any more of his ancestral
homeland or be moved
onto a reservation. The
Nez Percé won a tempo-
rary respite in 1873, when
President Ulysses S.
Grant declared the Wal-
lowa Valley to be a reser-
vation. Two years later,
political considerations
forced the president to
reverse his decision.
An uneasy truce ex-
isted for six years until
1877, when Gen. Oliver O.
Howard, commanding the
Department of the Co-
lumbia, delivered the non-
treaty bands of Nez Percé
an ultimatum. Hence-
forth, they had 30 days to
report to the Fort Lapwai
Reservation in Idaho or
be attacked. Joseph, who
was not a war chief and
wished to avoid hostili-
ties if possible, advocated
a policy of passive resistance. However, when
despondent members of the tribe became
drunk and massacred 15 settlers, conflict be-
came inevitable.
Howard responded to the murders by dis-
patching a troop of the First U.S. Cavalry
under Capt. David Perry, with orders to
shadow the Nez Percé and possibly capture
them. On June 17, 1877, Joseph tried to parley
with Perry at White Bird Canyon, but when
soldiers fired on his truce flag, a pitched battle
ensued and 34 soldiers were killed. This
proved to be one the first of several embar-
rassing encounters for the U.S. Army.
The Nez Percé War had commenced in
earnest, and the various nontreaty bands con-
solidated their strength into a single group.
Tribal elders, of which Joseph was only one,
decided to move through the interior rather
than fight the soldiers directly. As part of their
marching discipline, they dictated that any
white civilians encoun-
tered were to be left un-
harmed. Howard respon-
ded by pursuing the 800
refugees along the banks
of the Salmon River with
1,900 men. The troops
were bested again at the
Battle of Clearwater on
July 11, at which point
the majority of bands
elected to flee to the Bit-
terroot Mountains and
ally themselves with the
Crow nation.
From Idaho, the bands
slipped into Montana
through Lolo Pass, but on
August 9 they were sur-
prised in their camp at
Big Hole River by a de-
tachment under Col. John
Gibbon. The soldiers
were initially successful,
but the Native Americans
rallied and counterat-
tacked. At length, Gibbon
was forced to take up defensive positions and
await reinforcements, having had 33 soldiers
killed and 38 wounded. Howard, meanwhile,
continued his pursuit of the elusive bands,
and on August 19 he finally caught up with
them at Camas Meadows. Rather than run, a
party of 29 Nez Percé snuck into his camp
that night and ran off with a number of pack
mules. When a party of angry soldiers tried to
recover their missing animals, a battle devel-
oped and they withdrew with a loss of one
killed and seven wounded. Flushed by this lat-
est triumph, Joseph continued on his trek
eastward.
Continuing on through the Absaroka
Mountains, Joseph learned that the Crow In-
dians, far from sympathetic to his plight, were
actually providing scouts to the army pursu-
ing them. The council then decided to head
north through Montana and seek refuge
among Sitting Bull’s band in Canada. OnJOSEPH
Joseph
Library of Congress