Legends of the Old West - ENCORE: NEZ PERCÉ WAR Ep. 2 | “A Hornet’s Nest”

Episode Date: December 11, 2024

In the summer of 1876, the murder of a Nez Percé man nearly starts the war. The following summer, a series of attacks by the Nez Percé against settlers who had invaded their homeland pushes the conflict over the edge. Two days of bloody attacks leads to the first battle between soldiers and warriors, and the home for peace is all but gone. Join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join Apple users join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes, bingeable seasons and bonus episodes. Click the Black Barrel+ banner on Apple to get started with a 3-day free trial. On YouTube, subscribe to LEGENDS+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: hit “Join” on the Legends YouTube homepage.   For more details, visit our website www.blackbarrelmedia.com and check out our social media pages. We’re @OldWestPodcast on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Three strips of naturally smoked bacon and a side of toast. Only $6 at A&W's in Ontario. Experience A&W's classic breakfast on now. Dine in only until 11 a.m. It's ANW's Classic Breakfast on now! Dine-in only until 11 a.m. Old Joseph was dying. It was the summer of 1871, and though it had taken quite a while, white settlers had finally descended on his homeland in the Wallowa Valley of eastern Oregon.

His land was the last dominion of freedom in Nez Perce territory. All the other areas now featured settlements or farms or miners or all of the above. But Joseph's land was rugged. It was beautiful, but it wasn't as enticing as some of the other places in the region. It didn't have gold deposits. It didn't have wide open prairies full of lush grasses for grazing. It didn't have acre upon acre of deep black soil for farming. So it was the last stronghold of the Nez Perce.

But now the dam had broken and settlers were moving in. Old Joseph had spent the last eight years fighting against the encroachment, but now his fight was done and he knew it. He would have to pass it on to his son, who was known as Young Joseph. his son, who was known as Young Joseph. For the father and son, the fight truly began in 1863. The US government forced a treaty onto the Nez Perce that required every member of the tribe to move to a single reservation. That reservation was about 70 miles northwest of where Old Joseph now lay. A couple bands of the Nez Perce already lived in that area. The

reservation had essentially been constructed around their homeland. But Joseph's band and four others lived far south of that land. Those five bands were forced to give up all their land. The American government instructed them to move and then live according to the customs of white civilization. Joseph and many others refused. They called the 1863 treaty the Steel Treaty. The first white visitors to the Nez Perce homeland were Meriwether Lewis and William Clark in 1805 while they were on the first half of their famous expedition. Now 66 years later in 1871, the Nez Perce homeland was almost

completely encircled by American settlements and army forts. Within five years, after the summer of 1876, the Nez Perce would be the last major Native American tribe that was not confined to a reservation or living in exile. They were supposed to have been on a reservation back in 1864, one year after the Steel Treaty, but a combination of factors had granted a delay for some of the bands. But now, in 1871, time was running out and old Joseph knew it. Joseph knew his son would take over leadership of the band, and now as he lay dying, he gave his son one final speech. Old Joseph said, When I am gone, think of your country. You are the chief of these people. They look to you to guide them. Always remember your father never sold this country. You must stop your ears whenever you are asked to sign a treaty selling your home.

My son, never forget my dying words. This country holds your father's body. Never sell the bones of your father and your mother." Young Joseph embraced his father's words. Years later, he looked back on that moment and said, a man who would not love his father's grave is worse than a wild animal. Young Joseph refused to sell. He refused to move to a reservation. He accepted his role as a leader, and six years after his father died,

he joined a group of strong leaders who guided their people on an odyssey to stay free. who guided their people on an odyssey to stay free. From Black Barrel Media, this is Legends of the Old West. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer, and this season we're telling the story of the Nez Perce people and their epic fight to remain free. This is The Nez Perce War, Episode 2, A Hornet's Nest.

The 1863 Treaty required all Nez Perce to be on a new reservation by June 9, 1864. During the year between the signing of the treaty and the deadline, several villages migrated to their new homes. They slowly assimilated into American-style culture. They adopted some form of Christianity, attended schools, built log houses, and attempted farming. For most, they didn't make the change because they wanted to. It was simply the safest option. White settlements encroached from every direction and grew every day. There were isolated outbreaks of violence that threatened to explode at any time, and resources were being

destroyed or used up at a scary rate. Lands were being plowed up for farms, rivers and streams were being polluted or stripped bare of fish, and the forests were being hunted until there was less game than ever before. But even with the threats and difficulties, there were five bands of the Nez Perce who refused to sign the treaty or move to the reservation. The 1864 deadline came and went with no major push to force the non-treaty bands to move. And the delay was probably due to the fact that the U.S. government and the military had more pressing issues. By 1864, the Civil War was in its final bloody year.

