[Yorkiemom1]

I wanted to share a bit of history of the Nez Perce Indians that has always remained in my heart....these were the Indians that developed the Appaloosa breed of horses, and were the FIRST to actually use selective breeding practices, to produce superior horses within the breed. They were a very noble people that were very very proud of their development of this breed of horse that was superior to any breed afoot during that time. The US Calvary determined the ONLY way to beat these people into submission was to somehow psychologically defeat them and the way to do that was to destroy their horses....they knew that would be enough to absolutely take every fibre of pride and fight from these people, and then they could be rounded up and thrown into concentration camps....oh sorry, "reservations".....I copied/pasted this narrative below....to me, this was one of the most brutal, psychologically defeating and humilating events forced upon these humans.....I wanted to share this with you all.....so tragic....

"The Nez Perce first obtained horses from the Shoshone around 1730.[34] They took advantage of the fact that they lived in excellent horse-breeding country, relatively safe from the raids of other tribes, and developed strict breeding selection practices for their animals, establishing breeding herds by 1750. They were one of the few tribes that actively used the practice of gelding inferior male horses and trading away poorer stock to remove unsuitable animals from the gene pool,[26][37] and thus were notable as horse breeders by the early 19th century.[38]
Early Nez Perce horses were considered to be of high quality. Meriwether Lewis of the Lewis and Clark Expedition wrote in his February 15, 1806, journal entry: "Their horses appear to be of an excellent race; they are lofty, eligantly [sic] formed, active and durable: in short many of them look like fine English coarsers [sic] and would make a figure in any country.
Peace with the United States dated back to an alliance arranged by Lewis and Clark,[44] but the encroachment of gold miners in the 1860s and settlers in the 1870s put pressure on the Nez Perce.[45] Although a treaty of 1855 originally allowed them to keep most of their traditional land, another in 1863 reduced the land alloted to them by 90 percent.[46] The Nez Perce who refused to give up their land under the 1863 treaty included a band living in the Wallowa Valley of Oregon, led by Heinmot Tooyalakekt, widely known as Chief Joseph.[47] Tensions rose, and in May 1877, General Oliver Howard called a council and ordered the non-treaty bands to move to the reservation.[45][48] Chief Joseph considered military resistance futile,[49] and by June 14, 1877, had gathered about 600 people at a site near present-day Grangeville, Idaho.[44] But on that day a small group of warriors staged an attack on nearby white settlers,[45] which led to the Nez Perce War.[44] After several small battles in Idaho,[44] more than 800 Nez Perce, mostly non-warriors, took 2000 head of various livestock including horses and fled into Montana, then traveled southeast, dipping into Yellowstone National Park.[45][47] A small number of Nez Perce fighters, probably fewer than 200,[49] successfully held off larger forces of the U.S. Army in several skirmishes, including the two-day Battle of the Big Hole in southwestern Montana.[45] They then moved northeast and attempted to seek refuge with the Crow Nation; rebuffed, they headed for safety in Canada.[45]
Throughout this journey of about 1,400 miles (2,300 km)[49] the Nez Perce relied heavily on their fast, agile and hardy Appaloosa horses.[50] The journey came to an end when they stopped to rest near the Bears Paw Mountains in Montana, 40 miles (64 km) from the Canadian border. Unbeknownst to the Nez Perce, Colonel Nelson A. Miles had led an infantry-cavalry column from Fort Keogh in pursuit. On October 5, 1877, after a five-day fight, Joseph surrendered. The battle—and the war—was over.[50][51] With most of the war chiefs dead, and the noncombatants cold and starving, Joseph declared that he would "fight no more forever".[51

When the U.S. 7th Cavalry accepted the surrender of Chief Joseph and the remaining Nez Perce, they immediately took more than 1,000 of the tribe's horses, sold what they could and shot many of the rest. But a significant population of horses had been left behind in the Wallowa valley when the Nez Perce began their retreat, and additional animals escaped or were abandoned along the way.[26] The Nez Perce were ultimately settled on reservation lands in north central Idaho,[a] were allowed few horses, and were required by the Army to crossbreed to draft horses in an attempt to create farm horses.[53] The Nez Perce tribe never regained its former position as breeders of Appaloosas. In the late 20th century, they began a program to develop a new horse breed, the Nez Perce horse, with the intent to resurrect their horse culture, tradition of selective breeding, and horsemanship.[54]

IMO, this is a level of brutality, visited on innocent people, that has not been matched by any other race of people. They actually made them all watch as they herded their magnificent horses into a pit or canyon, depending on the account you read, where those beautiful horses were shot.....that was the culmination of the "psychological warfare" used to break these proud people completely down.