In 1805, when visited by Lewis and Clark, they were occupying a large region in W Idaho, NE Oregon, and SE Washington. In the 1830s the Nez Percé, then numbering some 6,000, attracted national attention by sending emissaries to St. Louis to ask for books and teachers. Their request attracted to the Pacific Northwest missionaries, who played an important role in opening the region to settlement. The Nez Percé ceded (1855) a large part of their territory to the United States. The gold rushes in the 1860s and 1870s, however, brought large numbers of miners and settlers onto their lands, and a treaty of cession was fraudulently extracted (1863) from part of the tribe, confining the Nez Percé to a reservation in NW Idaho. A band of the tribe living in Oregon refused to relocate, leading to the uprising under Chief Joseph in 1877. Following their defeat, many of the survivors ended up at the Colville Reservation in Washington, where some of their descendants still live. However, many more Nez Percé live on their reservation in Idaho, earning their living as farmers. In 1990 there were some 4,000 Nez Percé in the United States.
BibliographySee H. J. Spinder, The Nez Percé Indians (1908, repr. 1974); T. Mathieson, The Nez Percé War (1964); M. D. Beal, I Will Fight No More Forever (1965); A. M. Josephy, Jr., The Nez Percé Indians and the Opening of the Northwest (1965, abr. ed. 1971); M. H. Brown, The Flight of the Nez Percé (1966, repr. 1972); D. Walker, Conflict and Schism in Nez Percé Acculturation (1968); D. S. Lavender, Let Me Be Free: The Nez Percé Tragedy (1992).
The Columbia Encyclopedia. Copyright © 2001-09 Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
Joseph (Chief Joseph), c.1840–1904, chief of a group of Nez Percé. On his father's death in 1871, Joseph became leader of one of the groups that refused to leave the land ceded to the United S...
Appaloosa horse, breed of light horse developed in the United States by the Nez Percé of Idaho from a horse that originated in Asia and was popular in Europe during the Middle Ages. Lewis and ...
Cayuse, Native North Americans who formerly occupied parts of NE Oregon and SE Washington. They were closely associated with the Nez Percé and spoke a language belonging to the Sahaptin-Chinoo...
Lewiston. 1 City (1990 pop. 28,082), seat of Nez Perce co., NW Idaho, at the Wash. line and at the junction of the Snake and Clearwater rivers; founded 1861. It is the commercial and industria...
Scott, Hugh Lenox, 1853–1934, U.S. army officer, b. Danville, Ky., grad. West Point, 1876. He was assigned (1876) to military service in the West and took part in the Sioux, Nez Percé, and Che...
Moscow, city (1990 pop. 18,519), seat of Latah co., NW Idaho, at the Wash. line; inc. 1887. It is a trade center for a lumber and farm area where wheat, peas, lentils, and dairy items are prod...
Gibbon, John, 1827–96, Union general in the Civil War, b. near Holmesburg (now part of Philadelphia), Pa., grad. West Point, 1847. Made a brigadier general of volunteers (1862), he fought in t...
Ross, Alexander, 1783–1856, Canadian fur trader and pioneer, b. Scotland. He went to Canada in 1805, taught school in Upper Canada, and in 1810 left for Oregon as a clerk in John Jacob Astor's...
Miles, Nelson Appleton, 1839–1925, American army officer, b. near Westminster, Mass. In 1861, at the outbreak of the Civil War, he left his job in a Boston store and organized a company of vol...
Walla Walla, city (2006 est. pop. 30,945), seat of Walla Walla co., SE Wash., at the junction of the Walla Walla River and Mill Creek, near the Oreg. line; inc. 1862. It is a trade, processing...
|
|