valley in Oregon, which was considered
perhaps the finest land in that part of the country.
When the last treaty was entered into by some of the bands of the Nez
Perce, Joseph’s band was at Lapwai, Idaho, and had nothing to do with
the agreement. The elder chief in dying had counseled his son, then not
more than twenty-two or twenty-three years of age, never to part with
their home, assuring him that he had signed no papers. These peaceful
non-treaty Indians did not even know what land had been ceded until the
agent read them the government order to leave. Of course they refused.
You and I would have done the same.
When the agent failed to move them, he and the would-be settlers called
upon the army to force them to be good, namely, without a murmur to
leave their pleasant inheritance in the hands of a crowd of greedy
grafters. General O. O. Howard, the Christian soldier, was sent to do
the work.
He had a long council with Joseph and his leading men, telling them they
must obey the order or be driven out by force. We may be sure that he
presented this hard alternative reluctantly. Joseph was a mere youth
without experience in war or public affairs. He had been well brought
up in obedience to parental wisdom and with his brother Ollicut had
attended Missionary Spaulding’s school where they had listened to the
story of Christ and his religion of brotherhood. He now replied in
his simple way that neither he nor his father had ever made any treaty
disposing of their country, that no other band of the Nez Perces was
authorized to speak for them, and it would seem a mighty injustice and
unkindness to dispossess a friendly band.
General Howard told them in effect that they had no rights, no voice in
the matter: they had only to obey. Although some of the lesser chiefs
counseled revolt then and there, Joseph maintained his self-control,
seeking to calm his people, and still groping for a peaceful settlement
of their difficulties. He finally asked for thirty days’ time in which
to find and dispose of their stock, and this was granted.
Joseph steadfastly held his immediate followers to their promise, but
the land-grabbers were impatient, and did everything in their power
to bring about an immediate crisis so as to hasten the eviction of the
Indians. Depredations were committed, and finally the Indians, or some
of them, retaliated, which was just what their enemies had been looking
for. There might be a score of white men murdered among themselves on
the frontier and no outsider would ever hear about it, but if one were
injured by an Indian--“Down with the bloodthirsty savages!” was the cry.
Joseph told me himself that during all of those thirty days a tremendous
pressure was brought upon him by his own people to resist the government
order. “The worst of it was,” said he, “that everything they said was
true; besides”--he paused for a moment--“it seemed very soon for me to
forget my father’s dying words, ‘Do not give up our home!’” Knowing as I
do just what this would mean to an Indian, I felt for him deeply.
Among the opposition leaders were Too-hul-hul-sote, White Bird, and
Looking Glass, all of them strong men and respected by the Indians;
while on the other side were men built up by emissaries of the
government for their own purposes and advertised as “great friendly
chiefs.” As a rule such men are unworthy, and this is so well known to
the Indians that it makes them distrustful of the government’s sincerity
at the start. Moreover, while Indians unqualifiedly say what they mean,
the whites have a hundred ways of saying what they do not mean.
The center of the storm was this simple young man, who so far as I can
learn had never been upon the warpath, and he stood firm for peace and
obedience. As for his father’s sacred dying charge, he told himself that
he would not sign any papers, he would not go of his free will but from
compulsion, and this was his excuse.
However, the whites were unduly impatient to clear the coveted valley,
and by their insolence they aggravated to the danger point an already
strained situation. The murder of an Indian was the climax and this
happened in the absence of the young chief. He returned to find the
leaders determined to die fighting. The nature of the country was in
their favor and at least they could give the army a chase, but how long
they could hold out they did not know. Even Joseph’s younger brother
Ollicut was won over. There was nothing for him to do but fight; and
then and there began the peaceful Joseph’s career as a general of
unsurpassed strategy in conducting one of the most masterly retreats in
history.
This is not my judgment, but the unbiased opinion of men whose knowledge
and experience fit them to render it. Bear in mind that these people
were not scalp hunters like the Sioux, Cheyennes, and Utes, but peaceful
hunters and fishermen. The first council of war was a strange business
to Joseph. He had only this to say to his people:
“I have tried to save you from suffering and sorrow. Resistance means
all of that. We are few. They are many. You can see all we have at a
glance. They have food and ammunition in abundance. We must suffer great
hardship and loss.” After this speech, he quietly began his plans for
the defense.
The main plan of campaign was to engineer a successful retreat into
Montana and there form a junction with the hostile Sioux and Cheyennes
under Sitting Bull. There was a relay scouting system, one set of
scouts leaving the main body at evening and the second a little before
daybreak, passing the first set on some commanding hill top. There were
also decoy scouts set to trap Indian scouts of the army. I notice that
General Howard charges his Crow scouts with being unfaithful.
