The subsequent history of the Nez Perce prisoners in the Indian Territory was just as tragic. Joseph and his people longed to return to the mountains of their homeland. In 1879, when the tribesmen took up lands west of the Ponca tribe in the Cherokee Outlet to practice agriculture and ranching, Joseph visited Washington, D.C., to lobby to that end. He published his views, translated into polished English by an unknown person, in the popular North American Review, in which he stated: "I cannot understand how the Government sends out a man to fight us, as it did General Miles, and then breaks his word. Such a Government has something wrong with it." [58] Miles worked hard to remedy the obvious injustice meted to the Nez Perces, including writing arguments to President Rutherford B. Hayes and Interior Secretary Carl Schurz in favor of their removal back to their homeland. In addition, the Presbyterian Church and the Indian Rights Association labored on behalf of the people. Finally, Miles's own promotion in 1880 to command the Department of the Columbia worked in favor of bringing the tribesmen back to the Northwest. But the bureaucratic machinery moved slowly, and it was not until 1885 that legislation appropriating removal funds paved the way for the return of the Nez Perces. To protect themselves from legal indictments in Idaho as well as from physical injury by whites living there, 150 of the people—including Joseph—opted to go to the Colville Reservation in Washington Territory; the remaining 118 went to the Lapwai Reservation. On May 22, 1885, the 268 people—all who were left—boarded a train at Arkansas City to start homeward. Once on the train, "the Indians commenced howling and crying" in sorrowful manifestation of leaving more than one hundred of their dead behind in "Eeikish Pah""the Hot Place." [59]

For many of the Nez Perces, Bear's Paw was not the end of their quest for freedom from the U.S. Army. Those who made it out of the village at that place and into Canada found extended respite from their immediate troubles. For many, however, the experience of living in juxtaposition with the Sioux was less than appealing, and the uncertainty of the whereabouts and condition of their friends and relatives captured or killed at Bear's Paw only compounded the feelings of separation and despair they felt after their long flight. The trek into the British Possessions ended with small bands of hungry, impoverished people, some with horses and some without, straggling across the boundary to seek help and sustenance from the exiled Lakotas. Evidently, the number of tribesmen who broke away from the Bear's Paw village between September 30 and October 5 totaled as many as 233, according to the estimate of Black Eagle, one of those who made his way north. [60] The wife of Wounded Head described the ordeal of her party on escaping the Bear's Paw village on the first day of the fighting:

We mounted horses and left. Only one blanket, I rode bareback as did the rest. Going quite a distance, we stopped. We listened to the guns back where they were fighting. I cannot tell the distance, but we were outside the battle. There we stayed till the evening drew on. The night darkness came about us, and still we do not travel further. Not only ourselves, but Chief Joseph's older wife and daughter are with us. But people are scattered everywhere, hungry, freezing. Almost naked, they had escaped from the camp when the soldiers came charging and shooting. Thus we remained overnight. We must not build a fire. No bedding, cold and chilly, we stood or sat holding our horses. We cried with misery and loneliness, as we still heard the guns of the battle. Daylight came, and we moved a little farther down from that place. . . . Nothing to eat all that day, all that night we remained there. Though no food nor fire, I grow sleepy. All of us fall asleep. After awhile we feel as if a blanket is covering us. It is snow. . . . Four suns in all we are hiding, no food, starving and cold. No moccasins, I am barefooted. . . . Then we travel toward Sitting Bull's camp. Moving that fifth day, towards evening the men killed a buffalo bull. A fire is built. Meat is cooked by roasting, and we have supper. . . . Next day we come to some Chippewa Indians. They are nice people. They give us food. I am given a pair of moccasins. Then I feel better. [61]

Some warriors and their families managed to get away during the siege, making their way through the soldier lines after dark and striking north. The warrior Many Wounds claimed to have killed two soldiers during the day after his escape and to have taken their clothing to keep warm, giving one of the uniforms to another refugee. Later, the Crees gave him other clothes. "They told me I would be killed if found wearing soldier uniform." [62] Some groups of escapees likely congregated into larger bodies before crossing into Canada. One North-West Mounted Police official reported seeing a party of "fifty men, forty women, and a large number of children, besides about three hundred horses" come in to Sitting Bull's camp. [63] Certainly one of the largest groups to get away from Bear's Paw was that headed by White Bird, whose party—perhaps numbering more than fifty people left the night of October 5 following Joseph's surrender. [64] They were better prepared for the journey, but it was nonetheless rigorous. According to Ollokot's widow:

We walked out, leaving many of our friends. Some were too bad wounded to travel and had to stay. . . . Night drew on as we left. We had blankets but not too heavy for the traveling. Not enough to keep us warm when camping. . . . I do not know how long, but it must have been several days we were on that journey. Two days we had nothing to eat. Then antelopes were seen, and some of them killed. [65]

In their course north, this party encountered the Catholic missionary Father J. B. M. Genin with the so-called "Red River Halfbreeds," or Metis, along Milk River. The priest treated White Bird's wounded and gave them food before sending them on their way to Canada. [66]

Because of the bad weather and the fact that the tribesmen were slowed by the presence of wounded along with many children among them, besides the fact that they were not at all certain of the route they followed, the travel into Canada took several days. After reaching the Lakota encampment, the Nez Perces had trouble conversing with them, and mostly used sign talk. There was confusion over the gesture for "water," and when the Nez Perces tried to explain "stream," meaning Snake Creek, the Sioux thought they meant the Missouri River—too far distant for a relief force to travel with hope of accomplishing much. The confusion was rectified after one arriving Nez Perce explained what was meant in the Crow language, which some Lakotas understood. [67] The knowledge of the nearby presence of Miles and his soldiers seems to have whipped up a flurry of excitement among the Sioux, and Superintendent Walsh issued stern warnings to the chiefs to rein in their warriors and by no means cross the line. Many Lakotas believed that Miles's troops were going to come over and attack them. [68] When White Bird and some other late arrivals reached their kinsmen already with the Sioux, they told of the death and destruction at Bear's Paw, of the killing of the leaders (some by accident), and of Joseph's surrender. The news resulted in much grieving among the people. [69]

White Bird approached the Lakotas with certain trepidation, for they were traditional enemies of the Nee-Me-Poo, and he did not know how his people would be received. The chief later told Duncan MacDonald that Sitting Bull personally greeted him with a group of warriors and communicated that he was sorry he had not been aware of the fighting at Bear's Paw. [70] A small party continued to the scene of the battle, however, apparently arriving after the troops and prisoners had departed. One of the group, Peopeo Tholekt, remembered that "nothing living was seen anywhere on that field. But we found some of our dead who were unburied, and buried them as best we could." [71] Then they returned into Canada. Nez Perce sources suggest that the initial response by the Sioux to their presence was empathy, for many of their own people had experienced similar tragedy in their relations with the army. As the refugees explained what had happened to them, the Sioux witnesses, including Sitting Bull, broke into sympathetic crying and wailing. [72]

In mid-October, General Terry's much-delayed entourage—escorted by a company of the Seventh Infantry as well as the three companies of Second Cavalry so recently engaged at Bear's Paw—arrived at the border hopeful of settling difficulties with the refugee Lakotas who had crossed into Canada in early 1877, during the closing stages of the Great Sioux War. [73] While Terry's mission was to convince Sitting Bull to return to the United States, it was obvious that the recent tribulation of the Nez Perces dominated the Hunkpapa leader's thinking, and if there had existed any prospect that the Tetons would return, the specter of wounded Nez Perces coming among the Sioux fresh from Bear's Paw—a vivid reminder of their own ordeal—contributed to dash it away. [74] Any promise of good faith by United States government authorities had a hollow ring to it. Terry's council with the tribesmen occurred on October 17 at Fort Walsh. He found the Sioux disposed against returning and surrendering. Finally, Sitting Bull told him: "This part of the country does not belong to your people. You belong on the other side, this side belongs to us." Terry's party went back to Fort Benton, and the general returned to St. Paul. [75] In their official report of the meeting, the commissioners concluded: "To the lawless and ill-disposed, to those who commit offenses against the property and persons of the whites, the refugee camp will be a secure asylum. . . . We have already an illustration of this danger in the fact that more than one hundred of the Nez Perces defeated at Bear's Paw Mountain [sic] are now in Sitting Bull's camp." [76]

Over the next several weeks and months, the Sioux shared their tipis with the Nez Perces, giving them food and clothing until the people could begin to provide for themselves. Eventually, the Nez Perces raised their own lodges and established an independent camp, but continued hunting buffalo with the Lakotas, occasionally going below the international line to kill the beasts. During the winter of 1877-78, both tribes eked out a marginal existence, forced as they were to share the game resources with the Gros Ventres, Assiniboines, and other tribes that hunted the region. [77] There is evidence, too, that some Nez Perces, together with some of their Lakota hosts, journeyed as far south as Cow Creek early in November to raise caches left there following the raid on the stores at Cow Island. And in December 1877, Sitting Bull together with some Nez Perces traveled from a large Lakota village on Frenchman's Creek near Milk River to the Bear's Paw battlefield "and returned with a large quantity of ammunition which had been cached by [the] Nez Perces previous to their surrender." Still other Nez Perces were reported to be among the Metis camped along Milk River. [78]

On October 22, after the excitement had subsided in Sitting Bull's encampment following the Terry council and after the Nez Perces had settled into their new environs, Superintendent Walsh met with them to formalize their presence on British soil. At that time, White Bird explained what had happened to his people to incite them to warfare against the whites in Idaho and against the U.S. Army. He told Walsh that the Nez Perces were undecided about what to do; some hoped to remain with the Sioux, while others wanted to move farther north to the Cypress Hills. White Bird movingly concluded that "the white man wanted the wealth our people possessed; he got it by the destruction of our people. . . . We have no country, no people, no home." [79] Walsh's impression of White Bird was that he seemed "a very intelligent man of fine and good judgment, less diplomatic than [Sitting] Bull but more clear in perception and quicker in decision—a greater General than Bull." [80] It was clear, however, that the people were now totally dependent on the Lakotas for their existence and would remain so as long as they stayed in Canada. Yet rumors circulated regarding the treatment of the Nez Perces by the Sioux. Colonel Gibbon wired Sheridan that they were being "whipped and treated as slaves" and wanted to come back to the United States. [81] And in March 1878, Assistant Commissioner Acheson G. Irvine of the North-West Mounted Police heard "all the Nez Perces" were entertaining notions of returning. [82] Father Genin, meanwhile, who was trying to convince the Sioux to return south, criticized the North-West Mounted Police for coddling the people of both tribes and not sending them below the boundary line. Genin's quest to broker the delivery of the Sioux and Nez Perces to the United States was finally quelled by a missive from Major Ilges at Fort Benton, who told the priest in no uncertain terms to "hereafter abstain from meddling with any of our Indians." [83] Still, Walsh's objective remained the return of the people of both tribes to the United States. [84]