(triumphant orchestral music) - [Narrator] This program was made possible in part by the Greater Montana Foundation, the Burton K. Wheeler Center, and support from viewers like you.

(triumphant orchestral music) (calm flute music) (scream) - [Man] Lana, go.

It's Wix.

The large monster ate all the animals and kept them prisoners in his stomach.

Coyote, our hero let himself be swallowed also, and then killed the Monster from within, freeing all the animals.

He then scattered the pieces of the Monster's body in all directions, each piece becoming a tribe.

The heart he left in the Northwest and from the drops of its blood came the Nimiipuu, now called the Nez Perce.

(flute music) The Nez Perce lived in the lush valleys along the Salmon, Snake, and Clearwater rivers in what are now the States of Idaho, Oregon, and Washington.

They lived in this beautiful land until 1877 when the United States government tried to force all the Nez Perce onto the reservation.

He-Mene Mox Mox, or Yellow Wolf, who became a warrior in the War of 1877, remembered his youth as a member of the Joseph band in the Wallowa Valley, Oregon.

"My father was rich in horses and cattle", He recalled.

"It was easy to catch our winter's food among the plentiful game and fish.

And millions of acres of fertile land populated by many fish and animals attracted the white people, who were rapidly moving westward."

French fur traders renamed the Nimiipuu the Nez Perce, or pierced nose because of a misinterpretation of sign language.

With the white settlers came the Presbyterian missionaries who established a mission at Lockwood, Idaho in 1836.

The missionaries began converting many of the Nez Perce to Christianity.

He also insisted on the adoption of European clothes, hair length, and names.

- From, uh, 1805 until 1877 there was no record of any white person being killed by, by a Nez Perce.

We find that the Nez Perce got along and were very sharing with a lot of resources.

They felt that the property was not theirs to sell, to own, to say who was to go on there.

It belonged to the Creator and that's why people were allowed to come in.

- [Narrator] Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt, who later became known as Chief Joseph, recalled how both he and his father received their biblical names from the missionary Henry Spalding.

He also remembered that the tobacco and flintlock rifles brought by the whites were accompanied by an aggressive desire to own the land that supposedly was open to all.

"We soon found out", said Joseph, that the white men were growing rich very fast, were greedy to possess everything the Indian had."

In 1855, at the Walla Walla council, United States government officials met with the Nez Perce and other tribal groups.

They signed a treaty establishing a reservation for the Nez Perce which included most of the traditional Homeland.

In 1860 gold was illegally discovered on this reservation and by 1863 the government wanted a new treaty and a much smaller reservation.

Ignoring the band structure of the Nez Perce, the government allowed one chief to sign for all.

Each band had a chief or headman who could not bind other groups to an agreement unless there was a discussion and a consensus reached through council.

No such agreement had been made by the chiefs.

Joseph, and medicine man White Bird, the warrior, Toohoolhoolzote, and others refused to sign what they called a steal or thief treaty that reduced the reservation to one tenth its previous size.

That division in the Nez Perce which began with the missionaries widened, the more traditional Nez Perce living outside the new reservation either refused to accept Christianity or, as in the case of Joseph and his father, renounced their conversions in favor of the traditional Nez Perce religion.

These groups became known as a non-treaty bands and Christian Nez Perce, almost all of whom lived within the new reservation boundaries were known as the treaty Nez Perce.

The continued arrival of settlers and prospectors to the Nez Perce Homeland created frequent disputes.

In 1877 the government sent General Oliver Otis Howard to move the non-treaty bands onto the reservation.

Howard, a Civil War hero who lost an arm at the battle of Fair Hopes, believed he had been divinely selected to uplift Native Americans.

His ardent Christian beliefs prevented him from understanding the traditional Nez Perce ways.

After several heated council meetings with the Nez Perce, Howard became impatient and threatened to use force if the non-treaty bands did not move to the reservation.

- [Chief Joe Redthunder] So the order came out in April, 1877, that Joseph, they gave him 70 days to vacate Wallowa Valley.

That was just like taking orders at the gunpoint.

- [Narrator] To avoid war, most of the non-treaty bands complied with Howard's order.

They took their families, including children and the elderly and all their livestock across rivers swollen with spring runoff.

