Nez Perce (Nimipu)

The Nez Perce were not year-round inhabitants of Montana. They, like other tribes, crossed the mountains to hunt buffalo on the Plains. The tribe raised a legendary breed of horses known as the Appaloosa, perfect for mountain travel. Like many Northwest and Basin tribes they lacked guns and were at the mercy of better-armed tribes.

The expedition members were starving and half-frozen when they came down out of the Bitterroots. They were fortunate that the tribe offered to share their stores of salmon and camas roots. They were too weak to hollow out canoes, so Nez Perce leader Twisted Hair showed them how to form canoes by burning out the log centers.

Nez Perce tribal history suggests that some considered killing the newcomers and taking their guns. Whites once helped an elderly Nez Perce woman to escape kidnapping by another tribe. She asked the others not to harm the group and it was agreed.

It was the Nez Perce Lolo Trail that had allowed the expedition to cross the Rockies. Without it, they might not have arrived at the Pacific's edge before winter set in. They left their horses at the Nez Perce camp west of the mountains for their trip west and reclaimed them heading east. The relations they established with the tribe had long-lasting implications.

Today

In 1877, bands of the Nez Perce tried to avoid internment at a reservation by fleeing to Canada to join Sitting Bull. They outfought and outmaneuvered the American military halfway across Montana. At Bears Paw, an army force from the east caught up and intercepted them less than only 30 miles from the Canadian border.

After capture by the U.S. Army, the Nez Perce were forced onto eastern reservations.

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