Bear Paw Battlefield

On This Day: In 1877 the Battle of Bear Paw ended. The Battle was the final engagement of the so-called Nez Perce War, during which time several Nez Percé bands brilliantly moved through their traditional lands for over 1,000 miles while eluding the U.S. Army. The U.S. Army was attempting to forcefully remove the bands from their lands and place them on a reservation, a direct violation of the 1855 Treaty of Walla Walla. Finally, after five days of fierce fighting, and after sustaining heavy damage to the troops, General Oliver O. Howard and Colonel Nelson A. Miles decided to try and negotiate a truce. Miles said of the battle that "The fight was the most fierce of any Indian engagement I have ever been in....The whole Nez Percé movement is unequalled in the history of Indian warfare." Chief Joseph and Chief White Bird, after receiving several assurances during the negotiation, agreed to a peaceful truce. The negotiators returned to the army lines with an oral message from Joseph which was translated as follows:
"Tell General Howard I know his heart. What he told me before I have in my heart. I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. Looking Glass is dead. Tu-hul-hul-sote is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say yes or no. He who led the young men [Ollokot] is dead. It is cold and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food; no one knows where they are – perhaps 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 among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs. I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever."
Howard and Miles praised the Nez Percé and even General William T. Sherman praised them for their fighting ability and the relative lack of atrocities they committed. Colonel Miles had promised Joseph that his people would return to reservations in their homeland, but this promise was overruled by Sherman. The Nez Percé were sent to Kansas and Indian Territory, and not until 1885 were the Nez Percé allowed to return to Washington. However, Chief Joseph was still refused permission to live in his homeland in the Wallowa River Valley in Oregon.