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Let Me Be Free: The Nez Perce Tragedy
One of the great historians of the American West, author of the highly acclaimed The Way to the Western Sea ( LJ 12/88) and the classic Bent's Fort (1954), here draws on his studies of the fur trade to recount the history of the Nez Perce. Following such formidable predecessors as Merrill D. Beal's exciting "I Will Fight No More Forever" (1963) and Alvin M. Josephy Jr.'s authoritative The Nez Perce Indians and the Opening of the Northwest (1965), Lavender meets the challenge of comparison in an excellent narrative history grounded on documentary and interpretive sources. He covers events from the tribe's generous welcome of Lewis and Clark in 1805 through their increasing alarm over hordes of permanent settlers to the tragic surrender of Chief Joseph to General Nelson Miles in 1877. Each chapter reads smoothly and makes an exciting sequel to its predecessor. Historians familiar with the controversy over Chief Joseph will find Lavender's contribution to the debate interesting. Highly recommended for general readers and specialists. History Book Club selection.
- Margaret W. Norton, Fenwick H.S., Oak Park, Ill.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Margaret W. Norton, Fenwick H.S., Oak Park, Ill.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
403 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1992
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About the author
David Lavender
74 books16 followersDavid Sievert Lavender was a well-known historian of the Western United States, nominated twice for the Pulitzer Prize, who is best remembered by many for his River Runners of the Grand Canyon.
Lavender spent most of his life in Ojai, California. An articulate and deeply knowledgeable speaker on the political and social history of the American West, he often spoke at the annual Telluride Film Festival.
Lavender spent most of his life in Ojai, California. An articulate and deeply knowledgeable speaker on the political and social history of the American West, he often spoke at the annual Telluride Film Festival.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 25, 2017
My parents bought me this book when it was published in 1992, and it sat on my shelf for many years. I have always loved the story of Joseph, but I finally cracked it open for one reason. I read this book as we traveled the Chief Joseph Trail from Nespelem, Washington to the Bear Paw Mountains of Montana. Lavender brought the trail to life as we traveled the Wallowa Valley and the Lolo trail. He took us through the Camas Meadows and Dead Indian Pass and out through the Missouri Breaks to the heartbreaking conclusion. When we were in Lapwai, a Nez Perce woman found me and gave me a set of earrings for my interest in her people, and she wanted to thank me and pointed to her grandfather's grave at the Spalding Mission. When I went to pay my respects, I saw that his name was Josiah Red Wolf , last descendant of the flight of the Nez Perce. He would have been five-years-old on the trail. I wondered along the way as we climbed mountain passes and went into deep valleys if he remembered the journey. I found my answer at Big Hole, such a heart wrenching place. Josiah's mother and baby brother were shot through with one bullet and killed according to his memory. His little sister was also killed. I stood in the circle of teepee poles in the Montana breeze, my newly gifted earring tinkling and cried. I would highly suggest this book. I would definitely suggest taking our journey because we have been completely blessed by it.
December 27, 2016
I enjoyed this account of the flight of the Nez Perce to escape life on a reservation but found the book a bit tedious to read. While I learned a great deal of detail about Chief Joseph (including the origin of his name) the book was a slog to plow through. Not in the sense of a sad story but in the writing itself. Lavender's style includes a great deal of (often distracting) asides. For some reason the edition I read switched font styles periodically, which makes me wonder whether he cut and pasted different drafts or if it was just a mistake at the printers. Still, the book gives a great deal of original detail about a famous moment in frontier history.
February 28, 2016
The story of the Nez Perce Tribe's flight to the Canadian border, only to be turned back by the U.S. Cavalry shortly before reaching safety, is one of the most famous and tragic episodes of the Old West. This book does a competent though not extraordinary job of recounting this story.
The Northern Rockies was one of the last parts of North America to be assimilated into the outside world. Violence was common in the region, both before the coming of the white man, and after traders, missionaries, settlers, and others began to arrive.
