Big Hole Battlefield

Written Monday, Oct 6.

We’re in Wisdom, Montana tonight at a little RV park that has full hookups.  We were in need of that after 7 days dry camping at Yellowstone.  Linda did laundry and I cleaned and made some little repairs to the trailer, just put back up one shelf that had fallen and screwed down the water pump that I put in a couple of weeks back.  I also vacuumed and exercised the dog.

You might wonder how we managed to get to this place.  It’s a good question.  It is a small town in the Big Hole River Valley in western Montana on highway 43.  People come here to fish the clear river and to hunt game.  The sign at the edge of  town says, “Welcome to Wisdom in the Heart of the Big Hole River Valley, Land of 10,000 Haystacks.”  There is one small grocery, one gas station, one laudromat that is for sale and a few other touristy businesses.  Apparently there is also skiing nearly.

It’s a quiet town and the RV park owner, Carl Miles, told us that’s the reason he moved here from Florida 20 years ago.  It’s quiet alright except for coyotes howling at night.  There are no car horns or sirens and you don’t have to worry about drivers running red lights as they talk on their cell phones.  There are no stop lights.  And there is no cell phone service except for a “cell phone pullout” 5  miles  out of  town.  At that pullout you can get service and we did.

As to how we came here, we’re trying to visit national parks and historical sites along a generally conceived route from Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks to Redwood National Park in California.  The Big Hole National Battlefield is here so that’s why we’re here.  We toured it today.

Neither of us had any idea about this battlefield or the events that made it a national site.  We were enlightened.  It was a battle between the U.S. Army 7^th Infantry (not Cavalry as at Little Bighorn) and the Nez Perce Indians.  It happened on August 9, 1877 just about one year after Little Bighorn.  The circumstances were a lot like Little Bighorn because,

a.     They involved U.S. Indian policy forcing tribes onto reservations.

b.     Treaties with the tribes (Nez Perce here) were broken by the U.S. government when gold was discovered on treatied Indian land.

c.     The government offered subsequent treaties creating much smaller reservations that the majority of Indians refused to sign because of b above.

d.     The government labeled the non-treaty Indians as belligerents to be rounded up and forced onto the smaller reservations specified in the subsequent treaty.  Note:  The subsequent treaty was signed by a minority of the Nez Perce and taken to be binding on them all by the government.

e.     Non-treaty Indians moved farther away from their historical and sacred lands to escape Army enforcement of government policy.

f.      At both Little Bighorn and Big Hole, the Army invaded the sleepy Indian teepee village full of women and children at gunpoint, firing first and provoking an overwhelming Indian warrior response.  In both battles, the army suffered heavy casualties at the hands of the warriors.

At Big Hole, Army troops fired into teepees killing women and children then set the teepees on fire.  The warriors drove the troops back, killed and wounded many and allowed for their village to escape the immediate danger.  Still, many Nez Perce were killed.  Heightening the atrocity, the 7^th infantry also brought howitzer to bear against the village.  This was ultimately overrun and made ineffective by the Indians.

Even though they escaped Big Hole and killed many troops as at Little Bighorn, the sad saga for the Nez Perce was far from over.  Some escaped to Canada like a band of Sioux with Sitting Bull.  Others were later caught by the army, became prisoners of war and were shipped by rail to Indian Territory or Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

The army erected a monument to the fallen soldiers of the Big Hole Battle in 1883, 6 years after the battle.  It lists the names of the dead on one side, has an engraved tribute on one side and says, “Erected by the United States” on one side.  After the battle, as in earlier Army-Indian conflicts, Army commanders declared military victory, wrote commendations and handed out medals.

There is no Indian monument as at Little Bighorn.  But there is a skeleton village of teepee lodgepoles where the village was attacked that is maintained by the Indian’s decendants and is part of the battlefield tour.

Remember the Nez Perce.