Nez Perce

01Summary

Salmon fishers, horse breeders, and bison hunters whose lands stretched from the Snake to the Bitterroot. They fed Lewis & Clark in 1805 as the expedition came starving out of the Bitterroot Mountains, and remained largely friendly to early emigrants. The 1877 war and the long retreat of Chief Joseph's band came after the trail era.

02History

The Nez Perce, Niimíipuu, 'The People', held a vast salmon-and-bison territory stretching from the Snake River canyons of present-day Idaho east into the Bitterroot Mountains and the Montana plains. They were master horse-breeders, developing the Appaloosa, and crossed the Bitterroots every summer to hunt buffalo with allied Plateau peoples.

The Nez Perce took Lewis and Clark in during the autumn of 1805, as the expedition staggered starving out of the Bitterroot Mountains, and hosted them again the following spring, a hospitality the explorers explicitly credited with saving their lives. Through the 1830s and 1840s the Niimíipuu welcomed Henry and Eliza Spalding's mission at Lapwai (1836 to 1847) and remained largely friendly to early emigrants. Chief Lawyer signed the 1855 treaty in good faith.

After gold was found on Nez Perce land in 1860, the U.S. forced a new treaty in 1863 that cut the reservation by 90%. The non-treaty bands, led by Old Joseph, refused to sign. In 1877 the army moved to evict them, and what followed was a 1,170-mile fighting retreat under Chief Joseph the Younger toward Canada, ending 40 miles short of the border. Joseph's surrender speech, 'I will fight no more forever', became famous, but the war was a moral catastrophe for the United States.

03Notable leaders

• Old Chief Joseph (Tuekakas)
  Wallowa band chief, c. 1785-1871, who refused to sign the 1863 treaty.
• Chief Joseph (Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt)
  Wallowa band chief, c. 1840-1904, who led the 1877 retreat.
• Looking Glass (Allalimya Takanin)
  Alpowai band war leader during the 1877 war.

04Today