Nez Perce elders at an FOC event in Lewiston, Idaho. FOC File photo.

Since time immemorial, the Nimiipuu have lived in the Clearwater basin.

 "Nimiipuu" means "the people" in the Nimiipuu language. The Tribal government itself is officially called the Nez Perce Tribe. "Nez Perce" is French for "pierced nose", and was given to the Nimiipuu by French fur traders. This is a misnomer, since the Nimiipuu never pierced their noses.

Today, there are some 3,500 enrolled Nez Perce Tribal members in Idaho, most of whom live on the Nez Perce Reservation. Today's Tribal members continue to exercise their right per the Treaty of 1855 to hunt, fish, and gather in their ancestral homelands in present-day Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and traditional food-gathering and hunting places in parts of Montana and Wyoming.

These off-reservation rights have been upheld on numerous occasions in state court cases, citing treaty rights as the supreme law of the land.

Heart of the Monster on the Nez Perce National Historic Site. NPS photo.

The earliest evidence of humans in Idaho date nearly 16,000 years before present near Cottonwood. According to Nimiipuu stories, humans first emerged from the Heart of the Monster (pictured, left) near present-day Kamiah.

The Nez Perce likely acquired horses in the 1700s, quickly mastering riding and breeding the Appaloosa horse. 

The first European Americans that many Nimiipuu met were Lewis and Clark in 1805. The Nimiipuu built them dugout canoes on the Clearwater to complete their journey to the Pacific. 

In 1855, the Nez Perce signed a treaty with the US government in Walla Walla, ceding their western homelands to the federal government and establishing a reservation in north-central Idaho, southeast Washington and northeast Oregon. This treaty guaranteed permanent hunting, fishing, and gathering rights.

Chief Joseph photographed by Edward Curtis around 1900.

In 1863, after gold was discovered near present-day Pierce, Idaho, the US government forced a new treaty upon the Nez Perce. The 1863 Treaty is still known to many Nez Perce as the "steal treaty", because it reduced their reservation to less than 10% of its original size, centered on the Nez Perce prairie. Another treaty was signed in 1868.

In 1877, the Allotment Act opened most of the current reservation up to white settlement and split whatever remained into lots. The US government then ordered all Nimiipuu onto the reservation, to learn farming and abandon their traditional way of life.

Some Nimiipuu refused and began the Nez Perce War in June. The US military pursued "non-treaty" Nez Perce across the Bitterroots and into Montana that summer. The last military battle was in October, just 40 miles from the safety of the Canadian border.

Chief Joseph and the non-treaty Nez Perce lived as prisoners in Kansas until 1885, when they were finally allowed to return to Idaho.

Today much of the route of the flight of the Nez Perce is memorialized as the Nez Perce National Historic Trail and the Nez Perce National Historic Park.

Nimiipuu activists at the Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River. Backbone Campaign photo.

Many Nimiipuu consider themselves to be "salmon people", intrinsically tied to the wildlife that sustained their People prior to colonization. Salmon are so central to Nez Perce life that, in the Nimiipuu creation story, the first animal to offer itself to human beings was the salmon. 

Salmon, steelhead, and the habitats that sustain them is intractable from the culture of the Nimiipuu. The Nimiipuu have asserted their treaty rights to fish, as well as the implied rights of fish to their environment, for decades.

In recent years, the Nez Perce Tribe has taken a powerful role in salmon management. The Tribe manages several hatcheries, carries out reintroductions, and is a leading voice in removing the Lower Snake River Dams - the greatest threat to the survival of salmon in Idaho.