By mid June they gathered near Tahoe Lake, just outside Nez Perce reservation.

- When you ask someone to leave your home, you know, your land and your life, and they were banded together by their religion, by the, the powers.

The different things that we Indian people do.

And to follow that, the tracks of our own people, it's a, to me, it's a, it's a sacred journey.

- [Narrator] But before the bands could move onto the reservation, emotions exploded.

On June 14th, three young warriors of the White Bird band, enraged by the forced move to the reservation, went back to the Salmon River to avenge wrongs committed against them by settlers.

These unpunished crimes included a murder of one of the warriors' father.

In two days of raids 17 settlers were killed.

Knowing that the soldiers would retaliate, the chiefs prepared for war.

Joseph would later make clear his own understanding of accountability for a war that could have been avoided.

"I blame my young men and I blame the white men", he said "I blame General Howard for not giving my people time to get their stock away from the Wallowa.

It is still our land.

It may never again be our home but my father sleeps there as I love it as I love my mother."

Howard sent troops from Fort Lapwai to punish the Nez Perce for the killings.

The soldiers were joined by civilian volunteers and a few Christian Nez Perce scouts.

The army found the non-treaty bands gathered near the bottom of White Bird Canyon on June 17th.

After a short but fierce battle the Nez Perce, using their legendary war skills, forced the army into frantic retreat.

31 soldiers were killed.

Not one Nez Perce died and only three were wounded.

This success owed much to a strength of spirit.

- [Allen Slickpoo] The spiritual role of the warriors had a significant part of their battle or their ability.

The Indian people from time immemorial practice what we call the Weyekin.

The Weyekin gave the vision gave that person power, super power, extraordinary power that would protect him from harm.

- [Narrator] The battle of the White Bird Canyon was the beginning of the full scale war.

A war that would involve nearly 2000 soldiers from forts around the West.

Scores of citizen volunteers and ten different Indian tribes would also side with general Howard and the U.S. government.

During the next four months there would be more than a dozen battles and skirmishes over 1,600 miles of four future States.

The Nez Perce, whose traditional Native American allies would abandon them, fought alone as a community on the move.

The Nez Perce forces were strengthened soon afterward when Howard attacked and plundered the village of Looking Glass.

A respected warrior and Buffalo Hunter, Looking Glass wanted to keep his prosperous band out of the conflict.

He now joined the fight.

Howard continued his pursuit of the Nez Perce.

On July 11th he attacked them on the Clearwater River.

Again, the outnumbered Nez Perce inflicted heavy casualties in the two day battle.

The Nez Perce leaders then held council.

Looking Glass and other prominent warriors convinced the bands to leave their Homeland and go beyond the mountains into the buffalo country of Montana.

Despite accounts in the white press that depicted Joseph as a red Napoleon, each band had its own war chief.

An eloquent speaker and skilled diplomat, Joseph often negotiated with army and government officials imposing a white structure, and what they saw oppressed, as well as the government.

And soon Joseph led the war effort.

Actually Joseph was the civil chief in charge of the women, children, and the horses.

- I think the reason that he was portrayed as a military strategist and such a genius at this was because if you were going to be defeated by somebody, it had to be somebody real smart.

- [Narrator] Looking Glass led the Nez Perce over the Bitterroot Mountains into Montana.

They expected to find a refuge with their allies the Crow.

At Lolo pass the Nez Perce made an unusual treaty with the soldiers at Fort Fizzle, as well as with the white settlers in the Bitterroot Valley.

The Nez Perce agreed not to attack if they could travel through peacefully.

Traveling into Montana did mean the Nez Perce were leaving their traditional Homelands in Idaho, Washington, and Oregon.

This exile brought sadness to many.

- So they began to come this way.

It was sad for them to leave because they, they know they was leaving a lot of their ancestors, their burial grounds and all their homesteads.

It was a sad time.

- [Narrator] The community, which totaled nearly 800 people and 2000 horses, passed the Bitterroot Valley without an incident.

They rested at a traditional cabin place along the Big Hole River.

In the first of two major miscalculations during the war, Looking Glass urged the group to stop it's rapid march into Montana to rest.

He believed the war had been left behind in Idaho.

Despite premonitions of doom from several warriors the group erected teepees and planned to stay several days.

