Jessica Crabtree

October 5, 1877: Surrender of Chief Joseph and his band of Nez Perce

The Nez Perce, fearing military reprisals after skirmishes with white settlers, abandoned their reservation and fled 1,000 miles through four states in the blustery cold of a Northwestern fall. More than a quarter of them – mostly women and children – died before they reached the Canadian border. Their pursuit by the US army and their subsequent exile from their beloved homeland in the Wallowa Valley is among the most tragic episodes in American history.

“The name of Chief Joseph is better known than that of any other Northwestern Indian. To him popular opinion has given the credit of conducting a remarkable strategic movement from Idaho to northern Montana in the flight of the Nez Perce in 1877. The unfortunate effort to retain what was rightly their own makes an unparalleled story in the annals of the Indians’ resistance to the greed of the whites.”

Edward Curtis, “The North American Indian”

Click here to read more about the grueling trek of the Nez Perce and the events behind Chief Joseph’s legendary “I will fight no more” speech.

Chief Joseph: in Nez Perce, Hinmuuttu-yalatlat "Thunder Rolling Down the Mountains" (Photo: Edward Curtis, 1903)