Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Chief Joseph

Starting point is 00:00:00 In the late 19th century, as the United States expanded across the West, one native leader became famous not only for his resistance, but for the words he used after it ended. His people crossed mountains, fought battles, and traveled more than a thousand miles while the U.S. Army pursued them. Yet his greatest legacy may have come afterward when he became one of the most eloquent advocates for Native rights in American history. Learn more about Chief Joseph, his people, and their incredible journey on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Comprehensive. Witty.

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Starting point is 00:01:43 or just go to we open at six.com. Chief Joseph was one of the most famous Native American leaders of the 19th century. Born sometime around 1840 in what is now northeastern Oregon, he became the principal political leader of the Walloa band of the Nez Perce tribe. The Nez Perce had lived in the Walloa Valley of Eastern Oregon for centuries. The story of Chief Joseph's Rives to Prominence began at the 1855 Walla Walla Council. The Walla Walla Council brought together U.S. officials and native nations of the Pacific Northwest and produced several treaties that established reservations and opened large areas of indigenous land to American settlement. At the conference, the Nez Perse leaders led by Chief Old Joseph, the father of Chief Joseph, believed that they had secured their land.

Starting point is 00:02:37 The tribal leaders seated 7.5 million acres to the federal government while securing their jurisdiction over their ancestral lands, including the Willowa Valley. Unlike many treaties between the U.S. government and indigenous nations, this treaty had the unanimous consent of all 56 bans of the Nez Perse. Old Joseph left the council confident that the agreement had secured his people's future. Unfortunately, that piece lasted barely a year. The Senate ratified the treaty in 1859, but in 1860, prospectors trespassing on Nes-Perslands discovered gold in northern Idaho. Under the 1855 treaty, non-native settlers, miners, and traders were strictly barred from entering or occupying reservation land without tribal consent.

Starting point is 00:03:28 While the U.S. government initially acknowledged the treaty and ordered the trespassers out, enforcement quickly evaporated as thousands of miners poured into the region. Illegal boomtown sprang up directly on Nes-Persland, most notably, Louiston, Idaho, founded in 1861, as a rogue supply depot. By 1863, the gold rush was too lucrative for Washington to ignore, and rather than protecting tribal sovereignty, the federal government moved to dismantle the very treaty that it had signed. Instead of enforcing the 1855 treaty, the U.S. government changed its terms. In 1863, commissioners drafted a new agreement that slashed the reservation by nearly 90% to seize the gold fields and legitimize the boom towns.

Starting point is 00:04:17 Traditionally, the Nez Perse were independent bans, meaning no single leader had the authority to surrender another band's homeland. They exploited this by convincing one Nez Perce leader, chief lawyer, whose territory lay safely inside the shrunken borders, to sign on behalf of the entire Nez Perce nation. Leaders like Old Joseph refused and walked out, branding, it the Thief Treaty. Yet Washington treated chief lawyer's signature as universally binding, instantly turning non-signers into illegal squatters on their own ancestral land. And the irony in all this was, the Nez Perce were precisely the kind of native people who had worked with the United States. In the early 19th century, they had welcomed and aided Lewis and Clark when the starving

Starting point is 00:05:05 explorers first crossed the Bitterroot Mountains. For decades, they accommodated trade, lived alongside expanding settlements, and negotiated in good faith with government commissioners. Many within the tribe had even embraced Christianity. They did everything they were asked to do to maintain peace, which is why the actions taken by the government felt like such a tremendous betrayal. The Nez Perth then suffered another tremendous setback in 1871 when Chief Old Joseph died. Chief Joseph recounted the promise his father extracted on his deathbed when he said, quote, you are the chief of these people. They look to you to guide them. Always remember that your

Starting point is 00:05:46 father never sold his country. You must stop your ears whenever you're asked to sign a treaty selling your home. A few years more and white men will be all around you. They have their eyes on this land. My son never forget my dying words. This country holds your father's body. Never sell the bones of your father and your mother." End quote. Chief Joseph took these words as a sacred responsibility. Under the Thief Treaty, the Nespers bands who signed the treaty were relegated to the Lapway Reservation in Idaho. Those who didn't sign lived a precarious existence on their ancestral lands, and this included Chief Joseph and his band in the Willowah Valley. However, ranchers and settlers now viewed their presence in the valley where they had lived for

Starting point is 00:06:34 centuries as illegal squatting. Eventually, the government ran out of patience with the non-signatory Ness Purse living outside the reservation. In May of 1877, General Oliver O. Howard, acting on behalf of the United States government, summoned the non-signatory chiefs to a council on the Lapway Reservation. During that meeting, he presented the rogue chiefs with an ultimatum. Howard mandated that the bands had 30 days to round up their families, thousands of cattle, and horse herds, abandoned their homes, and relocate within the Lapway reservation boundaries.

Starting point is 00:07:08 Despite the hard line that he took with the holdouts, Howard privately recognized that the Nez Perce had been treated unjustly. Early on, he even advocated letting Joseph Span keep the Wallowa Valley, but political pressure from settlers and direct orders from Washington forced his hand. Realizing that Howard's mandate was firm and that the United States' position was not open to compromise, Chief Joseph and other leaders agreed to move into the Lapway Reservation. After gathering all their belongings, including the difficult task of moving their herds across the region's high waters in late spring, Chief Joseph and other leaders camped just outside the reservation at Lake Tolo before moving onto the reservation. During this tense gathering, camped just outside the reservation boundary, a handful of young Nez Perse warriors snapped.

