The Last Indian War: The Nez Perce Story (Pivotal Moments in American History) [Hardcover]

Elliott West (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 21, 2009 | ISBN-10: 0195136756 | ISBN-13: 978-0195136753 | Edition: 1

This newest volume in Oxford's acclaimed Pivotal Moments series offers an unforgettable portrait of the Nez Perce War of 1877, the last great Indian conflict in American history. It was, as Elliott West shows, a tale of courage and ingenuity, of desperate struggle and shattered hope, of short-sighted government action and a doomed flight to freedom.

To tell the story, West begins with the early history of the Nez Perce and their years of friendly relations with white settlers. In an initial treaty, the Nez Perce were promised a large part of their ancestral homeland, but the discovery of gold led to a stampede of settlement within the Nez Perce land. Numerous injustices at the hands of the US government combined with the settlers' invasion to provoke this most accomodating of tribes to war. West offers a riveting account of what came next: the harrowing flight of 800 Nez Perce, including many women, children and elderly, across 1500 miles of mountainous and difficult terrain. He gives a full reckoning of the campaigns and battles--and the unexpected turns, brilliant stratagems, and grand heroism that occurred along the way. And he brings to life the complex characters from both sides of the conflict, including cavalrymen, officers, politicians, and--at the center of it all--the Nez Perce themselves (the Nimiipuu, "true people"). The book sheds light on the war's legacy, including the near sainthood that was bestowed upon Chief Joseph, whose speech of surrender, "I will fight no more forever," became as celebrated as the Gettysburg Address.

Based on a rich cache of historical documents, from government and military records to contemporary interviews and newspaper reports, The Last Indian War offers a searing portrait of a moment when the American identity--who was and who was not a citizen--was being forged.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. A distinguished scholar of American history makes a significant contribution to Oxford's excellent series Pivotal Moments in American History in this definitive analysis of the United States' 1877 war with the Nez Percé. West (The Contested Plains) integrates a broad spectrum of sources to depict the fate of a people whose history of friendship with the U.S. dated to 1805. The Nez Percé were caught up in the questions posed by the Civil War and the period of expansion that followed: who would be the Americans and what obligations would bind them together? Such questions influenced Idaho and Oregon, where the Nez Percé lived, as much as Massachusetts and Virginia. The 1877 war, the Nez Percé's epic journey to reach the Canadian border, American conquest and Indian exile is the heart of the book, and West tells it brilliantly. No less compelling is his account of the Nez Percé taking up farming and making and selling Indian trinkets, developing their image as beloved losers and negotiating their return home—on white terms, but with honor and integrity upheld. 40 b&w illus., maps. (Apr.)
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From Booklist

*Starred Review* The so-called Nez Perce War of 1877 was one of the most unlikely, heroic, and tragic episodes in the history of the American West. Since encountering and helping to sustain the Lewis and Clark expedition, the several bands of the Nez Perce had maintained harmonious relations with the U.S. government. Then, after the government insisted that all of the bands relocate to a reservation well removed from their homeland, a band led by Chief Joseph resisted, leading the army on a 1,500-mile chase that ended just short of the Canadian border, capturing, in the process, the attention, even sympathy, of the general public. West, a professor of American history at the University of Arkansas, has written a detailed and often moving chronicle of the conflict. He lays the groundwork with an excellent analysis of Nez Perce culture on the eve of their flight. He also asserts provocatively that the effort to relocate the Nez Perce was part of the larger, post–Civil War federal strategy to overcome sectional and ethnic divisions. The highlight of the narrative is the flight of the approximately 800 Nez Perce, including the iconic figures Joseph and Looking Glass, as they strive to battle and break free of their pursuers. This is a superb reexamination of a sad but memorable story. --Jay Freeman

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; 1 edition (April 21, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195136756
• ISBN-13: 978-0195136753
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 1.3 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (47 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #586,721 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

58 of 62 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Some great work but does not fulfill its promise January 19, 2011

By WillisB

Format:Hardcover

In retelling the final negotiations between the nontreaty bands of Nez Perce and General Howard, Elliott West includes a quote from Toohoolhoolzote: "I would like to know who Washington is. Is he a Chief or a common man or a house or a place?"

In reading this book, I often felt the same. Elliott West has a tendency to lump: "A postwar Washington set out to consolidate into a tighter truer union..." and occasionally the narrative devolves into something bordering on rant. The lumping is often undermined by some of the more finely detailed evidence Elliott West provides.

