Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-10-15
IN SNAKE CREEK, near
tn Bear Paw mountains
- in northern Montana. is

INDIANS, SURRENDERED TO
Miles in 1877 and the last act
in the drama of Indian warfare
in the northwest was staged.
"A series of shallow rifle pits,
grass-grown for many years,
are all that mark the field
where the plains Indians of the
north fought their last battle
with white soldiers.
Eighteen years ago this
month, Chief Joseph, greatest
Indian general in history, died,
old and heartbroken, on the
Tongue river in Idaho, where
he spent the last unhappy years
of his life. General Miles once
said of Joseph: "He is the
whitest Indian I have ever
known" When Joseph was told
of this remark, he said: "Gen-
eral Miles cannot compliment
me by calling me white. I
could not insult a good Indian
worse than by saying he was
like a white man. All my life I
have told the truth. I cannot
say the same of any white man
| have Known"
In spite of the fact that the
Nez Perces were unexcelled as
warriors, brave and wary in
attack, determined and re-
s~ourceful in defense, they we're
not in reality a war-making
tribe. The history of the north
west shows that they only once
took the war path against the
whites, and that was when they
had been oppressed and deceiv-
ed until they could stand the
treatment accorded them by
the government no longer.
When the white men first
came to the Rocky mountains,
the tribe was powerful and
populous and it's people inhab-
tied the valleys of the Snake,
the Salmon and the Clearwater,
westward from the Bitter Root
mountains. Their. men were
brave, their women virtuous
and their. country had no SUI
perior in all the valleys of the
west.
Of this people, Joseph was a
worthy chieftain; strong, alert,
intelligent; albeit disdainful
and naughty at times. He was
the idol of his people. When he
led them out of the valley that
had been their home for gener-
atoms, it was not to give battle
to the whites, but to find a new
home for his tribe, for they be-
lieved that they had been
treacherously dealt with by the
agents of the federal govern
ment and wrongfully deprived
of the valley they were SO
strongly attached by history
and tradition.
TIL battles that occurred in
this march, which has become
historically famous, were not of
Joseph's seeking; he had not
crossed the mountains to fight
the whites, but when it became
necessary, he and his warriors
fought as Indians had never
fought before and never have
since.
Battle of Big Hole
General John Gibbon took
the field to turn Joseph and his
people back, and the first bat
tie was fought on the Big Hole
river in western Montana. Most
of Gibbons men were veterans
of the Sioux wars and other
campaigns, but never had they
fought Indians who showed the
courage and the resourceful-
ness possessed by Joseph and
his warriors. In the first clash,
when the whites made a sur
prise attack at daybreak on the
Nez Perces, the Indians were
driven back. They did not be-
panic-stricken and scat
ter, however, but under Jo-
seph's leadership they fought
so stubbornly and so CALAMITY
that they turned the rout at
the opening assault into what
virtually was a victory for
They compelled the
white men who had driven
them from their camp to take
refuge behind breastworks and
then they followed the whites,
them in and harassed
them for "a hours, only desist-
ing when scouts brought the
news of the approach of strong
achievements for the soldiers.
The fioht was ms of the hot.