By the end of April 1865, the majority of the Confederate army had surrendered and the war was essentially over. But that same month, President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, and it threw the fragile peace process into complete chaos. Then, slowly, as the government worked to restore the Union, lawmakers and soldiers turned their attention toward the Native American tribes in the West. But they didn't pick back up with the Nez Perce right away. They focused on the tribes that were in the immediate path of westward expansion.

The Kiowa and Comanche in Texas. The Pawnee, Southern Cheyenne and Southern Arapaho in Kansas, Oklahoma and Colorado. The Sioux and Northern Cheyenne in the Dakotas, Montana and Wyoming, and those were just the biggest tribes. There were dozens of smaller tribes dotted around the landscape. The Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867 was supposed to subdue the tribes of the Southern Plains, but of course it didn't. And in the winter of 1868, it gave Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer the chance to earn the reputation of America's number one Indian fighter when he attacked a village

along the Ouachita River in Oklahoma. He and the 7th Cavalry could have been wiped out because he didn't know that there were two much larger villages hidden behind a loop in the river, but most of the soldiers escaped before a thousand warriors descended on them. The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 ended three years of fighting on the northern plains that has come to be known as Red Clouds War. It was the only time in history that a Native American army forced the U.S. government to ask for peace.

On the surface, the treaty gave the Sioux and Cheyenne everything they wanted, but buried in the complicated legal language that the tribes couldn't possibly understand were clauses that gave the U.S. permission to basically ignore every aspect of the treaty and do whatever it wanted. That led to military expeditions into the Black Hills of modern-day South Dakota that sparked the biggest gold rush in American history. It also led to incursions across the northern plains to build a railroad, the very railroad that was at the heart of the first treaty with the Nez Perce. Back

in 1855, the governor of Washington Territory proposed a treaty that established the first two reservations for the Nez Perce. Arguably his biggest motivation was that he wanted to build the first transcontinental railroad. He wanted it to run from St. Paul, Minnesota to what is now Seattle, Washington. That meant it would go right through Nez Perce land. So he needed to move them away from his planned route.

His idea experienced a lot of delays, and in the meantime, the transcontinental railroad was finished in 1869. By the early 1870s, the railroad that Stevens wanted to build was coming to life as the Northern Pacific Railroad. It crept west from Minnesota, but it stalled on the Northern Plains when its survey crews and military escorts ran into Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse.

The clashes in 1872 were the first time Sitting Bull and Custer faced each other, and the decisive battle happened four years later along the banks of the Little Bighorn. The same week the Battle of the Little Big Horn. The same week the Battle of the Little Big Horn happened in southern Montana, a murder happened 500 miles to the west. The battle was monumental, both in size and effects on the northern plains. The murder of a single warrior was obviously smaller in terms of size, but it ended up having a similar monumental effect in Nez Perce territory.

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of the growing conflict between the Nez Perce and the U.S. In late June 1876, a white farmer in the Wallowa Valley thought a group of Nez Perce stole some of his horses. They hadn't, he was wrong, but he and a friend found a small party of warriors who had just finished hunting deer. The farmer and his friend confronted the warriors, and the farmer ended up shooting and killing one of them. The local Indian agent and the local military commander knew that the unprovoked murder could lead to a devastating reprisal by the Nez Perce, and

that could lead to war. The Indian agent quickly met with Joseph and his brother Olukot and assured them that the farmer would be arrested and prosecuted. But for ten weeks, nothing happened. Joseph promised to restrain his warriors and keep them from taking out their vengeance on any and all white settlers. For ten weeks, he kept his promise while he waited for someone to arrest the farmer. At that point, Joseph and Alakut were out of patience, and so were their warriors. The brothers announced that all white people in the Wallowa Valley had one week to leave, or else.