The usual effigies are burned here. Custer gets numerous mentions though he was never more than a pawn. Kit Carson comes up once and that is regarding his "devastating campaign" against the Navajo. William T. Sherman gets a full page photograph but not a proper treatment. This is like blaming army generals for the Iraq war while leaving out names like Rice, Rumsfeld, and Cheney.

So who was "Washington"? Some armchair research suggests that the name Columbus Delano might be worthy of imfamy. Delano was the Secretary of the Interior who ordered the exploration (lead by Custer) of the Black Hills in 1872 "as it is supposed to be rich in minerals and lumber, it is deemed important to have it freed as early as possible from Indian occupancy." Delano had replaced President Grant's first pick, Jacob Dolson Cox, who resigned after feeling insufficient support from Grant to take on the widespread corruption under his post. The Department of the Interior was in charge of both the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the U.S. Geological Survey. Elliot West does an excellent job of showing how devastating a gold strike on treaty lands could be in writing about the 1860 discovery on Nez Perce land. That discovery was illegal and opposed by Indian agents but they were powerless to keep the rush in check. So it is easy to imagine how much worse such exploration would be when officially sanctioned. Grant's pick to head the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Native American Ely Parker, also resigned in disgust over the same issues about six months after Cox. Like Delano, Parker and Cox are not mentioned in Elliott West's book, but their complaints seem necessary to understand the events that lead up to the Nez Perce War.

In reading primary documents from this era, one finds an ongoing debate about whether Indian Affairs should be placed under the Department of Interior or the Department of War. Elliott West mentions the debate only once near the end, in quoting someone who posed the question to Chief Joseph. Those who argued in favor of the Department of War present a picture of widespread corruption among Indian Agents in which both Indians and taxpayers were robbed outright. Elliott West presents a fair amount of evidence that the War Department might have been better custodians, presenting many instances in which the Army officers sympathized with Indians and were disgusted by treacherous and illegal acts of "Washington", territorial governments, and local whites.

Unfortunately it may not have mattered which department was in control in the 1870s, as Secretary of War Belknap was indicted for corruption in 1876. Elliott West does not mention Belknap but calls Sherman "the man most responsible for sending the Nez Perces into exile." This doesn't seem accurate. According to Sherman's memoir, his position as the nation's top general was rendered powerless by the Secretary of War under U.S. Grant. Sherman seems to have gone into a form of early retirement, spending over a year in Europe (1872) remodeling his house in D.C. (1873) and finally moving to St. Louis to write his memoirs of the Civil War (1874-5). Prior to this, in 1868, Sherman had granted Navajo return to their native lands, writing: "Mr. Tappan and I found it impossible to prevail on the Navajos to remove to [Oklahoma]." This has an undeniable sweetness coming from the man who made Georgia howl. (For more on this, see Hampton Sides "Blood and Thunder.") Today the Navajo reservation is the largest, four times larger than the next on the list. In 1868, Sherman was one of those who offerred the Sioux an area that included all of South Dakota west of the Missouri River. It almost begs the question whether Delano, Belknap and their minions were deliberately undoing Sherman's work. But regardless, when Sherman came back to power in 1876, the Black Hills were crawling with miners, the buffalo were nearly extinct, and it was his job to fight the Sioux and Nez Perce. With the middle name "Tecumseh," Sherman has always been the favorite punching bag of anyone searching for a quick, cheap irony.

Another name curiously missing from Elliott West's book is Fremont, whose career was derailed by political overreaching before and during the Civil War. Tragic, as he was probably the most qualified to handle these issues of the 1870s. Fremont was a strong proponent of Westward expansion, but also loved diversity and was not overwhelmed by it. In 1843, Fremont was already worried about sharply declining populations of buffalo and the negative effects this was having on the Sioux Indians of the Upper Platte, leaving them the choice of either starving or raiding the stockpiles of others. Elliott West depicts the "Great Hunt" of buffalo in 1872 as being primarilly motivated by greed and quotes one hunter who was making an annual salary 3x that of the U.S. President. This rings true to anyone who lived through the recent housing debacle of 2004-8: smalltime greed and two-bit opportunists, writ large over the plains. Fragile populations required fair treatment and protection to survive, and the will was not there, either because those in charge were ineffectual leaders (like Grant) or were busy getting rich (Delano, Belknap).

Elliott West has done some great work here but it is questionable how much the book adds to the numerous tellings that have come before, and it does not fulfill its promise to deliver a full picture.