- Looking Glass said "Well, why?

The white people down at Bitterroot Valley treated us good.

They treated us, you know, they traded us all these things.

The war is over.

General Howard is gone.

It's done with."

Little did they know that Colonel John Gibbion came out of Fort Shaw.

Came to Missoula.

Force marched all the way there and arrived August, 19 1877, about two o'clock in the morning.

- [Narrator] Gibbons' soldiers, aided by some of the same volunteers that agreed to the Bitterroot Treaty, attacked the camp.

They shot into the teepees while the Nez Perce slept.

The warriors rallied and drove the soldiers back into the trees.

They kept the army pinned down while the dead were buried and the camp was quickly moved.

50 Nez Perce women and children were killed among 30 warriors.

The soldiers lost 29 dead 40 wounded.

The surviving troop was so badly injured they could not continue to pursue the Nez Perce.

When General Howard arrived the next day, the Shoshone and Bannock Scouts, traditional enemies of the Nez Perce, exhumed the Nez Perce dead, mutilated the bodies, and engaged in a gristly celebration that was supposed to prevent a good journey for the deceased in the afterlife.

Despite his strong religious beliefs and a horrified reaction of his men, Howard did not object to this desecration.

The battle of the Big Hole was a turning point in the Nez Perce understanding of white attitudes towards Indians during a war.

"These young girls, these young women you see dead, were they warriors?

These young boys, these old men, were they warriors?

", asked an angry Yellow Wolf.

Added Joseph, "Nez Perce never make war on women and children.

You would feel ashamed to do so cowardly an act."

- [Soy Redthunder] Indian policy back then was to eradicate them.

And so these military people that came out here didn't have a, they were talking body count.

And whether they were women and children was irrelevant, totally irrelevant.

- [Narrator] Under the command of the new trail leader Lean Elk, the Nez Perce continued East along the Montana Idaho border through the area known as Horse Prairie.

They then crossed back into Idaho until they reach the Camas Meadows, where a raiding party stole the Howard's pack mules.

After a brief skirmish with three of Howard's companies, the Nez Perce continued eastward into Yellowstone Park hoping to find sanctuary with the Crow.

But like other tribes who were approached by the Nez Perce, the Crow did not want to antagonize the - And so once they got over Crow country it's rather unfortunate because the Crow people were divided themselves.

The reservation system really really calmed things down over that way you might say.

The Crow said, no, we can't help you.

- [Narrator] In Yellowstone Park the bands encounter several groups of tourists, mountain men, and prospectors.

Two tourists were killed and several others were wounded or held captive.

Realizing they would not find help in Crow country the Nez Perce decided to head North to join Sitting Bull who had been forced into exile in Canada.

They moved along the Clark Fork and Yellowstone Rivers.

The army remained confused and far behind.

The poorly trained and underfunded army troops presented weak opposition to the Nez Perce.

At Canyon Creek on September 13th the Nez Perce fought off and eluded the reformed seventh calvary, which was still recovering from its devastating defeat under Custer a year earlier.

The Nez Perce skillfully outmaneuvered the unit and its commander Sam Sturgis.

Despite their military success the Nez Perce community began to suffer from the more than three months of fighting and the more than 1000 miles of rugged terrain.

There are now fewer than 100 warriors.

The surviving women, children, and elderly were often ill because food and other supplies had become scarce.

Knowing that each new military victory would bring a renewed effort to capture them, Lean Elk swiftly moved the band over the Mussellshell river through the Judith Gap, and across the difficult terrain of the Missouri Breaks.

The community then crossed the Missouri river near Cow Island which served as an important supply depot for the forts and settlements in the area.

A small detachment of soldiers and civilians guarded the supplies.

On September 23rd several young warriors decided to replenish the group's supplies by attacking the Cow Island warehouse.

Yellow Wolf recalled the raid.

"I hurried to join in a fight.

I saw the food piled high as a house where the steamboats landed.

Before night came, we took as much food as we wanted and everybody had enough.

Some young warriors set fire to the remaining stores."

The Nez Perce continued moving northward.

They attacked a bull train, killing three of the teamsters, and skirmished with a group of volunteers.

Despite Lean Elk's skillful guidance the bands returned the leadership to Looking Glass who again slowed the group's movement.