Their greatest difficulty was in meeting an unencumbered army, while
carrying their women, children, and old men, with supplies and such
household effects as were absolutely necessary. Joseph formed an
auxiliary corps that was to effect a retreat at each engagement, upon a
definite plan and in definite order, while the unencumbered women were
made into an ambulance corps to take care of the wounded.
It was decided that the main rear guard should meet General Howard’s
command in White Bird Canyon, and every detail was planned in advance,
yet left flexible according to Indian custom, giving each leader freedom
to act according to circumstances. Perhaps no better ambush was ever
planned than the one Chief Joseph set for the shrewd and experienced
General Howard. He expected to be hotly pursued, but he calculated that
the pursuing force would consist of not more than two hundred and fifty
soldiers. He prepared false trails to mislead them into thinking that
he was about to cross or had crossed the Salmon River, which he had no
thought of doing at that time. Some of the tents were pitched in plain
sight, while the women and children were hidden on the inaccessible
ridges, and the men concealed in the canyon ready to fire upon the
soldiers with deadly effect with scarcely any danger to themselves. They
could even roll rocks upon them.
In a very few minutes the troops had learned a lesson. The soldiers
showed some fight, but a large body of frontiersmen who accompanied
them were soon in disorder. The warriors chased them nearly ten miles,
securing rifles and much ammunition, and killing and wounding many.
The Nez Perces next crossed the river, made a detour and recrossed it
at another point, then took their way eastward. All this was by way of
delaying pursuit. Joseph told me that he estimated it would take six
or seven days to get a sufficient force in the field to take up their
trail, and the correctness of his reasoning is apparent from the facts
as detailed in General Howard’s book. He tells us that he waited six
days for the arrival of men from various forts in his department, then
followed Joseph with six hundred soldiers, beside a large number of
citizen volunteers and his Indian scouts. As it was evident they had
a long chase over trackless wilderness in prospect, he discarded his
supply wagons and took pack mules instead. But by this time the Indians
had a good start.
Meanwhile General Howard had sent a dispatch to Colonel Gibbons, with
orders to head Joseph off, which he undertook to do at the Montana end
of the Lolo Trail. The wily commander had no knowledge of this move, but
he was not to be surprised. He was too brainy for his pursuers, whom he
constantly outwitted, and only gave battle when he was ready. There at
the Big Hole Pass he met Colonel Gibbons’ fresh troops and pressed them
close. He sent a party under his brother Ollicut to harass Gibbons’ rear
and rout the pack mules, thus throwing him on the defensive and causing
him to send for help, while Joseph continued his masterly retreat toward
the Yellowstone Park, then a wilderness. However, this was but little
advantage to him, since he must necessarily leave a broad trail, and the
army was augmenting its columns day by day with celebrated scouts, both
white and Indian. The two commands came together, and although General
Howard says their horses were by this time worn out, and by inference
the men as well, they persisted on the trail of a party encumbered by
women and children, the old, sick, and wounded.
It was decided to send a detachment of cavalry under Bacon, to Tash
Pass, the gateway of the National Park, which Joseph would have to pass,
with orders to detain him there until the rest could come up with them.
Here is what General Howard says of the affair. “Bacon got into position
soon enough but he did not have the heart to fight the Indians on
account of their number.” Meanwhile another incident had occurred. Right
under the eyes of the chosen scouts and vigilant sentinels, Joseph’s
warriors fired upon the army camp at night and ran off their mules. He
went straight on toward the park, where Lieutenant Bacon let him get by
and pass through the narrow gateway without firing a shot.
Here again it was demonstrated that General Howard could not depend upon
the volunteers, many of whom had joined him in the chase, and were going
to show the soldiers how to fight Indians. In this night attack at Camas
Meadow, they were demoralized, and while crossing the river next day
many lost their guns in the water, whereupon all packed up and went
home, leaving the army to be guided by the Indian scouts.
However, this succession of defeats did not discourage General Howard,
who kept on with as many of his men as were able to carry a gun,
meanwhile sending dispatches to all the frontier posts with orders to
intercept Joseph if possible. Sturgis tried to stop him as the Indians
entered the Park, but they did not meet until he was about to come out,
when there was another fight, with Joseph again victorious. General
Howard came upon the battle field soon afterward and saw that the
Indians were off again, and from here he sent fresh messages to General
Miles, asking for reinforcements.
