Heart felt insight to the Nez Perce Epic | Chief Joseph & the Flight of the Nez Perce: The Untold Story of...

Sad, Like Life, But Compelling | Chief Joseph & the Flight of the Nez Perce: The Untold Story of an American Tragedy | Kent Nerburn

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	• Chief Joseph & the Flight of the Nez Perce: The Untold Story of an American Tragedy Kent Nerburn HarperOne, 2006 - 448 pages average customer review:based on 30 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A truly moving story

Kent Nerburn's story of Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce is that of one of histories great, proudest and yet truly humble men. Nerburn writes smoothly and convincingly as he traces the our government reversals and flight of the Nez Perce through bitter winter in an effort to reach and cross the Canadian border.

Chief Joseph's efforts to avoid conflict unless cornered, and how he still tried to lead his people to safety is a story of courage, betrayal and near extinction, written by an author who picks up on the soul and pain of this man--and his people--who must never be forgotten as a truly memorable part of indian courage and dignity. This is a book worth reading--and reading again.

author of THE SWAN: Tales of the Sacramento Valley

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Heart felt insight to the Nez Perce Epic

Though I have read a significant amount about the Nez Perce, this was my firt introduction to kent Nerburn. The moment I held the book in my hands I felt the heart it was written with reach out to me and draw me into it. Kent, through his intense dedication and depth of soul brought the story alive. Most writings on the subject are accountings-here I felt the people involved and became part of the story. That depth of unity IS Native American.

This book so reached me I immediately ordered several other books by the same author, as well as more copies of this book to give to friends.

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Sad, Like Life, But Compelling

My ex-wife is of Chippewa descent and I have attended many pow-wows with her family. To see Native peoples drum, sing traditional songs and "fancy dance" is humbling and wonderful. A people united to reclaim a heritage stolen from them. Stolen by the pursuers of the Nez Perce, as told so purely in Kent Nerburn's book. Some of the examples of the elderly, pregnant and very young Nez Perce being terrified by the U.S. Cavalry's cannons are harrowing and hard to read. The idea of these people leaving their old, blind and mortally wounded alone on the trail to die by themselves with dignity, signing their death songs, is unimaginable. Joseph was never the "Chief" of the Nez Perce, as Nerburn clearly illustrates. That was a role fostered on him by the white press and politicians to create a cunning and evil adversary. Man, how things have not changed. Weapons of Mass Destruction anyone? And to my ex-wife, who inspired me to learn the real history of the Native American people, "I will fight no more forever."

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A Story of Incredible Suffering

This book is undoubtedly to be rated five stars. However, be prepared, the book is a rather lengthy 400 pages. The American public has been led to believe that Joseph was THE leader of the Nez Perce while others, at times, had more influence than Joseph. General Oliver Howard gave the Nez Perce an unreasonable demand of moving to the reservation within 30 days or be put there by force. An ensuing chase from Oregon across Idaho, across Yellowstone National Park in northwestern Wyoming, and north into Montana terminated at the Bear's Paw Mountains in northern Montana. The Battle of the Big Hole in Idaho involving Colonel John Gibbon involved the indiscriminate killing of men, women, and children which reminded me of the Sand Creek Massacre in Colorado. Gibbon stated in his report he killed 89 Nez Perce, but neglected to say that 50 of the dead were women and children. This infuriated the young Nez Perce who took revenge on any white settlers they came in contact with.

On Page 74 author Kent Herburn mentions that the Lakota Sioux "murdered" George Armstrong Custer and his men at the Little Big Horn. Herburn fails to mention that it was Custer and his men that did the attacking, and the Sioux and others were simply defending themselves.

Although a few of the Nez Perce did manage to go north to Canada following the surrender Joseph and most of the others gave up the fight with the understanding they would be returned to their original homeland. Incredible suffering began as they were transferred from one place to another from North Dakota and then south to Kansas and Oklahoma, but not to their beloved Wallowa Valley in Oregon. After eight years of suffering with the cold, heat, and insufficient food the remaining Nez Perce (less than 300 of the original 800) were split into two groups, some to the Wallowa Valley and others (including Joseph) to the Colville Reservation in Washington where Joseph died in 1904 still clinging to his traditional way of life.

I found the book to be a very detailed read, and it is a book you are going to have to have patience to stick with it. I believe it is the most comprehensive book yet written on the flight and plight of the Nez Perce Indians. This story is most certainly, as the book's cover states, "an American tragedy."

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Hidden in the shadow cast by the great western expeditions of Lewis and Clark lies another journey every bit as poignant, every bit as dramatic, and every bit as essential to an understanding of who we are as a nation -- the 1,800-mile journey made by Chief Joseph and eight hundred Nez Perce men, women, and children from their homelands in what is now eastern Oregon through the most difficult, mountainous country in western America to the high, wintry plains of Montana. There, only forty miles from the Canadian border and freedom, Chief Joseph, convinced that the wounded and elders could go no farther, walked across the snowy battlefield, handed his rifle to the U.S. military commander who had been pursuing them, and spoke his now-famous words, "From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever."

The story has been told many times, but never before in its entirety or with such narrative richness. Drawing on four years of research, interviews, and 20,000 miles of travel, Nerburn takes us beyond the surrender to the captives' unlikely welcome in Bismarck, North Dakota, their tragic eight-year exile in Indian Territory, and their ultimate return to the Northwest. Nerburn reveals the true, complex character of Joseph, showing how the man was transformed into a myth by a public hungry for an image of the noble Indian and how Joseph exploited the myth in order to achieve his single goal of returning his people to their homeland.

Chief Joseph & the Flight of the Nez Perce is far more than the story of a man and a people. It is a grand saga of a pivotal time in our nation's history. Its pages are alive with the presence of Lewis and Clark, General William Tecumseh Sherman, General George Armstrong Custer, and Sitting Bull. Its events brush against the California Gold Rush, the Civil War, the great western pioneer migration, and the building of the telegraph and the transcontinental railroad. Once you have read this groundbreaking work, you will never look at Chief Joseph, the American Indian, or our nation's westward journey in the same way again.

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