Chief Joseph II - part 2

 The Most Remarkable Indian of All North American Aboriginal Tribesmen; Nez Percés were Peace Loving People, Yet Brave, Fearless and Honest in their Battle for a Cause to Them Most Just. Fiftieth Anniversary of Big Hole Battle to be Commemorated

Cont. from last week

(By Dan R. Conway)

Originally published in the Hysham Echo May 12, 1927

Settlers Aggressive

The white settlers began aggressions. Three of Joseph’s Indians were killed. The murderers were tried in white courts and given their liberty. The relatives of the murdered men swore a vendetta against the whites and took the offensive. White Bird and his band opened war by killing some of the settlers. These avengers rode back to the Nez Perce camp with the scalps of their victims. Joseph was at that time on Salmon river, arranging for the removal of the tribe. White Bird had come out in the open and rode boldly about the valley, proclaiming war.

The fierce Too-hul-hul-sote took advantage of the situation. His voice was always for war. When Joseph arrived, he found that he was too late. The whole tribe had declared for war against the “government of broken promises.” He made a vigorous protest, but without avail. Finally, when he saw that his people were determined to fight, he determined to lead them, although, in his heart, he was confident that there could be but one result.

Howard then took personal command, sending detachments in every direction. The troopers were ordered to strike the Indians wherever found. Joseph was given the command of 400 Nez Perce fighting men.

This is the history of the causes of the war with the Nez Percés in 1877. The half a dozen battles in which Joseph’s warriors fought against the forces of Howard, Gibbon, Sturgis, Miles and other officers commanding the forces of federal troops, the masterly retirement of Joseph, leading his rapidly diminishing band of warriors, with their women and children in the 1,000 mile retreat from the Big Hold battlefield to the Bear Paw mountains, are well known incidents of history.

Chief Joseph II.

This Chief Joseph II. of the Nez Percés was the most notable Indian of all the Old West. He was courageous, a master in war and strategy, of noble mind, and more nearly resembled the Cooper type of early Indian romance than any other Indian leader mentioned in history.

Twenty-two years ago last October he died, old and heart-broken, on Tongue river, Idaho, where he spent the last unhappy days of his life. General Miles once said of Joseph: “he is the whitest Indian I have ever known.” When Joseph was told of this remark, he said: “General Miles cannot compliment me by calling me white. I could not insult a good Indian worse than by saying he was like a white man. All my life I have told the truth. I cannot say the same of any white man I have ever known.”

The Nez Percés

The Nez Percés were unequalled as warriors among all the Indian tribes of the nation, brave and wary in attack, determined and resourceful in defense, yet they were not in reality a war-making nation. When the white explorers first came to the Rocky mountain region, the Nez Percés were a powerful and populous people, inhabiting the valley of Snake river and extending to the Salmon and Clearwater rivers, west from the Bitter Root mountains. Their men were brave, their women virtuous and their country was one of the finest in all the region. They were superior in many respects to most of the tribes that roved throughout the northwest.

Of this people Joseph II. was a worthy chief. Strong, alert, intelligent; albeit, disdainful and haughty at times, he was the idol of his followers. When he led his people out of the valley that had been their home for generations, it was not to give battle to the whites, but to find a new home for the Nez Percés whom he believed had been treacherously dealt with by agents of the federal government and thus wrongly deprived of the valley to which they were strongly attached by history and tradition.

Battle of the Big Hole

The battles that were staged along the route of the famous march were not of Joseph’s seeking; he had not crossed the mountains to fight the whites; but, when it became necessary, he and his warriors fought as Indians had never fought before and have never fought since.

In the Battle of the Big Hole in 1877, the Nez Percés proved themselves magnificent fighters, but after different tactics and more valorous than was true of the tribes that the American soldiers had on previous occasions tried conclusions with. They fought as bravely and as fairly as did their white enemies, and they commanded the respect of the veterans numbered among the forces that had been pitted against them.

In the first clash of the famous Battle of the Big Hole, the fiftieth anniversary of which will be commemorated in a couple of months, the Nez Percés were driven back, but they did not scatter and lose their heads; they were led by a master in the art of war, although this was his first encounter with the whites and they stood their ground in a fight with white men, when their numbers were anything near equal. Here, however, was a band of Indians who stood up against a force not much inferior to their own and fought so stubbornly and bravely that they turned the rout at the opening assault into what was virtually a victory. They compelled the white men who had driven them from their camp to take refuge behind breastworks and then they followed the whites, hemmed them in and harassed them for 24 hours, only desisting when scouts brought them news of the approach of strong reinforcements for the soldiers.

It was an unusual experience for the veterans in the ranks of the whites, many of whom had fought the Sioux in eastern Montana and in the Dakotas. Some of these men afterward said that they would rather fight five Sioux than one Nez Perce; and yet this tribe had never before been at war against the whites. If the Nez Percés had been experienced in this sort of fighting, there is no telling what might have been the outcome of Chief Joseph’s famous march through Montana in 1877.

The reputation of Sitting Bull and his Sioux would have been forfeited. But, the Nez Percés were by nature peaceable and their one clash with whites arose from a cause that justified their actions in the eyes of those who believed that the United States should play fair with such of the Indians as were themselves honorable.

Men who served during the Civil war and in the Indian wars in the middle west and south have given testimony that the battle of the Big Hole was the most bitterly contested field upon which they ever fought. These veterans state that they never witnessed such determined fighting maintained for so long a period of time and at such short range by any Indians as was carried on by these unseasoned warriors under Joseph.

It was a brave body of whites who faced Chief Joseph that hot day on the bluffs that overlook the Basin where the waters of mountain streams mingle to form the main fork of Big Hole river. They were worthy foes and worthily did this Indian leader and his followers meet them.

Among the men hemmed in by Joseph, in the earthworks on the brow of that fatal hill, was one grizzled old surgeon who had fought with that same regiment in the defense of Little Round Top at Gettysburg. In his story of the fight told in an interview a short time after the battle of the Big Hole, the surgeon said that there was no hotter place on the Round Top than he found that August day ten years or more later.

When his fight at the Big Hole was ended, Chief Joseph took up his march down the valley, cumbered with women and children and his wounded warriors, heading in the direction of the British possessions where he hoped to find a home for his people and where they might receive the just treatment that he felt had been denied them in this country.

Joseph’s Famous March

The history of the march of Joseph and his Nez Percés is even more remarkable than the story of the battle of the Big Hole. The first reports reaching Montana regarding Joseph’s campaign were much exaggerated. The battle of the Little Big Horn was fresh in the minds of the people of the state and it was naturally expected that the Nez Percés’ trail through Montana would be marked by murder an outrage. But, the people did not know Chief Joseph. Joseph was a different type from Sitting Bull, and he was able to control his aggressive young men to a remarkable degree. He left no trail of blood and fire across the state.

Viewed from a military standpoint this retreat was remarkable as the course, in its entirety, lay through an enemy’s country, and it was accomplished with less annoyance to the people of the estate than would have resulted from a similar march by a hostile white foe. Just so long as it was possible for him so to do, Joseph paid for the horses and provisions he secured. When he could no longer do this, he took them as any commander would have done; but, no brutality marked the course of the Nez Perce retreat.

When, finally, Joseph surrendered to General Miles, it was because of the suffering among the women and children of the tribe, who, deprived of proper food and exposed to the chill of winter weather, were sick and dying. His surrender was complete. When he yielded, it was with the promise that he would fight no more. He said: “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!”

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