Let Me Be Free: A Nez Perce Tragedy by David Lavender (review)

Reviews 185 LetMeBeFree:A NezPerceTragedy. ByDavid Lavender. (New York:Anchor Books, 1993. 416 pages, $14.00.) Acclaimed historian David Lavender has written yet another classic narra­ tive of the American West. Winner of the 1993 Western Writers of America Award for Non-Fiction, LetMe BeFreeis the compelling story of the Nez Perce’s partial assimilation to white religion and culture, violent breaking away, and 1877 exodus and surrender—concluded with Chief Joseph’s famous “From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.” As heroic and wrenching as their 1700-mile flight to Canada was, this is not simply an account of that drama and Joseph’s courage. Rather, Lavender succeeds in demythologizing Joseph, the red Napoleon, by both limiting his treatment to Joseph’s true role and, later in the book, explaining the legend’s genesis. After chapters on Nez Perce culture, the tribe’s generous welcome of Lewis and Clark, and troubles with missionaries and fur trading companies, Lavender examines the complexities of the trust-treaty-betrayal cycle endemic to Native American histories. Though thoroughly researched and containing notes and a bibliography, jargon and quarrels with other interpretations never appear. Lavender’s lucid prose is narrative history at its best. For instance, he draws the reader in tight to the trappers and Indians gathered to watch a doctor at an 1835 Wyoming rendezvous: “First the surgeon made a long incision in [Jim] Bridger’s back—if the trapper had anesthetized himself in advance with diluted grain alcohol, no mention is made of the fact—and gouged hard at the intervening cartilage. Gaped at by scores of pairs of eyes, Bridger held himself motionless.” Such historical intuition can, however, prove too enthusiastic. For ex­ ample, he repeatedly refers to a fur company man as “fat” Donald McKenzie and makes an unsettling admission in the notes that the reminiscences of a white participant are “given to exaggeration, and his details are often fuzzy. But he is the only source we have for much of the material in the chapter; so, to fill in some of the gaps he left, I have resorted to my own imagination.” Nearly thirty years have passed since Alvin M. Josephy’s authoritative The NezPerceIndians and the OpeningoftheNorthwest (1965). Lavender breathes fresh insight into the Nez Perce’s epic struggles. CRAIG R. AUGE Kent State University On The Oregon Trail. ByJonathan Nichols. Photographs by Ron Cronin. (Port­ land, Oregon: Graphic Arts Center Publishing Company, 1992. 144 pages, $45.00.) There is a love for the Oregon Trail that there is for no other road in America. In 1906 Ezra Meeker retraced his 1852 journey with ox team and wagon, memorializing and photographing sites as he went. Since then men and ...