Then a group of warriors surrounded the cabin of a white settler and laid siege to those inside. A unit of cavalry arrived and broke the siege, and the confrontation came within a hair's breadth of sparking the war. But cooler heads prevailed, at least for the moment. At the end of the one-week deadline, a cavalry lieutenant met with Joseph and assured him, once again, that the farmer would be Joseph and assured him once again that the farmer would be arrested and prosecuted. And this time it happened. The farmer and his friend were arrested and put on trial, and both were acquitted of all

wrongdoing and were not punished. By that point, winter was breathing down the necks of everyone in the high valleys, and there was only time for one more council before everyone was buried in snow. In mid-November 1876, Joseph and 60 or 70 Nez Perce traveled to the Lapway Agency, the center of the Nez Perce reservation. It was the headquarters of the Indian agent who supervised the reservation, and it was the former home of Henry Spalding, one of the first two missionaries in Nez Perce country. Spalding had baptized Joseph and his father more than 30 years earlier, but he, Spalding, was forced to flee during the Whitman Massacre. At the council, Joseph and the other Nez Perce met with General Oliver Howard. Howard was

a Civil War veteran who had been named the commander of the Department of the Columbia two years earlier. He was responsible for the entire Pacific Northwest region, which included Nez Perce homeland. Howard was initially sympathetic to the plight of the Nez Perce. For the first two years of Howard's time as departmental commander, he maintained that the 1863 treaty did not apply to Joseph or the other non-treaty bands. Eleven months before the Council, back in January of 1876, one of Howard's captains wrote a report that was probably the most accurate description of the Nez Perce.

The captain correctly understood that the people who could be called Nez Perce. The captain correctly understood that the people who could be called Nez Perce did not view themselves as one overall group. They didn't view themselves as one tribe, to use the common label. At most, they were a confederation of associated bands. As such, the 1863 treaty should only apply to the bands who signed it. Joseph's band and four others should not be bound by it. But now, 11 months later, General Howard flipped his opinion. He informed Joseph and the others that the 1863 treaty did apply to them, and they needed to move to the reservation.

Joseph protested the order just as his father had before him. The meeting ended with tensions that were so high, the translator thought that one wrong word could start a fight right there at the council. Two months earlier, Joseph had given an ultimatum to all white settlers to leave his lands. Now Joseph and the other non-treaty bands received America's final ultimatum. Be on the reservation in six months or the U.S. Army would take you there by force. In early January 1877, the U.S. government ordered General Howard to move the Nez Perce to the reservation. The five non-treaty bands had managed to stay away from the reservation for 14 years, but now time was up.

Despite General Howard's change of opinion, he wasn't anxious to lead an army into the field and force the Nez Perce to move. He ordered his men to be ready, but he didn't order them to march. In the Nez Perce camps, Joseph and his brother Ollicutt stalled for time. They didn't want the confrontation either. Weeks passed, and then Ollicutt learned that Howard was going to visit the reservation in early May. Ollicutt asked for a meeting, and Howard readily agreed. The council happened in the first week of May 1877. Representatives from all five non-treaty bands were there, and this time they had a new spokesman. Joseph had played a role in the previous discussions.

He was known for his calm and diplomatic tone. But the time for diplomacy was rapidly ending. The other leaders chose a different man to speak for them. He was a gruff and aggressive, and his band lived in the most remote part of Nez Perce territory. For three days, the two sides of the council talked past each other. The same miscommunications and misunderstandings that plagued all the other councils plagued this one. By the third day, General Howard was out of patience, and he took a decisive step to end the stalemate. He arrested the Nez Perce spokesman and threw

him in jail. The other Nez Perce leaders were shocked, but they also seemed subdued. It looked like Howard's tactic worked. For the next week, the other leaders rode around the reservation with Howard and scouted places where they would live when they moved to their new home. On May 15th, Howard believed the situation was resolved, and he set the final deadline for the move. He ordered all five bands to be on the reservation in one month by June 15th. The council broke up and the Nez Perce rode away, and Howard had completely misjudged the situation.

Outwardly, the Nez Perce looked like they would comply with Howard's order. They had spent a week riding around the reservation looking at new places to live. But inside, they were fuming. They were outraged by the arrest of one of their leaders. To them, General Howard had signaled his intention for war. Two weeks later, in the first week of June, 600 Nez Perce met for their annual gathering in the early part of summer. Each year, they all got together one last time before they split up and headed to their traditional

summer camps. This year the mood was tense, and that tension helped push a warrior to take the action that truly sparked the war. During the gathering, all the warriors performed a ceremony. They mounted their horses, formed one big line, and rode in a circle around the camp. They sang about past victories and glories, and it was an honor to be the last person in line. This time, the warrior who was last in line was taunted by a few people in the audience.

They didn't think he'd earned the honor of his placement, because his father had been killed three years earlier by a white man and the warrior had made no attempt to avenge the killing. The warrior was insulted, and the next morning he convinced two companions to ride with him to find the man who'd killed his father. The three young men rode to the ranch of the alleged killer, but the man wasn't home. So the three warriors turned their attention to others in the area who had committed offenses against the Nez Perce.

