Nimiipuu - Nez Perce at Oakland Agency - Tonkawa, OK - Oklahoma Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

This small fenced area contains a monument describing the burial ground of the Nez Perce and this sign, which gives a history of the forced relocation of the tribe into Indian Territory, and then back to their original lands. The relevant text on the sign is:

In June 1879, the Nimiipuu were relocated from the Quapaw Agency (near present-day Quapaw, Oklahoma) to the Oakland Agency. After traveling about 200 miles in nine days, the Nimiipuu settled near the Chikaskia River. The Ponca agent was not prepared for the arrival of the Nimiipuu and had no food, medicine, or supplies for them.

During the next four years, the Nimiipuu endured the unfamiliar climate, unhealthy living conditions, and witnessed over a hundred of their relatives perish. In 1883 James Reuben, a Nimiipuu exile that established a day school at the agency, recieved permission to accompany approximitely 30 Nimiipuu widows and orphans to the Nez Perce Reservation in Idaho.

Many Nimiipuu, including Chief Joseph, continued to lobby the U.S. Government to return the Nimiipuu to their homelands, and in 1885 the remaining Nimiipu were granted permission to return to the Pacific Northwest. By 1885, after six years of exile at the Oakland Agency, only two-thirds of the original 431 Nimiipuu that had been sent to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) survived, mostly children and the elderly. Upon their arrival in the Pacific Northwest, 118 Nimiipuu chose to return to the Nez Perce Reservation, while the remaining 150 went to the Colville Reservation in Washington State.

County: Kay Record Address:: Tonkawa, OK USA Rate the Site: Sponsor (Who put it there): McCormack Landscape Design / Tonkawa Tribe of Oklahoma / USDA Forest Service Web site if available: Not listed Date Erected: Not listed

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