"Nee-Mee-Poo"

The People

Nez Perce is actually a misnomer given by the interpreter of the Lewis and Clark expedition team of 1805.  The French translate it as "pierced nose."  This is not true, though, as the Nee-Mee-Poo did not practice nose piercing or wearing ornaments.

The Nez Perce territory was approximately 17 million acres.  It covered portions of Washington, Idaho, and Oregon.  The Nez Perce would travel with the seasons in order to guide them to food.  They were well known as breeders of the Appaloosa horse.

Traditionally they followed fish, game, wild plants and seasons to the headwaters and high mountains of the Wallowas in the summer and deep into the canyons of the Snake River and its tributaries in the winter.

The Nez Perce were a peaceful tribe that befriended many of the explorers and settlers of the northeast corner of Oregon.  It wasn't until their expulsion and other events that led the Nez Perce to war in 1877.

The Wallowa lands were left to the Nez Perce in an 1855 treaty, but gold and settlement caused the US Government to make new treaties; although the Nez Perce never signed them.  The Government and settler pressure eventually convinced Chief Joseph that he should comply and move to an Idaho reservation.  In 1877, the tribe of about 250 men, women, and children (with all their possessions) crossed the Snake River and joined other non-treaty tribes on the way to the reservation.  A few young warriors, distraught and angry, killed some white settlers.  Joseph and other chiefs, their hands forced, then led their people on a 1,400 mile fighting retreat that ended in capture in Montana; just 40 miles from the Canadian border.

Despite eastern sympathies and Joseph's trips to Washington for meetings with President Hayes and congressmen, the Nez Perce were not allowed to return to the Wallowas.  War veterans, widows, and children were shipped to malarial lands in eastern Kansas and then to "Indian Territory."  Finally those who didn't die of disease and broken spirits were allowed to return to the Northwest.

Today there are 138,000 acres of reservation land.  Of this total, 34.8% of the land is Native owned.  Instead of a chief system of government like long ago, there is a committee style of government.  Tribal members elect people every three years.  There are nine members of the Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee.