THE CHEMAWA AMERICAN
THE NEZ' PERCES
THEIR TjAST STAND UNDER CHIEF JOSEPH
6
N the Oregonian of July the 31, this year, there is edi
torial mention and review of a splendid artice in the
Washington Historical Quarterly. The Oregonian
most ably sets forth the historical facts regarding the
crime against the Nez Perces, as follows:
In the current number of the Washington Histori
cal Quarterly, Nelson C. Titus gives an account of
"The Last Stand of the Nez Perces" under their heroic Chief Joseph.
The final battle of the inglorious war in which the Nez Perce nation
was ruined and all but exterminated was fought on the western slope
of the Bears Paw Mountains, whither the starving Indians had fled be
fore the armies of the white man in the hope of curing buffalo meat for
their Winter's food. , Here they were surprised by the United States
troops under Colonel Nelson A. Miles, and, after a surprisingly pro
longed resistance, were obliged to surrender. The trouble with the
Nez Percee began, as most troubles began between the Indians and the
white men, through the treachery and dishonesty of the "superior race."
Chief Joseph's tribe had played an honorable part in the history of the
West from the time of the Lewis and Clarke expedition. They be
friended these bold explorers and were so deeply impressed by their
manly virtues that some twenty-five years later they sent to St. Louis
asking for teachers of the white man's religion to come and live among
them.
Marcus Whitman set up his mission in response to this pathetic plea.
At that time the vigorous and thriving tribe of the Nez Perces possess
ed a wide stretch of territory bounded on the east by the Bitter Root
Mountians and extending into Oregon and Washington through Idaho.
But the greedy eye of the goldseeker and stockman was already fastened
upon their land and by the year 1855 the Nez Perces had been worked
up to the point of submitting to one of those "treaties" by which our
Indian wards have been systematically swindled. This treaty deprived
them of all their territory but the Wallowa Valley, a romantic and fruit
ful region in the northern part of Oregon. Here they dwelt happily
for many years and might have developed a unique civilization in the
Swiss-like liberty of the friendly mountains had it not been for the in
.veterate greed of the miners and cattlemen. Envious of the scant pos
sessions of the Nez Perces, these adventurers egged the Government on
to require another renunciation of the Indians.
This time they must forsake their lovely homes in the Wallowa