Transcript
Host 1 (0:01)
This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. There's nothing sweeter than baking cookies during the holidays. With Prime, I get all my ingredients delivered right to my door, fast and free. No last minute store trips needed. And of course I blast my favorite holiday playlist on Amazon Music. It's the ultimate soundtrack for creating unforgettable memories. From streaming to shopping. It's on Prime. Visit Amazon.comprime to get more out of whatever you're into.
Host 2 (0:28)
Streaming December 12th on Peacock. Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie are back.
Host 1 (0:34)
That's hot.
Host 2 (0:34)
Loves it for a show stopping reunion that will prove putting on an opera is anything but simple.
Host 3 (0:43)
We're really good at this.
Host 2 (0:45)
One thing's for sure, they won't be upstaged.
Host 1 (0:49)
Good to have you back.
Host 3 (0:50)
Come on, we've got a show to do.
Host 2 (0:51)
Paris and Nicole The Encore. A three part reunion special. Streaming December 12th only on Peacock.
Narrator (1:13)
Old Joseph was dying. It was the summer of 1871, and though it had taken quite a while, white settlers had finally descended on his homeland in the Wallowa Valley of eastern Oregon. His land was the last dominion of freedom in Nesper's territory. All the other areas now featured settlements or farms or miners or all of the above. But Joseph's land was rugged. It was beautiful, but it wasn't as enticing as some of the other places in the region. It didn't have gold deposits. It didn't have wide open prairies full of lush grasses for grazing. It didn't have acre upon acre of deep black soil for farming. So it was the last stronghold of the Nez Perce. But now the dam had broken and settlers were moving in. Old Joseph had spent the last eight years fighting against the encroachment. But now his fight was done and he knew it. He would have to pass it on to his son, who is known as Young Joseph. For the father and son, the fight truly began. In 1863, the US government forced a treaty onto the Nez Perce that required every member of the tribe to move to a single reservation. That reservation was about 70 miles northwest of where Old Joseph now lay. A couple bands of the Nez Perce already lived in that area. The reservation had essentially been constructed around their homeland, but Joseph's band and four others lived far south of that land. Those five bands were forced to give up all their land. The American government instructed them to move and then live according to the customs of white civilization. Joseph and many others refused. They called the 1863 treaty the Steel Treaty, the first white visitors to the Nez Perce homeland were Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. In 1805, while they were on the first half of their famous expedition. Now, 66 years later, in 1871, the Nez Perce homeland was almost completely encircled by American settlements and army forts. Within five years after the summer of 1876, the Nez Perce would be the last major Native American tribe that was not confined to a reservation or living in exile. They were supposed to have been on a reservation back in 1864, one year after the Steel Treaty. But a combination of factors had granted a delay for some of the bands. But now, in 1871, time was running out and old Joseph knew it. Joseph knew his son would take over leadership of the band. And now, as he lay dying, he gave his son one final speech. Old Joseph said, when I am gone, think of your country. You are the chief of these people. They look to you to guide them. Always remember, your father never sold this country. You must stop your ears whenever you are asked to sign a treaty selling your home. My son, never forget my dying words. This country holds your father's body. Never sell the bones of your father and your mother. Young Joseph embraced his father's words. Years later, he looked back on that moment and said, a man who would not love his father's grave is worse than a wild animal. Young Joseph refused to sell. He refused to move to a reservation. He accepted his role as a leader. And six years after his father died, he joined a group of strong leaders who guided their people on an odyssey to stay free. From Black Barrel Media, this is Legends of the Old West. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer. In this season, we're telling the story of the Nez Perce people and their epic fight to remain free. This is the Nez perce War. Episode 2 A Hornet's Nest the 1863 treaty required all Nez Perce to be on a new reservation by June 9, 1864. During the year between the signing of the treaty and the deadline, several villages migrated to their new homes. They slowly assimilated into American style culture. They adopted some form of Christianity, attended schools, built log houses and attempted farming. For most, they didn't make the change because they wanted to. It was simply the safest option. White settlements encroached from every direction and grew every day. There were isolated outbreaks of violence that threatened to explode at any time. And resources were being destroyed or used up at a scary rate. Lands were being plowed up for farms. Rivers and streams were being polluted or stripped bare of fish and the forests were being hunted until there was less game than ever before. But even with the threats and difficulties, there were five bands of the Nez Perce who refused to sign the treaty or move to the reservation. The 1864 deadline came and went with no major push to force the non treaty bands to move. And the delay was probably due to the fact that the US government and the military had more pressing issues. By 1864, the Civil War was in its final bloody year. By the end of April 1865, the majority of the Confederate army had surrendered and the war was essentially over. But that same month, President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, and it threw the fragile peace process into complete chaos. Then, slowly, as the government worked to restore the Union, lawmakers and soldiers turned their attention toward the Native American tribes in the West. But they didn't pick back up with the Nez Perce right away. They focused on the tribes that were in the immediate path of westward expansion. The Kiowa and Comanche in Texas. The Pawnee, Southern Cheyenne and Southern Arapaho in Kansas, Oklahoma and Colorado. The Sioux and Northern Cheyenne in the Dakotas, Montana and Wyoming. And those were just the biggest tribes. There were dozens of smaller tribes dotted around the landscape. The Medicine lodge treaty of 1867 was supposed to subdue the tribes of the Southern plains, but of course it didn't. And in the winter of 1868, it gave Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer the chance to earn the reputation of America's number one Indian fighter. When he attacked a village along the Ouachita river in Oklahoma, he and the 7th Cavalry could have been wiped out because he didn't know that there were two much larger villages hidden behind a loop in the river. But most of the soldiers escaped before a thousand warriors descended on them. The Fort Le rami Treaty of 1868 ended three years of fighting on the Northern plains that has come to be known as Red Clouds War. It was the only time in history that a Native American army forced the US Government to ask for peace. On the surface, the treaty gave the Sioux and Cheyenne everything they wanted. But buried in the complicated legal language that the tribes couldn't possibly understand were clauses that gave the US Permission to basically ignore every aspect of the treaty and do whatever it wanted. That led to military expeditions into the Black Hills of modern day South Dakota that sparked the biggest gold rush in American history. It also led to incursions across the Northern plains to build a railroad. The very railroad that was at the heart of the first treaty with the Nez perce. Back in 1855, the governor of Washington Territory proposed a treaty that established the first two reservations for the Nez Perce. Arguably, his biggest motivation was that he wanted to build the first transcontinental railroad. He wanted it to run from St. Paul, Minnesota to what is now Seattle, Washington. That meant it would go right through Nez Perce land, so he needed to move them away from his planned route. His idea experienced a lot of delays, and in the meantime, the transcontinental railroad was finished in 1869. By the early 1870s, the railroad that Stevens wanted to build was coming to life as the Northern Pacific Railroad. It crept west from Minnesota, but it stalled on the northern plains when its survey crews and military escorts ran into Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. The clashes in 1872 were the first time Sitting Bull and Custer faced each other, and the decisive battle happened four years later along the banks of the Little Bighorn. The same week the Battle of the Little Bighorn happened in southern Montana, a murder happened 500 miles to the west. The battle was monumental, both in size and effects on the northern Plains. The murder of a single warrior was obviously smaller in terms of size, but it ended up having a similar monumental effect in Nez Perce territory.