Let Me Be Free picks up the story when the Nez Perce first acquired horses around 1730. This earch-shaking change allowed the tribe to expand greatly at the expense of its neighbors. The story continues through the arrival of the missionaries and trader, their interactions with the Indians, and the sometimes-venal actions of persons on both sides of these transactions.
Eventually the country began to attract settlers. Some of the Indians adopted Western ways such as farming and raising livestock, while others found the intrusions of their new neighbors intolerable. When the government asked the Nez Perce to cede the area most prized by Chief Joseph's band, the band took off for Canada, though other Nez Perce elected to stay. The Cavalry followed in a less-than-competent manner, and eventually caught up near the Canadian border. (One has to wonder why the cavalry did not allow the Nez Perce to simply leave peacefully and go to Canada.) Eventually most of the Nez Perce were allowed to return to their homeland, and Chief Joseph was canonized in American culture as a Noble Savage who had been crushed by the merciless advance of civilization.
The standard version of Western history in recent decades has been that whites were greedy, dishonest land thieves who sought to dispossess Indians of their inheritance. Indians appear either as helpless victims of their oppressors or as noble demigods who are superior to the newcomers in every way. This cartoonish view of history is no more accurate than the 1920s Hollywood version was, in which Indians possessed no individual characteristics that would allow the audience to distinguish one person from another, and served simply as an undifferentiated menace threatening to scalp whites and fill their homes with flaming arrows.
Let Me Be Free avoids this cartoon version of history for the most part, but not entirely. The book's most egregious failure concerns an incident where the federal government said it could not settle Indians in a particular area (to reserve it for them, in the parlance of public land law) because the government had ceded jurisdiction over the area to the State of Idaho, which was not willing to cede it back. The author casually and almost flippantly describes describes this statement as an especially bald-faced lie by the perfidious whites; after all, the federal government still had ownership of the land, so, in the view of the author, it obviously could have allowed the Indians to live there.
This assumption completely misses the point. In the nineteenth century, the federal government's powers were understood to be strictly limited by the United States Constitution. The government held title to western lands, but only as a trustee for the benefit of future states to be formed in those areas. Once a state was admitted to the Union, the federal government had no jurisdiction over public lands unless an area had been reserved by the government, in which case federal authority reigned supreme, and it was the states who essentially were powerless. Moreover, the states jealously guarded their prerogatives, and universally were loathe to cede power back to the federal government.
Thus, when the federal government said it could not establish a reservation for the Nez Perce in an area previously ceded to the State of Idaho, it was not lying. The government may have retained title to the land, but it no longer had the governmental authority needed to write laws for the area or establish an Indian reservation.
Much has changed since the nineteenth century. Since the late 1930s, most people have presumed that the federal government's authority essentially is unlimited. The intricacies of nineteenth century public land law no longer are known to most people, including, obviously, the author of Let Me Be Free. If you are going to write a book touching on the subject, however, you have an obligation to get it right.
The flight of the Nez Perce illustrates one of the most striking aspects of western history: the fact that different chapters of that history followed very closely upon each other, and sometimes overlapped. The flight of the Nez Perce is part of the Old West of Indian wars and cavalry units. The creation of national parks and tourism in those parks definitely is part of the New West. These two generations of history collided almost literally in 1877, when the Nez Perce traversed the Yellowstone basin, which had been made a national park the previous year, with the cavalry fitfully in pursuit and tourists already present in the park. To my mind, this collision of historical epochs is one of the most interesting parts of the Nez Perce tragedy, but it barely is mentioned in the book.
The Northern Rockies was one of the last parts of North America to be assimilated into the outside world. Violence was common in the region, both before the coming of the white man, and after traders, missionaries, settlers, and others began to arrive.
Let Me Be Free picks up the story when the Nez Perce first acquired horses around 1730. This earch-shaking change allowed the tribe to expand greatly at the expense of its neighbors. The story continues through the arrival of the missionaries and trader, their interactions with the Indians, and the sometimes-venal actions of persons on both sides of these transactions.