They killed a prospector who had let his dogs attack people. They killed three men along the banks of a river, one of whom had been on a jury that ruled in favor of a white man who was accused of severely beating a Nez Perce man. And then they shot a storekeeper through both legs. The man had been accused of cheating Nez Perce in his store and supposedly killed a Nez Perce man. As the day wound down, they rode back to the gathering. They sang about their great deeds, and the news of the attacks quickly spread through the camp.

Feelings were mixed. Younger warriors, as always, cheered the actions of the three heroes and called for more attacks. Others in camp were seriously worried. The sentiment might have been leaning toward war, but nothing had been decided and certainly no action had been taken. But now, the three warriors might have made the decision for everyone. They may have just committed all five bans to a war with the United States. data, big savings on plans, and having your unused data roll over to the following month, every month. At Fizz, you always get more for your money. Terms and conditions for our different programs and policies apply. Details at fizz.ca. Your teen requested a ride, but this time, not from you. It's through their Uber Teen account. It's an Uber account that allows your teen to request a ride under your supervision

with live trip tracking and highly rated drivers. Add your team to your Uber account today. Joseph and Alucut were not at the camp during the attack or for the critical decisions that followed. They were across the nearby Salmon River butchering cattle. If they had been at the camp, they might have been able to calm down the warriors. Maybe maybe not. Even though Joseph was considered a leader of his band, he couldn't order warriors in

his band to stand down. And he certainly couldn't order warriors in another band to do anything. On June 14, 1877, one day before the deadline to report to the reservation, about 16 Nez Purce warriors left the camp to attack white settlements. If there was ever a hope for some sort of peace for the Nez Purce, it disappeared over the next two days. The War Party attacked homes and businesses of people who had done various things to the Nez Perce. Things that ranged from beatings, to helping others escape justice, to murder. One of the first attacks was a follow-up of the last attack by the three young warriors.

A group from the War Party rode to the store of the man who had been shot in both legs. He had survived and he was resting in bed when the war party arrived. The warriors killed him and a miner who was also in the store. They attacked a ranch and badly wounded the owner and the man's neighbor. They may have kidnapped and killed the ranch owner's wife and infant son because they were never seen again, but no one knows for sure what happened. The warriors moved on to the home of another store owner, a man who had recently beaten two Nez Perce with a bullwhip.

Warriors stormed the house and killed the store owner and his brother-in-law. All day, June 14th and 15th, the war party spread terror through an area known as White Bird Canyon, and that area was not picked at random. It was the home of one of the five bands of non-treating Nez Perce, a band that was led by a man named White Bird. White Bird's band was the most affected by white settlements. There were now two towns in the band's traditional homeland, Mount Idaho and Grangeville. There were hundreds of settlers and acres of land that used to be

wide open but were now plowed under for farms or businesses. The war party burned many of those homes and businesses. It slaughtered cattle, sheep, horses, and pigs, and stole many more that it didn't kill. News of the attacks raced through the settlements. Volunteers assembled in Mount Idaho and Grangeville. They hurried to help ranchers and business owners, but by the morning of June 16th, the damage was already done. The volunteers successfully drove the war party away, but an estimated 18 people died in the

attacks. And the people in Mount Idaho didn't know if the violence was done or just pausing or just beginning. They fortified their town against more attacks. They built barricades in the streets and grabbed as many guns as they could find. And they waited for the army to come to the rescue. On June 14, the first day of the attacks, General Howard was 60 miles away, up on the reservation, anxiously awaiting the arrival of the non-treaty bands. They were supposed to arrive the next day, but instead, Howard learned of the attacks. He ordered 100 cavalrymen to ride south to help the settlers. The troopers started late in the day on June 15th and rode all night and all the next day. Along the way they saw signs of the destruction. At about sunset on June 16th they arrived at Grangeville. Locals told the cavalry

commander that they had seen bands of Nez Perce moving deeper into Whitebird Canyon. The locals urged the commander to press the attack. If the Nez Perce kept moving in that direction, they could reach a natural place to cross the Salmon River. If they crossed the river, they could disappear into the Seven Devils Mountains on the other side. Captain David Perry, the cavalry commander, consulted his officers, and they agreed to press the attack. They had not been specifically ordered to attack the Nez Perce,

but now they were in a situation that was familiar to many commanders in the West. It was an unwritten rule in the army that if a commander had an opportunity to attack a village, he was allowed to exercise his own judgment about whether or not to do it. This type of scenario was a key component of the story of George Armstrong Custer and the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Now Captain Perry made the same choice, and just like Custer, he didn't know the ground he was going to fight on or the strength of his enemy, but he moved forward anyway. Throughout June 15th and 16th, while the troopers rode south with the army's response, Joseph

and other leaders organized the Nez Perce response. Joseph and his brother arrived back at the main camp late in the day on June 14, way too late to stop the war party. When he learned what was happening, he and his brother moved their band down into Whitebird Canyon to join two other bands that were already there. Throughout the night of June 16, while the Army was a little more than 10 miles away at Grangeville, Joseph and the other leaders discussed the situation. The quality of the debate was heavily influenced by huge quantities of whiskey that the war party had stolen during the two days of attacks. More than likely, very little progress was made.