Starting point is 00:07:59 Enraged by the force expulsion and seeking vengeance for the unpunished murders of their people, they slipped away and attacked a group of settlers along the Salmon River. These raids quickly escalated as other warriors joined in, ultimately leaving 18 settlers dead. With the peace shattered, General Howard had no choice but to respond with military force. Howard ordered Captain David Perry to ride to the region with 100 men. A Nez-Persed Troose Party of six greeted them flying a white flag of peace. one of Perry's men fired on the peace party, scattering them and rallying 70 NezPerschers

Starting point is 00:08:38 Armed with nothing more than older guns and bows and arrows, the Nez Perce unleashed a counterattack. The warriors targeted officers and buglers, sewing disunity and confusion among Perry's men. The counterattack was a staggering Nez Perce victory. While Captain Perry lost a third of his men, the Nez Perced warriors suffered zero fatalities and had just three wounded. Perry's men were impressed with one soldier noting, quote, I've been in a lot of scrapes,

Starting point is 00:09:08 but I never went up against anything like the Nez Perce in all my life. The victory became front-page national news at the worst possible time for the U.S. Army. Just one year after George Custer's annihilation at the Battle of Little Bighorn, the route at White Bird Canyon stoked national panic about another frontier disaster.

Starting point is 00:09:28 Rather than advance or stay at White Bird, Canyon, the Nez Perce moved past the Salmon River. The Army feared that Chief Looking Glass, the Nez Perce military strategist, might reinforce the non-treaty bans. General Howard dispatched a cavalry detachment onto the reservation to arrest him, even though the chief had declared complete neutrality. Troops surrounded the village at Clear Creek, and Looking Glass dispatched a group to meet them under a white flag of peace, but negotiations suddenly shattered when an undisciplined

Starting point is 00:09:59 soldier fired into the camp. The operation became an unmitigated disaster. Chief looking glass and most of his people slipped away, leaving frustrated soldiers to burn the village and plunder their prize horse herd. General Howard had achieved nothing of strategic value. Instead, by killing innocent Nez Perth in an unprovoked raid, he surrendered any claim to the moral high ground. The unprovoked attack only succeeded in driving a brilliant military strategist off the sidelines and straight into war. When Howard finally caught up with the bands near the Clearwater River in Idaho, the odds were heavily in his favor.

Starting point is 00:10:36 Over 400 soldiers, backed by Gatlin guns and howitzers, faced barely 800 warriors defending their families. Although the Nez Perce fought valiantly and held out for over a day, the chiefs knew the position was untenable. While rearguard warriors pinned down Howard's infantry, the families packed what they could and crossed the river. It was the start of an epic fighting retreat that would carry them nearly 1,200 miles through some of the most rugged wilderness on the continent.

Starting point is 00:11:04 Chief Joseph was now responsible for the safety of hundreds of children and the elderly, as well as thousands of horses, while being pursued by the U.S. Army. The Nez Perse hoped to join with their allies in the Crow Nation. Their strategic retreat took them to a secluded valley at Big Hole in the Montana Territory, where they believed that they had put enough distance between themselves and Howard's men. However, the Nez Perce didn't know that Colonel John Gibbon had arrived. His men launched a surprise attack, killing more than 60 Nez Perce. Tragedy struck when Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce finally reached the Crow Nation safely,

Starting point is 00:11:41 only to be turned away for fear that they would be treated as collaborators. Denied safe harbor by the Crow, Chief Joseph committed to taking his people to Canada, where they would join with the great Sioux Chief, Sitting Bull. The Nez Perce arrived near the Canadian border in September. Having outdistance Howard's forces, the chief slowed their pace, unaware of the reach of the electric telegraph. While Howard's forces may have lagged behind, telegrams had already dispatched a new strike force. Barely 40 miles short of the Canadian border, the exhausted Nez Perce suddenly found themselves surrounded and under siege by Colonel Nelson Miles. Winter came early that September, and the Nes-Persse fought the well-supplied American forces,

Starting point is 00:12:26 as well as bitter snow and cold. After a five-day artillery siege, Miles summoned Chief Joseph and promised him that his surrender would pave the way for a return to their homeland. While Chief Whitebird and over a hundred other followers slipped past the siege lines in the dark and made a final dash into Canada, Joseph refused to abandon the freezing women and wounded children. Unable to watch his people suffer any longer, he laid down his rifle and surrendered to Colonel Miles, trusting the officer's promise that they would return home. In explaining his rationale to the council, Chief Joseph provided some of the most famous words in American history. Quote, I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. It is cold and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them.

Starting point is 00:13:18 among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs, my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever. End quote. Chief Joseph's faith was misplaced. General William Tecumseh Sherman, the top-ranking general in the army, despite expressing his admiration for the Nez Perce, issued a clear decree. They should never be allowed to return to Oregon.

Starting point is 00:13:44 Instead of returning to their beloved Wallowa Valley, Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce were sent to the Oklahoma Territory. While in Oklahoma, the Nez Perce lived under dreadful conditions, rife with starvation and disease. In the first year alone, 68 of the arrivals died, and among them was daytime smoke, William Clark's elderly son, born after the 1806 Lewis and Clark expedition, and raised among his mother's people. Over the next 25 years, Chief Joseph lobbied tirelessly for his people to return to the Willow. Valley. Despite his high-profile appeals and eloquent arguments, Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce never won the right to return home. Instead, they were relegated to a reservation in

Starting point is 00:14:28 Washington State, where Chief Joseph died in 1904. The medical report from the Bureau of Indian Affairs doctor on the reservation declared his cause of death to be a broken heart. Chief Joseph died hundreds of miles from his homeland after a tireless fight to return to his ancestral home, trying to keep his promise to his father. And despite decades of hardship and adversity, he never did sell the sacred Wallowa Valley, and he fought for it until his very last breath. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Austin Otkin and Cameron Kiefer. Research in writing for this episode was provided by Joel Hermanson.

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Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Chief Joseph

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