Swan Necklace

Nez Perce Summer, 1877 tells the story of a people's epic struggle to survive spiritually, culturally, and physically in the face of unrelenting military force. Written by one of the foremost experts in frontier military history, Jerome A. Greene, and reviewed by members of the Nez Perce tribe, this definitive treatment of the Nez Perce War is the first to incorporate research from all known accounts of Nez Perce and U.S. military participants. Enhanced by sixteen detailed maps and forty-nine historic photographs, Greene's gripping narrative takes readers on a three-and-one-half month 1,700-mile journey across the wilds of Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana territories. All of the skirmishes and battles of the war receive detailed treatment, which benefits from Greene's astute analysis of the strategies and decision making on both sides. Between 100 and 150 of the more than 800 Nez Perce men, women, and children who began the trek were killed during the war. Almost as many died in the months following the surrender, after they were exiled to malaria-ridden northeastern Oklahoma. Army deaths numbered 113. The casualties on both sides were an extraordinary price for a war that nobody wanted but whose history has since fascinated generations of Americans.

Details the Nez Perce victory at White Bird Canyon in 1877.

“From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever.” These words of Chief Joseph concluded a thousand-mile odyssey of 750 Nez Perce adults, children, and their elderly. Pursued by the US Army and Cavalry, the Nimiipuu fought battles, crossed the forbidding Bitterroot Mountains with their herds, and maintained their humanity and heritage against overwhelming odds. Bitterroot is dramatized history, giving voice to Joseph, Looking Glass, White Necklace, Half Man Half Woman, Howard “The Christian Soldier,” Calamity Jane, and Yellowstone Kelley—providing a mirror with which to see ourselves today. It portrays a conflicted America: racism, religious intolerance, and greed at war with liberty and equality. Such an epic story reminds us of our common humanity. “It is for the young generation behind us,” said Yellow Wolf. “I want the next generation of whites to know and treat the Indians as themselves.”

Yellow Wolf - His Own Story. By Lucullus Virgil McWhorter, Illustrated with original photographs. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

This is the story of the so-called Inland Empire of teh Northwest, that rugged and majestic region bounded east and west by the Cascades and the Rockies, from the time of the great exploration of Lewis and Clark to the tragic defeat of Chief Joseph in 1877. Explorers, fur traders, miner, settlers, missionaries, ranchers and above all a unique succession of Indian chiefs and their tribespeople bring into focus one of the permanently instructive chapters in the history of the American West.

In the centuries of war between Indians and whites one episode is surely epical: the flight of the Nez Perce. Provoked by bad treaties and bitter memories, in 1877 a few Nez Perce raided homesteads in Idaho and killed their inhabitants. The raid quickly escalated into a series of skirmishes, and at last involved Chief Joseph and the ablest Nez Perce warriors in a prolonged chase by the army for over a thousand miles through Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. The band of Nez Perce astonished military experts by their tactical ingenuity, swift maneuvers, daring, and endurance. By the time the chase concluded, barely forty miles from the Canadian border, the Nez Perce had left behind a record of heroic sacrifices, spectacular escapes, and incredible courage.

"The reading experience of a lifetime ..."--The Washington Post The National Book Award winner takes readers inside the epic fighting retreat of the Nez Perce Indians In this new installment in his acclaimed series of novels examining the collisions between Native Americans and European colonizers, William T. Vollmann tells the story of the Nez Perce War, with flashbacks to the Civil War. Defrauded and intimidated at every turn, the Nez Perces finally went on the warpath in 1877, subjecting the U.S. Army to its greatest defeat since Little Big Horn as they fled from northeast Oregon across Montana to the Canadian border. Vollmann’s main character is not the legendary Chief Joseph, but his pursuer, General Oliver Otis Howard, the brave, shy, tormented, devoutly Christian Civil War veteran. In this novel, we see him as commander, father, son, husband, friend, and killer. Teeming with many vivid characters on both sides of the conflict, and written in an original style in which the printed page works as a stage with multiple layers of foreground and background, The Dying Grass is another mesmerizing achievement from one of the most ambitious writers of our time.