Nez Perce

The Nez Perce, who call themselves Nimíipuu, "we, the people", are an Indigenous nation of the Columbia Plateau in the Pacific Northwest, a region people have lived in for at least 11,500 years. Famous as horse breeders and for the 1877 flight led by Chief Joseph and other leaders, they still hold a reservation in north-central Idaho, governed from Lapwai. The French name, meaning "pierced nose", was a mistake: it described a practice of the neighbouring Chinook, not of the Nimíipuu.

Around 1805 Nimíipuu territory covered some 17 million acres in what are now Idaho, Washington, Oregon and Montana, around the Snake, Salmon, Clearwater and Grande Ronde rivers, from the Bitterroot Mountains west to the Blue Mountains. In 1800 they lived in more than 70 permanent villages of 30 to 200 people, moving each year along familiar routes between winter villages and seasonal camps. Salmon was the staple, caught in great numbers at communal fishing sites in early summer and again in the autumn runs, and the first fish of the season was greeted with a ceremonial feast of thanksgiving. Women dug camas and kouse roots, which supplied much of the winter food and were valuable in trade. After acquiring horses in the eighteenth century, the Nimíipuu became renowned breeders, and their horses are associated with the Appaloosa. They crossed the Lolo Trail to hunt buffalo on the Montana plains, where they met allies such as the Crow and enemies such as the Blackfoot Confederacy.

Young people sought a personal guardian spirit, or weyekin, by going alone into the mountains to fast and pray. The spirit usually appeared as an animal or bird and was believed to grant its qualities, such as speed or strength, for life. Village bands were tied to neighbours such as the Cayuse and Palus by frequent intermarriage.

In September 1805 William Clark, scouting ahead of the starving Lewis and Clark expedition, reached a Nimíipuu camp at Weippe Prairie. The Nimíipuu fed the travellers, cared for their horses while they went on to the Pacific, and fed them again on their return the following spring. At that time they were the largest people on the plateau, about 6,000 strong.

The Nez Perce signed the Treaty of Walla Walla in 1855. A further treaty in 1863, which the Nimíipuu call the "Thief Treaty", cut them off from most of their lands, including the Camas Prairie, and divided the nation between bands that accepted it and those that refused. On 15 June 1877 non-treaty bands under leaders including Chief Joseph, Looking Glass and White Bird began a flight of about 750 people. Hoping first to find refuge with the Crow and then with the Lakota leader Sitting Bull in Canada, they travelled more than 1,170 miles, pursued by over 2,000 soldiers, and fought 18 engagements in which over 100 soldiers and around 100 Nez Perce died. Most surrendered on 5 October 1877 at the Bear Paw Mountains, about 40 miles from the border, where Joseph declared that he would "fight no more forever". Survivors were confined to reservations in Idaho, Washington and Indian Territory.

Allotment under the 1887 Dawes Act and the opening of the reservation to settlers in 1895 left the tribe owning only about 12 per cent of its reservation, and the Nez Perce population had fallen to about 1,800 by the early twentieth century. The Nez Perce Tribe of Idaho reported more than 3,500 members in 2021, and a Joseph band lives on the Colville Reservation in Washington. The tribe runs hatcheries and fisheries, casinos, clinics, a court and police force, and some members still speak Nimiipuutímt. Since 1994 it has bred the Nez Perce Horse from Appaloosa and Akhal-Teke stock, and since 1991 the Tamkaliks powwow has welcomed the Nimíipuu back to the Wallowa Valley.

Our 1500, 1530, 1600, 1650, 1700 and 1715 maps draw an approximate Nez Perce territory on the Columbia Plateau; the years are those of the basemaps, not of the nation's history. From 1530 the Shoshone, historically their southern neighbours, also appear on these maps.