38 of 40 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Piercing Account of the Nez Perce May 18, 2009

By Derek R. Everett

Format:Hardcover

In "The Last Indian War," West has brought his exceptional storytelling skills to a compelling group of nineteenth-century Americans. I was particularly impressed at how he blended political and technological forces from across the country and at times around the world with the Nez Perce tale, demonstrating how they were connected to broader issues of the day rather than treating them like an anachronistic group, as is so often the case in Indian history. By demonstrating the complicated nature of the Nez Perce's existence, and their struggle to retain independence from various Euro-American competitors, West has created a work that will stand not only as an excellent narrative of that society but also a model for other historians of how to tell more complete, overarching cultural stories.

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Putting War in its Cultural Context August 8, 2009

By R. A Forczyk TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

While the United States Army's campaign against the Sioux in 1876 has been immortalized by "Custer's Last Stand," the equally significant Nez Perce War of 1877 has received very little attention. There have been a few other books out on this subject, but nothing like the non-stop flow of Custer historiography. In The Last Indian War, Professor Elliott West (University of Arkansas) takes an academic look at the Nez Perce War and does a fine job casting it in a cultural context. Readers expecting a pure military history will be disappointed since only about half the book actually covers the war itself. Instead, the author's intent is to demonstrate how cultural misunderstandings between the United States representatives and the Nez Perce contributed to the deterioration of relations and eventual outbreak of war, as well as making it difficult for each side to understand the other's objectives once fighting did begin. There is a subtle nuance in these pages that greatly adds to our understanding of this conflict, yet without getting bogged down. Furthermore, the author demonstrates balance in not adopting an `all-Whites-are-bad, all-Indians-are-good' attitude or depicting the Nez Perce as noble victims, as they tried to depict themselves after they were defeated.

The Last Indian War consists of 18 chapters, plus footnotes and index, for a total of 397 pages. The author has also included 32 illustrations/photos, a chronology and five maps. Approximately the first third of the book traces the evolution of the Nez Perce and their interactions with White explorers, traders, missionaries, miners, politicians and settlers in the period 1805 to the 1870s. The author makes some good points here, that the Nez Perce were able to deal with Whites as equals to about 1855 and that the relationship established was beneficial to both sides (guns traded for resources). This period of relative equality came to an end in 1860 when gold was discovered on Nez Perce land and the resulting flood of new-comers left the Nez Perce a minority on their own land. The critical moment came with the treaty of 1863, which tried to force the Nez Perce onto reservations, which caused a split between `Treaty' and `Non-Treaty' Nez Perce. Although the author is at pains to point out deceptions and outright lies by Whites about their intentions, he does not spare the Nez Perce either. He points out that earlier, they had not only stood by while Whites took land from neighboring tribes like the Flatheads, but actually contributed scouts to help the US Army suppress their neighbors.

The war breaks out in the middle section of the book and the author covers the entire march from Idaho to Bear Paw Mountain in Montana and the three months of active campaigning. Although he does discuss the US Army, its leaders and its plans, more of the focus is on the Nez Perce. Battles are generally covered in a couple of pages, with adequate detail about casualties, but these descriptions don't include all the details that a military reader or specialist might expect. A big point that the author does make is to deflate the "Chief Joseph was in charge" legend. In fact, leadership of the Nez Perce was rather amorphous and battlefield leadership was often left up to individual warriors. In contrast, West makes the point that the US Army leadership was often deficient at the tactical level but the units had a level of cohesiveness and dedication to mission that the Nez Perce found difficult to comprehend. Amazingly, the Nez Perce apparently believed that when they left Idaho that `the war was over' and they were surprised to find other US Army units attacking them. The author succeeds in demonstrating that not only did cultural misunderstandings contribute to the war, but they made it difficult for each side to actually fight each other. Misconduct on both sides is also addressed: White violations of a flag of truce and Nez Perce murders and rapes committed against civilians.

The final section of the book covers the defeat of the Nez Perce at Bear Paw and the ultimate disposition of the `Non-Treaty' members, as well as Chief Joseph's successful song-and-dance routine to gain national sympathy (actually the author is quite merciless against Joseph). All in all, the Last Indian War does an admirable job putting this war in its cultural context although there were a few issues that were left not fully covered. For example, while the author makes clear that the "Treaty Nez Perce" did not side with those involved in the war and even provided scouts to the US Army to use against their fellows, it's still left a little murky why so many Nez Perce (apparently more than two-thirds) were able to move onto reservations and adapt without violence, while the non-Treaty's couldn't. It is clear that the anti-progressive `Dreamer Movement' among the Nez Perce played a part, but this seems insufficient in itself. Nevertheless, The Last Indian War adds to our understanding of the important Nez Perce War and makes some important observations about conflict between two radically different cultures.