Flight to Freedom

Fear spread among Montana settlers as reports of increasing unrest in Idaho reached the territory. Newspapers fanned the flames of fear by printing distorted stories. The Nez Perce were heading over the Lolo Trail toward Montana.

It is a monstrous outrage that the Nez Perce shall be allowed to pass through our territory.
– J. H. Mills, editor, New Northwest, Deer Lodge, MT.

Many Montana settlers were accustomed to Nez Perce visits. Some settlers claimed Nez Perce as friends, but panic prevailed. Newspaper editors demanded action by Montana Territorial Governor Benjamin Potts. Telegrams to President Rutherford B. Hayes demanded that the Army punish “the hostiles,” ignoring the fact that the Nez Perce were defending their homeland.
Montana settlers formed volunteer militia groups. In Stevensville, Montana, settlers hastily rebuilt Fort Owen, a crumbling, walled trading post. In Corvallis and Skalkaho, Montana, the residents built sod forts to protect their families. Present-day Fort Owen Jerry Bauer Bitterroot Salish Chief Charlo and his people had been friendly to both settlers and Nez Perce. However, the Salish were also experiencing increasing pressure from settlers to give up their land in the Bitterroot Valley.
Chief Charlo refused to sign the 1872 Garfield Treaty. His name was forged on the document. Chief Charlo and several hundred Salish people remained in the Bitterroot Valley in the face of growing hostility.

The Bitterroot Salish

Traditionally, the Bitterroot Valley in western Montana was home to the Bitterroot Salish, but they ranged hundreds of miles in all directions to hunt buffalo, fish for salmon, trade and visit neighboring tribes.
The 1855 Hellgate Treaty established a reservation about 75 miles north of Montana’s Bitterroot Valley for several other Salish bands, and they considered the Bitterroot Valley of western Montana a reservation for the Bitterroot Salish.
However, in 1872, the federal government bowed to pressure from settlers and negotiated an agreement with the Bitterroot Salish to remove them to the Jocko Reservation. The last Salish left their Bitterroot Valley homeland in 1891.

Nobody was sure how the Salish would react to the Nez  Perce presence. By the time the Nez Perce reached Lolo Pass, Montana residents had been reading about supposed “terrible atrocities” for five weeks. The highly publicized fate of Lt. Colonel George A. Custer the year before at the Battle of the Little Big Horn magnified the settlers’ fears. While the Nez Perce intended to pass peacefully through Montana, the panic-stricken settlers feared for their lives.
Chief Charlo allowed the Nez Perce to pass through the valley but warned them not to harm the settlers. His warriors assisted in the defense of strongholds like “Fort Fizzle.”