By: George Venn (Wordcraft of Oregon, La Grande, 2006. Illustrations, photographs, maps, notes, bibliography. 97 pages. $20.00 paper.)
| Author George Venn must be a unique person with special skills, knowledge, concerns, and insights to have conceived and completed this story — a monograph focused on Charles Erskine Scott Wood (1852–1944) and Wood’s relationship with Chief Joseph, the Nez Perces, and the War of 1877. The book is divided into four parts. The first describes Wood’s early life and his career as a fractious 1874 West Point graduate who ended up in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, then became judge advocate to General Oliver Otis Howard. During the War of 1877 with the non-treaty Nez Perces, Wood became Howard’s aide-de-camp. | 1 |
| The second part of Venn’s monograph is a thoroughly edited rendition of Wood’s diary, kept during the 1877 War. Here readers find the words of Wood, facing combat and striving to do his duty. Wood also used his artistic and writing skills to record the scenes of war in Idaho and Montana territories, and he leaked both words and drawings to an eager eastern press. His offerings from the field were attributed to “an officer of General Howard’s staff” (p. 60). Wood was also an eyewitness to the famous Chief Joseph surrender on October 5, 1877, an event destined for legend and controversy. | 2 |
| Part 3 of the volume deals with Wood’s transformation to advocate for American justice. Before, during, and after the 1877 War, his personal friendships with Native people — including Chief Joseph and many other Nez Perces — and his free-thinking caused him to abandon any belief in racial superiority, and to conclude that the 1877 War was unjust. He became an advocate for the Nez Perces in their quest to return to the Wallowa and Salmon River country, their home in the Pacific Northwest. His intellectual journey was all the more tortured due to his affection for and commitment to his old mentor, General Howard. Ultimately, his belief in justice and freedom overcame all other persuasions. | 3 |
| Wood drew on his personal knowledge of the 1877 War to articulate the realities of the racial and cultural conflict that it represented. He knew, for example, his old friend General Howard was a protagonist in the struggle with the Nez Perces. It was Howard who decided to arrest Toohoolhoolzote, the spokesman for the non-treaty tribe at the May 1877 Lapwai council. This violation of understood protocol proved a critical spark in the explosion of violence that followed. In Wood’s poetic account of the meeting, it is the Indian, not the white, who makes a heroic stand for freedom: “Too-hul-hul-soot let fall His robe and standing, naked, powerful, a Bronze athlete; on his breast a necklace of Bear claws with discs of abalone shell. His voice the sound of a great cataract afar Or distant thunder, spoke: ‘Tell him that I ‘Am not afraid to die. I am afraid to live. ‘I will not live a coward who refused ‘My mother and denied the spirits of my fathers. ‘I would rather die as a brave man … (pp. 70–71) | 4 |
| This piece was written well after the war, but based on a real event. Wood continued to call on his wartime experiences and on his notes and diaries to search for meaning in his own life and for justice for Native Americans. | 5 |
| His advocacy was enhanced by studying at Columbia Law School and by embracing the life of an attorney in Portland, where he became deeply involved in intellectual life and an icon of cultural life. He never abandoned the question of justice for American Indians, and he continued his involvement in Nez Perce history and friendship with the non-treaty bands. | 6 |
| As noted, there is considerable controversy concerning the historicity of the Chief Joseph surrender speech. Wood, who was present at the time of the surrender, maintained for most of his days a telling that ultimately proved most likely a manipulated version that served his literary purposes. For most of his life, Wood insisted that, as he handed over his rifle, Joseph spoke the words that Wood often quoted. Wood said those words came through Arthur “Ad” Chapman and Captain John, interpreters. Venn, however, discovered a note from Wood to historian Lucullus McWhorter in 1936, which revealed that the “Speech” was a “literary item,” and not verbatim record (p. 76). This does not prove that Joseph was not a great orator or that he did not say words to the effect that he is often credited. He may have said something close to the famous speech in council with his fellow tribesmen just before the actual surrender (Captain John was there, too.) But Wood’s note to McWhorter does cast further doubt on the classical oration to Howard and Miles that was often promoted by Wood. | 7 |
| There is much to this fascinating book, a must-read, must-have for students of Nez Perce tribal history. The first three parts alone are compelling. Readers are most indebted to Venn, however, for including in his scheme of material the dramatic fourth portion of the book. This is the Wood legacy, both his lasting friendship with Chief Joseph and the attempts he and his family made at enhancing racial understanding. Venn describes Wood’s son Erskine’s stay with Joseph and later events, even through the twentieth century. The Redheart Memorial ceremony at Ft. Vancouver in 1998 and other events, such as the presentation of a beautiful stallion to the Redthunder family of Nespelem, show a dedication to healing. I was present at many of these events, and Venn has offered accurate renditions within proper historical context. This was and will remain a difficult task, but Venn has done well, and his teamwork with Wordcraft of Oregon, the publisher, has produced an outstanding work that will be a treasure now and in the future. Hopefully, we have seen the end of narrative histories of the 1877 War. Jerome Greene’s Nez Perce Summer 1877 (2000) and Bruce Hampton’s fine Children of Grace (1994) will have the last and perhaps best word in that department. Let us now have more of the unique kind of scholarship represented by Venn, who artistically, seamlessly ties modern tribal history to that earlier troubled time. | 8 |
| Steven R. EvansLewis-Clark State College, Lewiston, Idaho | |
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