White Bird Battlefield

It's been said that "history is written by the victors and framed according to the prejudices and bias existing on their side."*  This concept continues to this day.  There are confederate statues that still occupy prominent places in town squares in the southern States.  There frequently is no mention of the work slaves did in building the United States.  There is the word, usually written by European peoples, denigrating, forgetting, or confusing what took place when those Europeans encountered other peoples.  A classic example of this is the Nez Perce National Historic Park, scattered through Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana.

We visited part of the Nez Perce National Historic Park a short while ago.

One of the things I noticed, and it became almost glaring, each time I saw it on a interpretive sign, board, or pamphlet was this phrase:

The Nimîipuu, as the Nez Perce called themselves...

Nowhere on these signs or brochures, or pamphlets or other propaganda does it say anything like, "the cavalry, as this group of soldiers call themselves," or "General O.O. Howard, as he was called by the US government."  For some reason the National Park Service, and others, always makes an issue of what the Nimîipuu call themselves.  I would never say, "I am an American, as I call myself."

It was a sunny, warm spring day when we visited the White Bird Battlefield, part of the Nez Perce National Historic Park.  Nobody was at the parking lot, and nobody seemed to stop, or hike on the trail for the 2.5 hours we were there.  Is this the same number who visit Gettysburg, or Pearl Harbor, or Normandy?  We wondered.

The view of the battle site.

The trail starts near the creek and slowly climbs up a draw, loops around over and behind a couple hills, then descends back to the draw.  Birds were singing, crickets chirping, and the wind wisping through the medusahead.  It was hard to imagine a battle between the Nimîipuu and the United States Military on this site of exotic weeds, invasive, non-native, imported plants.  But there it was.

Most likely in the olden days, that is to say, during the battle, there was a lot of disturbed ground.  The non-treaty groups of Nimîipuu who were camped near the Salmon River reportedly had thousands of horses and several hundred head of cattle with them.  There may have been nothing natural about the area.

Today there is very little naturalness about the battlefield.

Strolling through the medusahead.

Not to say that we couldn't find anything native on the battlefield.  In fact, the National Park Service helped us out by putting arrows on signs to point out the natives.

Pointing to the native basin wild rye.

There were areas where you can imagine the US Army being outnumbered by the locals.  But the fact was that the Nimîipuu had fewer people fighting, and the US Army were poor shots.  About 34 US soldiers were killed, and no Nimîipuu were killed.  A rather lopsided rout.

Now, throughout this sacred battlefield, grow entire hillsides of thistles.  Non-native grasses provide about 80 percent of the vegetation cover.  Medusahead, cheatgrass, ventenata, smooth brome.

A nice old growth stand of medusahead rye.

It wasn't all grasses on this neglected battlefield of past hatreds.  There were forbs, most of which were alien.  Some of the most noxious, despicable plants imaginable.

Common crupina was very common on some hillsides.

While walking the 8 kilometer trail around the battlefield I kept a quick and dirty list of the non-native plants.  The following list is certainly not all inclusive.  And some of the species may be mis-identified.  But for the most part, it illustrated how prevalent the foreigners have taken over the battlefield.

	Family	Common Name	Scientific Name	Duration
	Apiaceae	bur chervil	Anthriscus caucalis	Annual
	Asteraceae	yellow star thistle	Centaurea solstitialis	Annual
	Asteraceae	chicory	Cichorium intybus	Perennial
	Asteraceae	bull thistle	Cirsium vulgare	Biennial
	Asteraceae	common crupina	Crupina vulgaris	Annual
	Asteraceae	bitter lettuce	Lactuca serriola	Annual
	Asteraceae	dandelion	Taraxacum officinale	Perennial
	Asteraceae	yellow salsify	Tragopogon dubius	Annual
	Brassicaceae	whitetop	Cardaria draba	Perennial
	Brassicaceae	tumble mustard	Sisymbrium altissimum	Annual
	Clusiaceae	St. Johnswort	Hypericum perforatum	Perennial
	Convolvulaceae	bindweed	Convolvulus arvensis	Perennial
	Dipsacaceae	teasel	Dipsacus fullonum	Biennial
	Fabaceae	black medic	Medicago lupulina	Perennial
	Fabaceae	alfalfa	Medicago sativa	Annual
	Fabaceae	yellow sweet clover	Melilotus officnale	Annual
	Fabaceae	hairy vetch	Vicia cracca or V. villosa	Perennial
	Fabaceae	rabbit foot clover	Trifolium arvense	Annual
	Geraniaceaea	storksbill	Erodium cicutarium	Annual
	Lamiaceae	horehound	Marrubium vulgare	Perennial
	Plantaginaceae	narrow leaf plantain	Plantago lanceolata	Biennial
	Poaceaea	meadow foxtail	Alopecurus pratensis	Perennial
	Poaceaea	dense silkybent	Apera interupta	Annual
	Poaceaea	smooth brome	Bromus inermis	Perennial
	Poaceaea	rye brome	Bromus secalinus	Annual
	Poaceaea	cheatgrass	Bromus tectorum	Annual
	Poaceaea	bulbous bluegrass	Poa bulbosa	Perennial
	Poaceaea	Kentucky bluegrass	Poa pratensis	Perennial
	Poaceaea	medusahead wildrye	Taeniatherum caput-medusae	Annual
	Poaceaea	intermediate wheatgrass	Thinopyrum intermedium	Perennial
	Poaceaea	wire grass	Ventenata dubia	Annual
	Polygonaceae	curly dock	Rumex crispa	Perennial
	Rosaceae	sulphur cinquefoil	Potentilla recta	Perennial
	Scrophulariaceae	moth mullein	Verbascum blattaria	Biennial
	Scrophulariaceae	mullein	Verbascum thapsus	Biennial

The Nimîipuu were on this land for many years, thousands of years, before the battle at White Bird in 1877.  One of the oldest sites of humans in the Americas is located just downstream along the Salmon River at Cooper's Ferry.  There's nothing there to describe the ancient site.  It's canyon country and there aren't a lot of people traveling the gravel roads.

Coopers Ferry, occupied since 16,000 years ago.

Uphill from the Salmon is a little overhang in the cliff.  Archeologists have determined that the Weis Rockshelter site had been occupied for nearly as long as the Cooper's Ferry site.  Poison ivy was nearby at both sites.

The Weis Rockshelter had been occupied for eons.

Remains of the ancestors is sparse, but we were able to track down some graffiti.  Who knows what they were trying to communicate?  What was said and who was the information for?  Where were the bighorn sheep?

Buffalo Eddy petroglyphs.

There could have been a lot more time exploring the Nez Perce National Historic Trail.  We had decided to keep the trip focused on the Idaho sites.  But with a few weeks we could have visited every site along the trail through Montana.  There is a long history of the Nez Perce, as we call them, in this part of the country--millennia worth of living, and we tried to do it justice in a measly three days.  Now it's your turn.





* - Attributed to Senator George Graham Vest, August 21, 1891