On The Road With Etravelogue

Big Hole National Battlefield is a memorial to the people who fought and died here on August 9 and 10, 1877.In 1877, about 750 non-treaty Nez Perce fled Idaho in the face of demands from the US Army that all Nez Perce move onto a reservation a fraction from the size of their traditional homeland. The Army was enforcing a national policy of placing all American Indians on reservations to make way for the westward expansion of the young United States. In early August, the non-treaty Nez Perce camped for several days along the North Fork of the Big Hole River. They knew they had crossed into Montana Territory, and believed they were safe from further pursuit. Just before daybreak on August 9, 1877, military forces attacked them as they rested after six weeks of conflict and flight. Although the soldiers and civilian volunteers attacked the village while most of the Nez Perce slept, the warriors quickly mounted a resistance and drove the military men to retreat to a wooded hill nearby. The soldiers dug trenches f