Gibbon Attacks
On August 9th, the dawn’s silence was shattered when Colonel Gibbon’s 7th Infantry and Captain John Catlin’s Bitterroot volunteers attacked the unsuspecting, sleeping Nez Perce at their camp beside the North Fork Big Hole River. Today this is part of the Big Hole National Battlefield.
Thundering gunfire from the willows along the creek ended the tranquil dawn. A cry of “we are attacked” aroused the sleeping Nez Perce warriors to battle. The war was “not quit.” The Big Hole Battle had begun. Years afterward, an elder Nez Perce woman expressed the heartfelt Nez Perce distress:
White Bird’s sentiments were similar,
A white man must have no respect for himself. It makes no difference how well he is treated by the Indians, he will take the advantage.
In the initial attack at Big Hole, 90 Nez Perce were killed, mostly women and children. The remaining warriors drove the attackers back across the river where they found what defense they could in hastily dug shallow rifle pits. The warriors held them pinned there for an entire day while they buried their dead. The women packed up what remained of the camp, loaded the wounded on travois and headed south. Of the Army and citizen volunteers, 29 were killed and 40 wounded including Colonel Gibbons.
The leadership of the Nez Perce changed from Looking Glass to Lean Elk, also known as Poker Joe as the urgency of the situation intensified. No longer were they merely removing themselves from a bad situation. The stakes had been elevated. General Howard arrived at the battlefield the next day, August 11, and with him two doctors to attend the wounded military. Two days later he would pick up the pursuit of the Nez Perce.
Big Hole National Battlefield
Epilogue: The Struggle Continues
After the battle at Big Hole the Nez Perce, with the military constantly in pursuit, began a desperate fight to reach a place of safety and regain their freedom. The odyssey continued throughout the summer and into the fall as they traveled across Idaho, into the newly created Yellowstone Park, through part of Wyoming and then north through Montana in an attempt to reach Canada. The Nez Perce eventually surrendered in the Bear Paw Mountains, near today’s Chinook, Montana, where Chief Joseph made his memorable speech. White Bird and nearley 300 Nez Perce escaped to Canada. The war was finally “quit,” but human suffering was not.
More than 400 Nez Perce were imprisoned in Indian Territory, now Oklahoma. There, more Nez Perce died than were killed in all the fighting. Some Nez Perce were eventually allowed to return to the Nez Perce Indian Reservation in Lapwai, Idaho, but Chief Joseph and others were forced to settle on the Colville Indian Reservation in northeastern Washington State and the Umatilla Indian Reservation in north-central Oregon.
The Bitterroot Salish
The Nez Perce trip through the area was not the end of Indian conflict in western Montana’s Bitterroot Valley. Just 14 years
later, in 1891, Chief Charlo sadly agreed to move the remaining Salish people to the Jocko (Flathead) Indian Reservation.
Henry Buck, Stevensville settler, merchant and war participant, reflected on the situation: It was this same high-handed dictatorial policy of our government in Idaho that fired Chief Joseph to wrath in defense of his birthright and forced us, as innocent citizens, to seek our own protection, and which, only a few years later, demand of Charlo and his tribe, our defenders, the surrender of his heritage in exchange for a home not of his choice.
