The Story Of The Nez Perce Indian Campaign During The Summer Of 1877

Nez Perce Summer, 1877 tells the story of a people's epic struggle to survive spiritually, culturally, and physically in the face of unrelenting military force. Written by one of the foremost experts in frontier military history, Jerome A. Greene, and reviewed by members of the Nez Perce tribe, this definitive treatment of the Nez Perce War is the first to incorporate research from all known accounts of Nez Perce and U.S. military participants. Enhanced by sixteen detailed maps and forty-nine historic photographs, Greene's gripping narrative takes readers on a three-and-one-half month 1,700-mile journey across the wilds of Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana territories. All of the skirmishes and battles of the war receive detailed treatment, which benefits from Greene's astute analysis of the strategies and decision making on both sides. Between 100 and 150 of the more than 800 Nez Perce men, women, and children who began the trek were killed during the war. Almost as many died in the months following the surrender, after they were exiled to malaria-ridden northeastern Oklahoma. Army deaths numbered 113. The casualties on both sides were an extraordinary price for a war that nobody wanted but whose history has since fascinated generations of Americans.

This history of the Nez Perce War was written in 1878-79 by Duncan McDonald, a relative of Chief Looking Glass and the son of a Hudson's Bay Company fur trader and a Nez Perce Indian woman. McDonald spent most of his life on the Flathead Indian Reservation in western Montana. McDonald wrote the history based on interviews and family sources. In 1878 he traveled to Canada to interview Nez Perce chief White Bird and learn his side of the story. Remarkably, the history was published in a Deer Lodge, Montana, newspaper only a year or two after the war ended. McDonald's Nez Perce War history is published with a historical introduction and selection of his other essays on Indian affairs, in which he objects to the United States government's unjust treatment of northwest Indian tribes and condemns the threats of some Montana whites to attack Indians who were friendly to the settlers.

A great Indian chief and giant of the history of the western frontier Many of the names of the leaders of the tribes of native American Indians of the nineteenth century have become known to the entire world. Though they often appear in tandem with the generals who opposed them, it must be remembered that these men-warriors from martial races-were not at the head of an enemy army. They sought only to maintain the fundamental right of their people to live freely on their ancestral lands. They were brave to a fault, always fighting to protect their way of life, women, elderly and children. Under resourced and ultimately outnumbered theirs was destined to be a losing battle against the pale faced newcomers; their ends and those of their people were therefore universally tragic. Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce had given pledged to his dying father that the land that held his bones would never be given up. But 'Manifest Destiny' knew no compromise and so it was that in 1877 Chief Joseph found himself leading his cold and hungry people on a fighting withdrawal to the safety of British Canada pursued by the US Army under Howard and Miles. This is the history of those times accompanied here by the reflections of Chief Joseph himself in an interview given in later life. An essential chronicle for all those interested in the history of the West. Available in softcover and hardcover with dust jacket.

Although the Nez Perce (Nee-Me-Poo) Indians gave instrumental help to Lewis and Clark on their famous expedition, they were rewarded by decades of invasive treaties and encroachment upon their homeland. In June 1877, the Nez Perce struck back andøwere soon swept into one of the most devastating Indian wars in American history. The conflict culminated in an epic twelve-hundred-mile chase as the U.S. Army pursued some eight hundred Nez Perce men, women, and children, who tried to fight their way to freedom in Canada. In this enthralling account of the Nez Perce War, Bruce Hampton brings to life unforgettable characters from both sides of the conflict?warriors and women, common soldiers and celebrated generals. Looking Glass, White Bird, the legendary Chief Joseph, and fewer than three hundred warriors waged a bloody guerilla war against a modernized American army commanded by such famous generals as William Tecumseh Sherman, Nelson Miles, Oliver Otis Howard, and Philip Sheridan. Hampton also gives voice to the Native Americans from other tribes who helped the U.S. Army block the escape of the Nez Perce to Canada.

This newest volume in Oxford's acclaimed Pivotal Moments series offers an unforgettable portrait of the Nez Perce War of 1877, the last great Indian conflict in American history. It was, as Elliott West shows, a tale of courage and ingenuity, of desperate struggle and shattered hope, of short-sighted government action and a doomed flight to freedom. To tell the story, West begins with the early history of the Nez Perce and their years of friendly relations with white settlers. In an initial treaty, the Nez Perce were promised a large part of their ancestral homeland, but the discovery of gold led to a stampede of settlement within the Nez Perce land. Numerous injustices at the hands of the US government combined with the settlers' invasion to provoke this most accomodating of tribes to war. West offers a riveting account of what came next: the harrowing flight of 800 Nez Perce, including many women, children and elderly, across 1500 miles of mountainous and difficult terrain. He gives a full reckoning of the campaigns and battles--and the unexpected turns, brilliant stratagems, and grand heroism that occurred along the way. And he brings to life the complex characters from both sides of the conflict, including cavalrymen, officers, politicians, and--at the center of it all--the Nez Perce themselves (the Nimiipuu, "true people"). The book sheds light on the war's legacy, including the near sainthood that was bestowed upon Chief Joseph, whose speech of surrender, "I will fight no more forever," became as celebrated as the Gettysburg Address. Based on a rich cache of historical documents, from government and military records to contemporary interviews and newspaper reports, The Last Indian War offers a searing portrait of a moment when the American identity--who was and who was not a citizen--was being forged.

Thompson reproduces, describes, and discusses a remarkable series of drawings by an anonymous Indian artist who fought with Chief Joseph and later reached Canada. The drawings, in red, blue, and black pencil, include portraits of principal participants in the war, battle scenes, and views of Nez Perce camp life. 60 color illustrations.