Eventually the country began to attract settlers. Some of the Indians adopted Western ways such as farming and raising livestock, while others found the intrusions of their new neighbors intolerable. When the government asked the Nez Perce to cede the area most prized by Chief Joseph's band, the band took off for Canada, though other Nez Perce elected to stay. The Cavalry followed in a less-than-competent manner, and eventually caught up near the Canadian border. (One has to wonder why the cavalry did not allow the Nez Perce to simply leave peacefully and go to Canada.) Eventually most of the Nez Perce were allowed to return to their homeland, and Chief Joseph was canonized in American culture as a Noble Savage who had been crushed by the merciless advance of civilization.
The standard version of Western history in recent decades has been that whites were greedy, dishonest land thieves who sought to dispossess Indians of their inheritance. Indians appear either as helpless victims of their oppressors or as noble demigods who are superior to the newcomers in every way. This cartoonish view of history is no more accurate than the 1920s Hollywood version was, in which Indians possessed no individual characteristics that would allow the audience to distinguish one person from another, and served simply as an undifferentiated menace threatening to scalp whites and fill their homes with flaming arrows.
Let Me Be Free avoids this cartoon version of history for the most part, but not entirely. The book's most egregious failure concerns an incident where the federal government said it could not settle Indians in a particular area (to reserve it for them, in the parlance of public land law) because the government had ceded jurisdiction over the area to the State of Idaho, which was not willing to cede it back. The author casually and almost flippantly describes describes this statement as an especially bald-faced lie by the perfidious whites; after all, the federal government still had ownership of the land, so, in the view of the author, it obviously could have allowed the Indians to live there.
This assumption completely misses the point. In the nineteenth century, the federal government's powers were understood to be strictly limited by the United States Constitution. The government held title to western lands, but only as a trustee for the benefit of future states to be formed in those areas. Once a state was admitted to the Union, the federal government had no jurisdiction over public lands unless an area had been reserved by the government, in which case federal authority reigned supreme, and it was the states who essentially were powerless. Moreover, the states jealously guarded their prerogatives, and universally were loathe to cede power back to the federal government.
Thus, when the federal government said it could not establish a reservation for the Nez Perce in an area previously ceded to the State of Idaho, it was not lying. The government may have retained title to the land, but it no longer had the governmental authority needed to write laws for the area or establish an Indian reservation.
Much has changed since the nineteenth century. Since the late 1930s, most people have presumed that the federal government's authority essentially is unlimited. The intricacies of nineteenth century public land law no longer are known to most people, including, obviously, the author of Let Me Be Free. If you are going to write a book touching on the subject, however, you have an obligation to get it right.
The flight of the Nez Perce illustrates one of the most striking aspects of western history: the fact that different chapters of that history followed very closely upon each other, and sometimes overlapped. The flight of the Nez Perce is part of the Old West of Indian wars and cavalry units. The creation of national parks and tourism in those parks definitely is part of the New West. These two generations of history collided almost literally in 1877, when the Nez Perce traversed the Yellowstone basin, which had been made a national park the previous year, with the cavalry fitfully in pursuit and tourists already present in the park. To my mind, this collision of historical epochs is one of the most interesting parts of the Nez Perce tragedy, but it barely is mentioned in the book.
April 15, 2020
A long read but well written, compelling story. I have always felt we were wrong in our dealings with the Indians. Living in the very area where a lot of this took place (Orofino Idaho) puts me daily in front of the senery described. I've traveled around many of the areas listed in the book and can almost see the tipis, naked children running along the river across from our home. Homeland of the Next Perce.
December 2, 2021
This is a very good book. It gives different insight to a story we have some familiarity with.
September 8, 2011
Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce fought the army in the Pacicific Northwest and almost escaped to Canada. This is the story of their struggle.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews