Vancouver Barracks in the 1880s: Chief Joseph and General Gibbon

This photo of Chief Joseph and Brigadier General John Gibbon was taken at Lake Chelan in 1889, shortly before Chief Joseph visited Vancouver Barracks.

Newberry Library

In the 1880s, Vancouver Barracks was both a place of war and a place of reconciliation, at least for Chief Joseph and Brigadier General John Gibbon, who met here in 1889. The two men first crossed paths a little over a decade earlier, at the Battle of Big Hole in Montana. On August 9, 1877, US Army troops led by then-Colonel Gibbon attacked Chief Joseph's band of nearly 800 Nimiipuu (Nez Perce) men, women, and children in the early morning hours while they slept. The ensuing battle was a brutal part of an ongoing war between the United States and the nontreaty Nimiipuu, who resisted removal to reservations. Between 60 and 90 Nimiiupuu men, women, and children were killed in the battle, and an unknown number were wounded. 31 soldiers and civilian volunteers were killed and 38 were wounded. The Nimiipuu continued their flight to Canada, where they believed they would find safety from the Army troops pursuing them. Then, in late September, they were cut off at the Battle of Bear Paw, only a short distance from the border. Chief Joseph surrendered in order to save the injured, women, elderly, and children in his group from further suffering.

The 1880s were a brutal, difficult time for the Nimiipuu who followed Chief Joseph. Though they at first believed they would be able to return to their homelands in the Wallowa Valley, they were instead sent to "Indian Territory," in what is now the state of Oklahoma. There, they were forced to contend with devastating illnesses, a foreign landscape, and difficulties getting the necessary food, clothing, and other items they needed to survive. Chief Joseph advocated strongly for the return of his people to the Wallowa Valley, or to the reservation that had been established for the Nimiipuu in Lapwai, Idaho, and powerful allies came to his side. General Nelson Miles, who had led the troops at the Battle of Bear Paw, was among those who rallied around the Nimiipuu cause.

However, Chief Joseph's dream of returning to Wallowa was never realized. In 1885, the Nimiipuu in Oklahoma were returned to the Northwest. 118 members of the group who had converted to Christianity were allowed to go to the reservation at Lapwai. Chief Joseph and his remaining band of nearly 150 men, women, and children were taken to the Colville Reservation in northern Washington State, where they settled by Nespelem Creek. Chief Joseph continued to maintain his claim to the Wallowa Valley, and strongly objected to this resettlement.

Until 1885, General Miles had been stationed at Vancouver Barracks as the commander of the Army's Department of the Columbia. In that year, he was replaced by Brigadier General John Gibbon, who had led the attack on Nimiipuu families at the Battle of Big Hole. Despite this painful past, when Gibbon visited Lake Chelan in 1889, Chief Joseph sought him out and told him about the difficulties the Nimiipuu faced on the Colville Reservation. At this meeting, Gibbon provided Chief Joseph with a letter endorsing his character that would allow him to travel through the Northwest more freely. Gibbon also sent a medicine man named Sko-las-kin, who was believed to be agitating people on the reservation to remove the Nimiipuu, to Vancouver Barracks for trial. Sko-las-kin would later be sentenced to incarceration on Alcatraz Island.

A few months later, Chief Joseph visited Gibbon at Vancouver Barracks. There, he dined with the officers and ladies of Officers' Row and joined Gibbon on trips to Portland. The two men spent many hours in discussion about the current plight of the Nimiipuu and about their shared past at the Battle of Big Hole. In Portland, Gibbon and Chief Joseph visited the Gettysburg cyclorama, an enormous curved painting that depicted the Battle of Gettysburg, in which Gibbon had fought. As Chief Joseph looked at the massive, detailed painting, he stated through a translator that the cyclorama "proved to him what his father had told him, that when the white men got mad and fought among themselves they...kept it up until they made a lake of blood."

After this meeting in 1889, Chief Joseph returned to life along the Nespelem River. He visited the Wallowa Valley once more in 1900, but found that the settlers there were intolerant and dismissive of him and his pleas for his people. Nevertheless, Chief Joseph's advocacy for his people turned him into a national celebrity and a symbol of the injustices perpetrated by the United States against Native peoples.

When he visited in 1889, Chief Joseph stayed with Brigadier General John Gibbon at this home on Vancouver Barracks' Officers' Row. Today, this home is known as the Marshall House.

NPS Photo