Chinook

C'Aynnim 'Alikinwaaspa is the Nez Perce name for this site. It means "Place of the Manure Fire" because the Nez Perce used buffalo chips as fuel here.

On September 29, 1877, about 700 Nez Perce men, women and children camped in the basin before you. Exhausted from four months of flight, they hoped to rest and hunt buffalo. This was an ideal location, providing food, water, and shelter from the wind. Just two days from the Canadian border and freedom, their long journey was about to come to a tragic end.

Early on the morning of September 30, Colonel Miles' scouts discovered the camp, As Nez Perce warriors rushed to the defense, 400 soldiers and scouts attacked. The 7th Cavalry charged the village, while the 2nd Cavalry captured the Nez Perce horses. The 5th Infantry was held in reserve. The Nez Perce repelled the attack.

Another attempt to overrun the camp was made in the early afternoon, The battle became a siege. During the six-day siege about 200 Nez Perce, which included Chief White Bird, managed to reach Canada where they joined Sitting Bull's Lakota near Fort Walsh. On the afternoon of October 5, Chief Joseph surrendered his rifle to end the suffering of women and children.

Outside the camp I had seen men killed. Soldiers ten, Indians ten. That was not so bad. But now, when I saw our remaining warriors gone, my heart grew choked and heavy... Children crying with cold, no fire. There could be no light. Everywhere the crying, the death wail. -- Yellow Wolf. Nez Perce

I remained to help care for the wounded and bury the dead. There were fourteen men killed and thirty wounded besides a great many horses were shot and crippled...One cannot realize the feeling engendered by taking part in such a carnage as a battle produces until they have had the actual experience in warfare. It was a horrible and gruesome site. -- Alexander Cruikshank, Army Scout

Erected by National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior.

Two panels are affixed to a common boulder.

Commemorating the surrender of Chief Joseph and the remnants of his tribe of Nez Perce to General Nelson A. Miles, October 5, 1877.

Here Chiefs Looking Glass, Ollicut, Too-hul-sote and many other warriors were killed

Chief Joseph was a military genius, courageous, and humane.

Presenting his rifle to General Miles, with right hand upraised, he proclaimed:

"From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever."

He kept his word.

In graceful remembrance of the officers and enlisted men killed in action in the last decisive armed conflict between the white men and red men in the Northwest.

September 30 - October 5, 1877

7th U.S. Cavalry

Captain Owen Hale • 2nd Lieut. Jonathan W. Biddle • 1st Sergt. George McDermott • 1st Sergt. Michael Martin • 1st Sergt. Otto Wild • Sergt. James H. Alberts • Sergt. Otto Durselow • Sergt. Max Mielke • Sergt. Henry W. Paichel • Pvt. John E. Cleveland • Pvt. David I. Dawsey • Pvt. Charles F. Hurdick • Pvt. Frank Knaupp • Pvt. Lewis Kelly • Pvt. Samuel McIntyre • Pvt. William

J. Randall • Pvt. Francis Roth • Pvt. William Whitlow

2nd U.S. Cavalry

Pvt. John Irving

5th U.S. Infantry

Corporal John Haddo • Pvt. Thomas Geoghegan • Pvt. Joseph Kohler • Pvt. Richard M. Peshall

Erected 1926 by Daughters of the American Revolution.

To the everlasting memory of the

Brave Warriors

Chief Joseph's Band who fought on these grounds in the

Nez Perce War of 1877

Erected by

Nez Perce Indians and the Chief Joseph Memorial Association

June, 1928

Erected 1928 by Chief Joseph Memorial Association.

For the exhausted Nez Perce, this site, known to them as ćáynim?a•lika?spe (Place of Manure Fire), appeared to be a good place to rest before continuing to Canada. Then a large force of U.S. soldiers surprised them from the east. After the Nez Perce blocked the initial attack of September 30th, the battle became a six-day siege, with sniper's bullets and artillery fire. This landscape looks much as it did in 1877. Picture it as cold and snowing, which added to the suffering. As you walk, study the terrain and its role in the fighting, the nominal shelter it offered Nez Perce families, and ponder this place as the end of a four-month struggle.

People died here. Please stay on the trail to help respect this sacred ground. Do not disturb any commemorative objects you may encounter.

Erected by National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior.

With the fighting at a standoff, Hinmatóowyalahtq̓it (Chief Joseph) met with Colonel Miles near this site. Surrender was a survival strategy, to keep the Nez Perce people alive and together. One witness reported that Chief Joseph spoke these words:

Tell General Howard I know his heart. What he told me before I have in my heart. I an tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. Looking Glass is dead. Tukulxućúut is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say yes or no. He who leads the young men is dead. It is cold and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death.

My people some of them have run away to the hills and have no blankets, no food; no one knows where they are, perhaps freezing to death. I want to look for my children and see how many I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me my chiefs, I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever.

Erected by National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior.

These rolling hills and coulees are the site of the last battle of the 1877 Nez Perce War. For the Nez Perce this was the end of a 1,170-mile journey, after many successful skirmishes along the way. Canada was only 40 miles farther, its mountains visible on the horizon. Squeezed by treaties into an ever smaller territory, the Nez Perce hoped for a new home across the border.