By comparison, the Army was making great progress. Perry pushed his men through another nighttime march. His men had been awake and in the saddle for more than 40 hours. They were exhausted and they had barely eaten, but they continued down to the mouth of the canyon and finally paused to rest at midnight on June 16. At 4 a.m. on June 17, they were back in the saddle and riding down the steep rocky trail that led into the heart of the canyon. A Nez Perce lookout spotted them and shouted a warning to the camp in the canyon. Captain Perry had assumed the Nez Perce camp was deeper in the canyon, but in fact it was almost right in front of him. But like Sitting Bull's camp at the Little Big Horn, the Nez Perce

camp was tucked into a loop of a creek and hidden by trees. Perry's 100 troopers and 11 civilian volunteers advanced until Perry spotted Nez Perce riflemen positioned in the trees along the creek. Instead of charging down into them, he ordered his troopers to dismount and spread out in a long line on the rise and fall of a ridge. In the Nez Perce version of the story, the band sent six men forward as a kind of peace commission. According to their tradition, the leader of the local volunteers opened fire on the six men, and that started the Battle of Whitebird Canyon.

As the gunfire erupted, Joseph and the other leaders rallied between 45 and 70 warriors, many of whom were hung over from the previous night's celebration of the raids. But they recovered quickly, and caused serious trouble in the opening minutes of the battle. But they recovered quickly and caused serious trouble in the opening minutes of the battle. A small group of warriors on horseback charged the right flank of the cavalry's thin skirmish line. The firing was intense, and the soldiers started to panic and retreat. Before Captain Perry could do anything about it, his left flank crumbled. It was anchored by the 11 civilian volunteers, one of whom was the most vocal proponent of

this attack. He was the first man to turn and run, and the others followed closely behind. Perry tried to reorganize his men to stay and fight, and then tried to organize an orderly retreat and none of it worked. The troopers scattered and ran, or if they were fortunate enough to still have their horses, they galloped back up the steep canyon trail. A couple miles up the trail, Captain Perry was able to regroup most of the survivors and establish an orderly withdrawal, and he needed to keep withdrawing because the Nez

Purce kept coming. They pushed his shell-shocked men all the way back to the town of Mount Idaho. At that point, the warriors returned to the canyon to strip the dead soldiers of their weapons and clothes. The cavalry had far better weapons than the Nez Perce, but that changed quickly. Of the 100 soldiers whom Perry led into Whitebird Canyon, 34 died in battle. The Nez Perce suffered no fatalities, and only two men wounded. General Howard accurately characterized the new situation in central Idaho when he said, We thus stirred up a hornet's nest.

The first battle of the war was a victory for the Nez Perce, but it was spontaneous and reactionary. There was no battle plan and certainly no grand strategy. The Nez Perce knew that the next time, General Howard would come with many more soldiers. The non-treaty bands needed to move. They were now on the run, and though they didn't know it, they would stay on the run for the next five months. Next time on Legends of the Old West, the war escalates. The first two weeks of July 1877 are full of running fights and bloody battles.

By mid-month, the Nez Perce are forced to make the hardest decision of their lives. Do they stay and fight, or flee their homeland, possibly forever? That's next week on Legends of the Old West. And members of our Black Barrel Plus program don't have to wait week to week to receive new episodes. They receive the entire season to binge all at once with no commercials, and they also receive exclusive bonus episodes. Sign up now through the link in the show notes or on our website, blackbarrelmedia.com. Memberships begin at just $5 per month.

Original music by Rob Valier. I'm your writer, host, and producer, Chris Wimmer. If you enjoyed the show, please give us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening. Check out our website, BlackBerylMedia.com, for more details and join us on social media. We're at Old West Podcasts on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. And all our episodes are available on YouTube. Just search for Legends of the Old West podcast on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. And all our episodes are available on YouTube. Just search for Legends of the Old West podcast. Thanks for listening.