Joseph had now turned northeastward toward the Upper Missouri. He told
me that when he got into that part of the country he knew he was very
near the Canadian line and could not be far from Sitting Bull, with whom
he desired to form an alliance. He also believed that he had cleared all
the forts. Therefore he went more slowly and tried to give his people
some rest. Some of their best men had been killed or wounded in battle,
and the wounded were a great burden to him; nevertheless they were
carried and tended patiently all during this wonderful flight. Not one
was ever left behind.
It is the general belief that Indians are cruel and revengeful, and
surely these people had reason to hate the race who had driven them from
their homes if any people ever had. Yet it is a fact that when Joseph
met visitors and travelers in the Park, some of whom were women, he
allowed them to pass unharmed, and in at least one instance let them
have horses. He told me that he gave strict orders to his men not to
kill any women or children. He wished to meet his adversaries according
to their own standards of warfare, but he afterward learned that in
spite of professions of humanity, white soldiers have not seldom been
known to kill women and children indiscriminately.
Another remarkable thing about this noted retreat is that Joseph’s
people stood behind him to a man, and even the women and little boys did
each his part. The latter were used as scouts in the immediate vicinity
of the camp.
The Bittersweet valley, which they had now entered, was full of game,
and the Indians hunted for food, while resting their worn-out ponies.
One morning they had a council to which Joseph rode over bareback, as
they had camped in two divisions a little apart. His fifteen-year-old
daughter went with him. They discussed sending runners to Sitting Bull
to ascertain his exact whereabouts and whether it would be agreeable to
him to join forces with the Nez Perces. In the midst of the council,
a force of United States cavalry charged down the hill between the
two camps. This once Joseph was surprised. He had seen no trace of the
soldiers and had somewhat relaxed his vigilance.
He told his little daughter to stay where she was, and himself cut right
through the cavalry and rode up to his own teepee, where his wife met
him at the door with his rifle, crying: “Here is your gun, husband!” The
warriors quickly gathered and pressed the soldiers so hard that they
had to withdraw. Meanwhile one set of the people fled while Joseph’s own
band entrenched themselves in a very favorable position from which they
could not easily be dislodged.
General Miles had received and acted on General Howard’s message, and he
now sent one of his officers with some Indian scouts into Joseph’s camp
to negotiate with the chief. Meantime Howard and Sturgis came up with
the encampment, and Howard had with him two friendly Nez Perce scouts
who were directed to talk to Joseph in his own language. He decided that
there was nothing to do but surrender.
He had believed that his escape was all but secure: then at the last
moment he was surprised and caught at a disadvantage. His army was
shattered; he had lost most of the leaders in these various fights;
his people, including children, women, and the wounded, had traveled
thirteen hundred miles in about fifty days, and he himself a young man
who had never before taken any important responsibility! Even now he was
not actually conquered. He was well entrenched; his people were willing
to die fighting; but the army of the United States offered peace and he
agreed, as he said, out of pity for his suffering people. Some of his
warriors still refused to surrender and slipped out of the camp at night
and through the lines. Joseph had, as he told me, between three and four
hundred fighting men in the beginning, which means over one thousand
persons, and of these several hundred surrendered with him.
His own story of the conditions he made was prepared by himself with my
help in 1897, when he came to Washington to present his grievances. I
sat up with him nearly all of one night; and I may add here that we
took the document to General Miles who was then stationed in Washington,
before presenting it to the Department. The General said that every word
of it was true.
In the first place, his people were to be kept at Fort Keogh, Montana,
over the winter and then returned to their reservation. Instead they
were taken to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and placed between a lagoon and
the Missouri River, where the sanitary conditions made havoc with them.
Those who did not die were then taken to the Indian Territory, where the
health situation was even worse. Joseph appealed to the government again
and again, and at last by the help of Bishops Whipple and Hare he was
moved to the Colville reservation in Washington. Here the land was very
poor, unlike their own fertile valley. General Miles said to the chief
that he had recommended and urged that their agreement be kept, but the
politicians and the people who occupied the Indians’ land declared they
were afraid if he returned he would break out again and murder innocent
white settlers! What irony!
The great Chief Joseph died broken-spirited and broken-hearted. He did
not hate the whites, for there was nothing small about him, and when he
laid down his weapons he would not fight on with his mind. But he was
profoundly disappointed in the claims of a Christian civilization. I
call him great because he was simple and honest. Without education or
special training he demonstrated his ability to lead and to fight
when justice demanded. He outgeneraled the best and most experienced
commanders in the army of the United States, although their troops were
well provisioned, well armed, and above all unencumbered. He was great
finally, because he never boasted of his remarkable feat. I am proud of
him, because he was a true American.