This was not a typical war, soldier against warrior. The Nez Perce were trying to relocate an entire people. In the camp below were 500 women, children, and elderly, with fewer than 100 warriors. Here the U.S. Army, with 400 troops and 50 scouts, was finally able to halt the Nez Perce flight.

This battlefield was the end of the campaign but not the end of the story. The White Bird band escaped to Canada and lived with Sitting Bull's band of Lakota at Fort Walsh. The rest of the Nez Perce were exiled, first to Kansas and later to Oklahoma. Today many Nez Perce live in or near their original homeland. Their culture lives on.

Erected by National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior.

Erected by L.V. McWhorter, Yellow Wolf, White Hawk, Black Eagle, Many Wounds, Peo Peo Tholekt et al.

About noon the families made camp. The scouts killed several buffalo. This place is ćáynim?a•lika?spe (Place of Manure Fire) .... Some warriors were on the buttes watching for enemies. We expected none. -- himi・n maqsmáqs (Yellow Wolf)

This seemed a good place to rest, with thick grass for horses, fresh water in Snake Creek, and buffalo nearby. Exhausted from the three months and 1,170 miles, the Nez Perce set up camp here, organized according to the five tribal bands. You are standing in the midst of the encampment site.

At this point, the Nez Perce had outdistanced their original pursuers. They did not realize that a larger military force was approaching fast from the east.

Erected by National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior.

This park links a series of widely separated sites of deep significance to the Nez Perce – historic villages, battlefields, and legend sites. The park experience involves a journey across both time and territory. Although firmly connected to homeland, the Nez Perce are a dynamic people who for thousands of years traveled seasonally between the prairies and river valleys. This lifestyle was interrupted in 1877. Treaties forced bands from their homes in Oregon and Idaho, and war erupted. Today those events are commemorated by the 1,170-mile Nez Perce (Nee-Me-Poo) National Historic Trail. Together, the park and the trail tell the story of an encounter between two strong nations, from the 1805 meeting with Lewis and Clark, to the conflicts that led to the 1877 war, to the divisions and healing processes going on today. They provide opportunities to view our shared history of this landscape through a different lens.

Erected by National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior.

As cannon scattered shot from bursting shells, people held buffalo hides over themselves.

• - wewetatomay, wife of 'álok'at

As the initial attack turned into a six-day siege, the army began bombarding the Nez Perce camp with artillery. These open plains offered little natural protection. Here in this coulee, women and children used knives, pots, pans, and digging sticks to try to dig shallow caves in the hillside. Rain turned to snow, and the ground froze. By themselves, the Nez Perce warriors might have fought their way out. With families to protect, they were forced to make other decisions.

The battlefield is a cemetery for the men, women, and children killed here and should be accorded the respect of a sacred burial ground.

Erected by National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior.

The large depression is the site of a mass grave. Here the U.S. Army buried its casualties from the battle. This ridge is also the site of a hastily erected field hospital -- just a tent were surgeons tended and operated on the wounded. In 1912 the army dead were reinterred at Custer National Cemetery in Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument near Hardin, Montana.

People died here. Please treat this site with the respect due a burial ground. It is a federal offense to deface archeological features.

Erected by National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior.

From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.

October 5 1877 Surrender of Chief Joseph to Colonel Nelson A Miles

To the valor and devotion of those both red and white who struggled here

Erected by the Congress of the United States

Under the authority of an Act approved April 15, 1930

Erected 1930 by U.S. Congress.

This battle was fought September 30 to October 5, 1877, on Snake Creek, about 20 miles south of here near the Bears Paw Mountains, where after five days days' siege Chief Joseph, one of five remaining Nez Perce leaders, surrendered to Col. Nelson A. Miles of the U.S. Army.

The usual forked-tongue methods of the whites, which had deprived these Indians of their hereditary lands, caused Joseph and six other primary chiefs to lead their people on a tortuous 2000 mile march from their home in Idaho to evade U.S. troops and gain sanctuary in Canada.

These great Indian generals fought against fearful odds. They and their warriors could have escaped by abandoning their women, children and wounded. They refused to do this. Joseph's courage and care for this people were admired by Col. Miles who promised him safe return to Idaho. One of the blackest records in our dealing with the Indians was the Government's repudiation of this promise and the subsequent treatment accorded Joseph and his followers.

Erected by Montana Department of Transportation.

Striking on the run, the U.S. Army planned to surprise and overwhelm the Nez Perce camp. Along this ridge Nez Perce warriors fought back fiercely and stopped the cavalry charge. The surprise attack was blunted, but the Nez Perce were pinned down, and the battle became a siege. For the first time in their journey, the Nez Perce were unable to escape.

The Seventh Cavalry would by order of Colonel Myles (sic), charge the village .... The battalion move forward at the trot, then the gallop and the charge. -- Capt. Myles Moylan, U.S. Army

From the south came a noise -- rumbling like stampeding buffaloes. Hundreds of soldiers charging ... two wide, circling wings. They were surrounding our camp. -- himi・n maqsmáqs (Yellow Wolf)

Erected by National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior.