Nez Perce National Historical Park Administrative History

CHAPTER ONE:
Origins of Nez Perce National Historical Park

The Nez Perce Tribe

There were about 2,100 Nez Perces on the tribal roll in 1960, with some three-fourths of all tribal members residing on the reservation. The dominant tribal concern then, as now, was how to improve economic conditions on the reservation. While some Nez Perces found employment in the lumber mills and others worked in the woods or farmed their own land, many others faced a critical lack of employment opportunities on the reservation. Only about thirty percent of adult male tribal members who lived on the reservation had full-time employment. Another twenty-five percent of this group had seasonal employment. Considering that the average Nez Perce family income was approximately $950 per year, and considering further the reluctance shown by most Nez Perces to move off the reservation, it followed that the foremost tribal concern was to foster job growth on the reservation. [16]

The Nez Perce Tribe also took a keen interest in reservation land issues. The majority of the reservation was checkerboarded by allotments, some of which were owned by individual Nez Perces and some by non-Indians. The majority of the reservation acreage was leased to non-Indians for agricultural purposes. The tribe held only a remnant of the reservation lands. The Nez Perce Tribe was seeking to bring reservation lands back into tribal ownership, and was accomplishing this by purchasing one parcel at a time. Although the tribe's land acquisition program aimed at improving the tribe's contemporary economic base, it had underpinnings in the Nez Perces' cultural tradition too. As tribal leader Richard A. Halfmoon explained in 1970, the Nez Perces traditionally regarded the area as their homeland; no person "owned the earth," but members of a group enjoyed the privilege of living on a portion of the earth, and there the earth provided them with resources they needed to live. [17]

A third tribal concern, more strongly felt among the elders than the young people, was how to preserve Nez Perce culture. To some Nez Perces it seemed that the medicine dance, the root feast, and other traditional customs were in danger of extinction. The Nez Perce people were approaching a time when full-bloods would constitute a minority of the tribe. Some Nez Perces began to have discussions about what the tribal government might do to preserve the Nez Perce cultural heritage. [18]

The Nez Perce Tribe had a constitution and bylaws (adopted in 1948 and revised in 1961) and a nine-member governing body, the Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee (NPTEC). NPTEC was charged with administering tribal economic development, managing human and natural resource programs, and monitoring investment of tribal income and assets. [19] This last function became especially important in the late 1950s and early 1960s after the Nez Perce Tribe received judgment awards for three cases before the Indian Claims Commission. The first award — for $2.8 million — stemmed from the tribe's loss of its accustomed fishing place at Celilo Falls on the Columbia River. The second award — for $4.2 million — compensated the tribe for the unfairly low price paid for Nez Perce lands in 1863 during Idaho's gold rush. The third award — for $3 million — was to compensate the Nez Perce for gold taken from the reservation illegally before the reservation had been reduced in size. In the words of tribal attorney Theodore H. Little, the judgments created an "upsurge of hope among the Nez Perce, and a desire to build for the future." [20]

Nez Perces disagreed on how the judgment funds could best be used. Some wanted to apportion the money among all tribal members on a per capita basis, while others wanted NPTEC to make discretionary use of the funds for long term economic development on the reservation. The conflict over proper use of tribal funds was often sharp, and tribal elections for NPTEC positions would often focus on this issue. [21] At first those Nez Perces in favor of per capita payments had their way. The Celilo Falls judgment award was dispensed in $1,400 cash allotments to all tribal members with recommendations that it be used for the purchase of home improvements, farm machinery, and the like. [22] Federal officials later maintained, with tacit concurrence from some tribal leaders, that the economic benefits from those expenditures had been short-lived and disappointing. [23] They recommended that a portion of the money should be held in trust while the tribe developed a long term economic development plan for the reservation. Some tribal members were receptive to the idea of working with the federal government to invest the tribal judgement funds wisely. As will be seen, the judgment funds would play a crucial role in the campaign for establishing Nez Perce National Historical Park. Perhaps fittingly, a portion of the money received by the Nez Perce Tribe for its loss of lands a century earlier would now be used to invoke the idea of "Nez Perce country" in a new incarnation — as a historical artifact and unifying theme for the Nez Perce National Historical Park.

The spirit of cooperation between NPTEC, the NPS, and the BIA reflected a broad change in federal Indian policy taking place in Washington, D.C. following the presidential election of 1960. During the previous decade, the Eisenhower Administration and a Republican-led Congress had sought to implement a policy of "termination" through which federal trust responsibility to Indian tribes would be reduced. Ostensibly aimed at "freeing" Indians from the BIA bureaucracy, termination threatened to eliminate the tribes' special relationship to the federal government and abrogate the Indians' treaty rights. Although only a handful of federally-recognized Indian tribes were actually "terminated," the policy cast a pall over all Indian tribes. Tribal governments balked at taking over services provided by the BIA for fear of appearing "advanced" and ready for termination. [24]

Idaho's Senator Frank Church, Montana's Senator Lee Metcalf, and other prominent western senators and congressmen began to oppose the termination policy by the end of the decade. John F. Kennedy denounced the termination policy during the presidential election campaign of 1960. He promised Indians that there would be no change in treaty relationships without the consent of the tribes concerned. Kennedy further declared that "there would be protection of the Indian land base, credit assistance, and encouragement of tribal planning for economic development." The government would take "no steps to impair the cultural heritage of any group." Kennedy chose Stewart L. Udall, a congressman from Arizona with a deep interest in Indian affairs, to be his Secretary of the Interior. Udall immediately appointed a task force on Indian affairs, whose report became the blueprint for the administration's Indian policy. One member of the task force, anthropologist and former Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin Philleo Nash, was appointed Commissioner of Indian Affairs. [25]

Both Udall and Nash believed that Indian tourism held great promise as a way to improve economic conditions on many Indian reservations. Indian tourism — the marketing of Indian villages, ceremonies, and arts and crafts to non-Indian tourists — already had a long history in the Southwest where the Pueblo Indians, for example, had begun to derive significant income from tourists as early as the 1920s. [26] Another precedent could be found among the Eastern Cherokees, who established a tourist industry in the decade and a half after World War II which revolved around a Cherokee pageant, a reconstructed Cherokee village, and a Museum of the Cherokee Indian. [27] Udall thought that Indian groups could learn from the experience of the Southwest Indians, and he recommended to a group of Nez Perces that the tribe might send a delegation, at federal expense, to study an Apache-owned recreation center in his state of Arizona. [28] Commissioner Nash, for his part, was familiar with recent initiatives to develop a tourist trade around the Menominee Indian Reservation's attractive lakes and forests in northern Wisconsin, and from his new position he promptly pushed a proposal to develop recreational facilities on other Indian reservations throughout the United States.

Nez Perces by and large welcomed the Democratic Party's electoral victory in 1960 and the change of federal Indian policy that it promised. Democrats not only opposed termination, they were staunch allies of many tribes, including the Nez Perce. Idaho Senator Frank Church, Idaho Congresswoman Gracie Bowers Pfost, Washington Senators Henry M. Jackson and Warren G. Magnuson, and Montana Senator Lee Metcalf were such Democratic Party politicians. The Nez Perce Tribe's legal counsel in Washington, D.C., Richard Schifter, was a partner in the prestigious law firm of Strasser, Spiegelberg, Fried, Frank & Kampelman, and a former student of the preeminent Indian rights lawyer of the New Deal era, Felix S. Cohen. [29] Since the Nez Perce Tribe had strong ties to the Democratic Party, the election of John F. Kennedy held promise for the tribe.

In March 1961, NPTEC Chairman Richard A. Halfmoon inquired about obtaining technical assistance from the National Park Service on a proposal to develop some tourist attractions on the reservation. Schifter, NPTEC's liaison in Washington, contacted Assistant Secretary of the Interior John A. Carver, Jr. and drafted a letter for Senator Frank Church to send to the Department of the Interior in support of NPTEC's proposal. [30] Carver directed the NPS to consult with the Nez Perce Tribe on its tourist development proposal. The NPS assigned Daniel F. Burroughs, chief of the Columbia River Recreation Survey Branch of the NPS located in Portland, Oregon, to the task. In May 1961, Burroughs met with Halfmoon, four other NPTEC members, and William E. Ensor, Jr., the BIA's superintendent of Northern Idaho Indian Agency, and accompanied the group on a field survey. This appears to have been the first instance of direct cooperation between the Nez Perce Tribe and the NPS. [31]

Burroughs listed six different projects which the tribe had taken under consideration. These included a museum; a reconstructed Nez Perce village; a western fort that would include stores for the sale of Nez Perce arts and crafts; an amphitheater in which tribal members could perform dances, ceremonies, and other tribal customs; a community hall for the transaction of tribal business, as well as for use by non-Indian organizations such as the Boy Scouts; and tourist accommodations, including motels, restaurants, service stations, automobile campgrounds. Burroughs concluded that the scenic attractions of the region, together with the traffic on U.S. 95 between Lewiston and Boise and State Route 9 up the Clearwater Valley, would justify some kind of well-planned development. [32]

Less than a month after Burroughs's quick survey, Secretary Udall met with NPTEC at Spalding State Park. NPTEC members Allen Slickpoo and Harrison Lott, tribal attorney Theodore H. Little, and Irving Faling, a member of the tourism promotion organization called "Advance Idaho", briefed Udall on the proposed tribal enterprises. The development could include an Indian village, a handicraft store, a horse racing track, and rodeo grounds, Udall was told. "Jobs would be provided for hundreds of Indians in the area, as this program gradually developed," Faling said, "and the entire Lewiston area would derive great benefits from the tourists attracted to the region." Udall expressed strong support for the proposal, drawing comparisons between what the Nez Perce Tribe could offer and what some Indian groups in the Southwest had achieved by way of tourism development. He encouraged the non-Indian community to work closely with the Nez Perce Tribe and noted approvingly the emphasis on promoting tribal income. "When Indians are the magnets to attract these tourists, as they often are," Udall said, "they certainly should share in the economic benefits." [33]

Udall opposed short term fixes, stressing the importance of using tribal judgment funds for the development of long-range programs to promote job growth and educational opportunities for tribal members. Per capita payments were invariably spent on consumer commodities, Udall remarked, "and in a few months or years there is nothing to show for it." [34] Congress had appropriated judgment funds for the Nez Perce Tribe only two weeks prior to Udall's visit. His concern over how the money would be used certainly must have been an important factor behind his visit. Indeed, uncomfortable with leaving the fate of those funds to tribal politics, Udall decreed on September 11, 1961, that no more per capita payments could be made out of Nez Perce trust funds until the tribe had an approved economic development plan. The Secretary's directive placed NPTEC members in an awkward position as they stood for reelection. In the long run, however, it probably bolstered the position of those Nez Perces who wanted NPTEC to seize the initiative for economic development planning. [35]

On July 26, 1961, NPTEC adopted resolution 61-143, providing for the establishment of a Nez Perce Tribal Development Advisory Committee. The purpose of the committee was to investigate various economic opportunities that would create jobs and improve the standard of living of tribal members. The committee's specific charge was to develop an overall economic development program to guide use of the Nez Perce judgment award funds. The committee was to report to NPTEC on an advisory basis. [36]

Non-Indians were invited to serve with tribal members on the committee. As the new entity described itself to the Nez Perce tribal membership in its initial report, the Development Advisory Committee represented a "cooperative community project" in keeping with the government's broad new Indian policy of stimulating long term investment on Indian reservations. [37] Committee members included Allen Slickpoo, Angus A. Wilson, and Frank Penney of NPTEC, Marcus Ware and Theodore H. Little of the Spalding Museum Foundation, and William F. Johnston of the Lewiston Morning Tribune. Johnston chaired the tourism subcommittee. The formation of this committee joined together the older non-Indian preservationist movement for a historical park with the newer reservation-oriented movement for tourism development. Henceforth, the Development Advisory Committee would work with NPS and BIA officials and legislators to hone the Nez Perce National Historical Park proposal between 1961 and 1965. The fusion of these two interest groups was a crucial turning point in the origins of Nez Perce National Historical Park. [38]