Lean Elk's fears proved to be well-founded.

The Nez Perce did not know that Howard had requested assistance from Colonel Nelson A.

Miles who commanded a group of troops in Eastern Montana.

Howard ordered Miles to move rapidly Westward to cut off the Nez Perce before they could escape into Canada.

Unaware of the advancing army in the East, Looking Glass led the Nez Perce toward Canada.

- [Chief Joe Redthunder] From there they decided they were still going North, going up into Snake Crick at Bear Paw, thinking that they had passed their danger.

- [Narrator] Miles, who had introduced winter campaigns to the West, force marched his troops toward the Missouri, and at one point covering 54 miles on horseback in 24 hours despite dropping temperatures and a threat of snow.

Miles and his soldiers raced to cut off the Nez Perce.

On September 29th the Nez Perce camp was in sight of the Bear Paw mountains, about 40 miles from Canada.

With Looking Glass's encouragement the bands hunted buffalo and took in provisions for the trip to Canada.

"The Nez Perce name for this field is place of manure fire," remembered Yellow Wolf.

"There was only scarce brush and wood, but there were many Buffalo chips for fire.

Some young warriors were out on buttes and ridges, watching in case enemies might be near.

But we expected none.

We knew General Howard was more than two days back on the trail."

Miles headed toward the Bear Paw field.

The temperature dropped throughout the night of September 29th as the troops, under the protection of a low plow cover, reached the unsuspecting community.

On September 30th, as many of the Nez Perce ate, hunted, or prepared for the two day trip to Canada, Miles attacked.

"A wild stir hit the people," remembered Yellow Wolf.

"Great hurrying everywhere.

I saw my uncle Chief Joseph leap to the open.

His voice was above all the noise as he called "horses, horses, save the horses."

Soon from the South came a noise that rumbled like stampeding Buffalo.

Hundreds of soldiers, charging in two wide circling wings.

They were surrounding our camp."

Many of the Nez Perce who were hunting on the far Buttes were cut off from the main camp.

After sending the women and children on towards Canada the warriors fought their way back.

Six were killed at the spot now called Death's Point of Rocks.

The horse herd that Joseph struggled to protect was chased off by the soldiers.

Miles' troops were unable to continue their advance.

The Nez Perce took up defensive positions on top of the ridges.

Wearing heavy coats and silhouetted by the soldiers were easy targets.

The second and third attack also failed to capture the camp.

The Nez Perce used classic guerrilla fighting techniques that allowed them to hold off the army throughout the war.

They disrupted the soldiers' communications by killing the buglers, chased off the transportation by shooting the horse holders, and disrupted the chain of command by targeting officers and sergeants.

- Colonel Nelson Miles made us attack.

He had tried an all out calvary charge, the same type of charge that overwhelmed many of the tribes.

The Nez Perce did something very unique in that sense is that they held their fire.

And all of a sudden they opened up the last minute.

Then all of a sudden, boy, they were shooting at stripes and now the officers.

They knew what they were doing.

They knew this type of warfare.

The Nez Perce fighting ability is extraordinary.

Very extraordinary.

- [Narrator] Realizing the failure of repeated attacks, Miles laid siege to the camp.

He knew the Nez Perce would have trouble escaping without their horse herd.

In the approximately 40 minutes of fighting, on the first day, Miles lost nearly 20% of his command.

23 soldiers, including most of the officers and all the sergeants were killed.

The losses for the outnumbered Nez Perce were also devastating.

22 dead and many wounded.

Among the dead was Joseph's brother Ollokot, the great warrior Toohoolhoolzote, and as he predicted in council, Lean Elk.

Fearing that the group of Nez Perce who headed towards Canada would encourage a counter attack from Sitting Bull, Miles send a messenger to speed Howard's arrival.

On the night after the attack, both the army and the Nez Perce buried their dead and prepared defenses as the snow fell.

In the main camp the Nez Perce dug rifle pits for fighting and shelter pits to protect the elderly, the women, and the children from the cold and bullets.

While intermittently bombarding the camp with Howard to fire, Miles began negotiations on October 1st with Joseph.

After several trips back and forth through the army camp, Joseph, attempting to leave for the last time, was seized by the soldiers.

