The Last Indian War: The Nez Perce Story: Pivotal Moments in American History

The Last Indian War was enjoyable. It is fairly accessible, and doesn't require a great deal of prior knowledge about the subject.

The download includeds a PDF timeline and map, which are very helpful in following the story.

Narrator BJ Harrison (of Classic Tales Podcast fame) does a great job of narration (the one exception being his pronunciation of the word "Willamette." Should be prounounced with the stress on the second syllable rather than the third!), particularly with all the Nez Perce names and phrases.

One minor quibble I have with the writing style is that West adds an S to the names of Native Tribes to pluralize them (i.e., Shoshone, Shoshones or Nez Perce, Nez Perces). That may well be the proper plural, but it sounds rough in my ear. I prefer Shoshone or Nez Perce without the S.

Well worth a listen.

I too enjoy listen to “The Last Indian War” once again. I was just 14 yo when we took a camping trip for 4 week (a long time ago) while mom read aloud Beal, Merrill D. "I Will Fight No More Forever"; Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce War. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1963 & “War Chief Joseph” by Helen Addison Howard and Dan L. McGrath, 1941 as we drove the trail from the Snake River and White Bird Canyon to Canada. We had Appaloosa horse and wanted to learn the history and follow the trail they took on their flight. Anybody wanting to lean the history of the Indian tribes during the 1730 to 1877 and then the war or flight to Canada from June till Oct 5, 1877 of one of the greatest Indian tribe should listen to the book. The first few chapters are slow about the growth and the health issues.

I too don’t like the use of “S” on the name but we can change that now.

As a descendant of early Northwest pioneers, much of that in close proximity to the Indian Reservations I am somewhat well versed on the Native American history of the area. This book makes the true claim that this last Indian War was in reality was a religious battle. A further salient point is the attempt to put it into context of unfolding American national history of the time. Very well worth your time listening to the account.

However no history I have read, including this one, fully reports or understand the truly strict piety of the Protestant missionaries, whether they went under the heading of Methodist or Presbyterian. The Nez Perce, as well as the Whitmans and the Cayuse, and the lower Spokanes were evangelized by pietistic disciples of the Second Great Awakening, and to some extent the burned over areas of upstate New York were transported to local reservations. That context, as well as the religious and political tensions with the Roman Catholic Black Robes provides a yet untold story of the making of Northwest history.

One problem minor problem is the white man's narration that butchers a number of both native words and other local pronunciations,

First time I have listened to a book by Elliot West. story was outstanding. BJ Harrison reading it was just as good as story was written.

I am maybe two hours into the book and I am taking my head phones out and not putting them back in to listen to this. Being from Northeastern Oregon, I know and have been to many of the towns, rivers, mountains and areas that are talked about in this book. Which would be a good thing, right? But it’s bad when I cannot figure out where he is talking about because his pronunciations of the names is so horribly wrong.


I think I may have heard one or two places pronounced right so far and they are things like “Clear Water” and “Lewiston,” places that you really can’t screw up. However, when the narrator butchers just about everything else, to include “Willamette Valley” and “Willamette River,” it leads me to ask how someone can read a book and mess up Willamette, a river probably in the top 20 important rivers in the US, and not to mention the objective and subject of the Oregon Trail, about which a few pages have been written. Obviously the narrator did the author a terrible injustice by not spending the hour on the phone to ensure that his pronunciations of location were correct.


The author may have written a very interesting book that was well-researched; however, the narrator most definitely destroyed any chance of this book being appreciated by someone from the region. If you are not from the region, don’t use this guy’s pronunciation of any of the locations; you’re more likely to get them right on your own than imitating his.

tryed twice but could not get thru the first hour. The narrator was just not right for this book, sounds like a great book but I will have to read it !

Only with a diferent narrator.

He was not right for this book, his voice and accent was not for a western history.

B.J. Harrison

Sounds like a great book.

The book is so twisted with Nez Perce favoritism and old pioneer/soldier hatred that it makes for a very distorted history. This book is so full of contradictions that it will make your head spin. Hour after hour you will hear about the tremendous military prowess of this tribe, how laughable the performance of the US military was. How the indians were the master's of the battlefield that when they left it.. presumably out of boredom... they would leave behind only a few miserable and lame ponies. Imagine my surprise, when right in the middle of another battle full heroic military deeds of Nez Perce warriors and the US soldiers barely holding on to life. That all the sudden the war ends in with the tribes defeat....The reason given.... they lost too many warriors and horses.. Huh!
The author rails about the unfairness of the government for creating the Yellowstone national park kicking out and stealing what was basically the indian's own backyard. Yet when the Nez Perce flee thru that park, all the while kidnapping and shooting any tourist they happen upon. They get lost and force a white guy to act as their guide. Tell me, how do you get lost in your on back yard?
I have read and listen to many books on Native Indian & American history by other authors and have seen that Heroism and Villainy are not a monopoly by either side. Great historical events make much more sense when put in context from a fair and honest history. After listening to this book I still have no clue as to what this Nez Perce stuff was all about.