Customer Reviews

Discovery Channel's: How the West Was Lost; Nez Perce- I Will Fight No More Forever

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4 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

This band of Nez Perce was removed, peacefully, from the land where I live. Most of the people here, in the Wallowa Valley of Oregon, revere the Nez Perce as remarkably humane human beings, who helped many early settlers survive and who were willing to share their land with people of good will. Last week, I sat at the "elders" table among the traditional Nez Perce (some of whom appear in this video) who put on the annual friendship feast to reaffirm what they and reasonable non-Indians have always known: That we have every reason to respect and support one another.

This video fairly portrays a remarkable "war" that no one wanted. Chief Joseph's band had traveled for weeks to come with one day of the reservation that the government had required them to live on. Then several young braves took it upon themselves to avenge the murder of one of their fathers, and the troops came out to control the situation. A Nez Perce party approached the army under a white flag, and was fired upon by a hot-headed volunteer (not a soldier under orders to hold fire), thus the battle began at White Bird Canyon.

The story from there is one of tragedy, with the demonstration of remarkable human courage, endurance and ingenuity. Viewing this documentary gives one a expanded view of human capability.

I withhold one star because 58 minutes is not long enough to tell the story (some key battles and events were left out, and the chronology sometimes was overly compressed).