On the third day, in the sniping that continued throughout the siege, a prisoner exchange was arranged.

Joseph returned to the Nez Perce camp, and a lieutenant captured during a reconnaissance mission was permitted to rejoin his unit.

On the same day, Looking Glass, thinking he saw a warrior from Sitting Bull in the distance, stood up in his rifle pit, and was killed.

On October 4th General Howard and a small escort finally arrived at the camp.

The effect of the siege on the Nez Perce led Joseph to seriously think of surrender as he negotiated with Miles and Howard.

Joseph explained the deal that was finally struck among the three.

"General Miles said to me in plain words, "if you will come out and give up your arms I will spare your lives and send you back to the reservation in Idaho."

I cannot bear to see my wounded men and women suffer any longer," Remembered Joseph.

"We had lost enough already.

We could have escaped from Bear Paw Mountain if we had left the wounded old women and children behind.

We were unwilling to do this.

We had never heard of a wounded Indian recovering while in the hands of white men."

- [Soy Redthunder] Being a people, uh, chief, he was concerned for all of those people.

I don't think there was anything more heartbreaking than, than to know that there was children and women and, and, and people out there that were suffering.

I think it took a brave man to stand up and say, "I'm going to surrender for my people."

- [Narrator] The possibility of surrender was discussed by the Nez Perce in council on the morning of October 5th.

Joseph and White Bird had great influence since they were the only chiefs still alive.

Joseph spoke for surrender.

Aged medicine man White Bird was opposed.

It is here that Joseph is believed to have given most of what is now called his surrender speech, which was actually an explanation to his own people.

Two of Howard's treaty Nez Perce scouts, who were acting as negotiators, witnessed the discussion and told Howard and Miles of Joseph's comments.

An aid to Howard wrote down a translation, heavily edited the text, and gave it to the Harper's Weekly for publication.

In the early afternoon of the same day Joseph, accompanied by several warriors, rode to the army camp.

He offered his rifle to Howard, who indicated it should be given to Miles.

Although legend has Joseph reciting his speech when went to the army camp, Joseph remembers only that "On the fifth day, I went to General Miles and gave up my gun."

That night, White Bird and several others left the camp and headed towards Sitting Bull in Canada.

Many of these Nez Perce, including Yellow Wolf, eventually returned to the United States.

Some were killed by enemy tribes on the way to Canada.

And still others were assimilated into non-Nez Perce bands or tribal groups.

After the end of the fighting, Miles' promise of return to Idaho was overruled by General Sherman.

Despite his victories, Miles could not counteract the government's policy of displacing and dividing Native Americans.

After stays at several different forts throughout the West, Joseph and the other survivors were sent a reservation in the Eeikish Pah, or Hot Place, in the Indian country of Oklahoma.

Many Nez Perce died there in a climate that was so different from the Northwest.

Finally, in 1885, after much lobbying by Joseph, the government sent the Nez Perce back to the Northwest.

118 survivors of the war went to the reservation at Lapoy Idaho.

150 others, including Joseph, who observed the traditional religion, were exiled to the the confederated reservation at Colville, Washington.

Although a public figure, Joseph endured many hardships in exile along with his people.

All of his nine children died before him and he was never allowed to live again in the Willawa valley of his ancestors.

He remained a strong advocate for his people and all native Americans until his death in 1904.

Today, the Nez Perce consider all the battleground, in which the fallen Nez Perce are buried, sacred sites.

And even descendants from the band return each year to commemorate where people struggled for freedom.

- To me that whole area is sacred.

And then especially the battlefield because there's, there's people there.

And then we understand there's not only warriors and Indian people, there's soldiers that died there too.

So, uh, so that to me is, is more of a understanding that it's a, it's a, it's a cemetery.

- [Narrator] In reflecting on the struggles of his people, Joseph concluded that "Good words do not last long until they amount to something.

The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it.

Whenever the white man treats the Indian as they treat each other, then we shall have no more wars.

Then a Creator who rules with love will smile upon his land.

And then all people may be one people."

(high pitched howling) (singing, drums) (triumphant orchestral music) - [Narrator 2] : Montana: The Second Century was made possible in part by the Greater Montana Foundation, the Burton K. Wheeler Center, and support from viewers like you.

(triumphant orchestral music)