The relationship between Westering Americans and the Nez Perce Indians covers a time-span of one hundred years, from the meeting of the Lewis and Clark party with the Indians in 1805 to the death of Chief Joseph in 1904. It is epic drama, taking place on a vast stage during a critical period in the development of the United States.

Before acquiring the horse around 1730, the Nez Perces occupied approximately 27,000 square miles of what is now north-central Idaho, northeastern Oregon, and southeastern Washington. After becoming a mounted people, they ranged over a much larger area, traveling east to the buffalo country claimed by Blackfeet, Crow, and Sioux, west to the great fishing and trading station on the lower Columbia, Celilo Falls. Uniquely situated as they were between the Plains and Coastal Indian cultures, they would play a key role in the struggle between Great Britain and the United States as to which nation would take title to the Pacific Northwest.

In Chief Joseph Country: Land of the Nez Perce, author Bill Gulick lets the participants in the developing drama tell the story in their own words by excerpting diaries, letters, and statements made in contemporary accounts. Beginning with the prehistory of the Nez Perces, he relates how, after being pedestrians for eight thousand years, acquisition of the horse drastically altered their way of life. Then, in rapid succession, came firearms, American explorers, British fur traders, the Manifest Destiny struggle, missionaries, Oregon Trail emigrants, settlers, gold miners, farmers, and finally war.

In selecting the many historical photographs and sketches used to illustrate the book, the author examined the holdings of some twenty institutions from coast to coast, some of which dated back to the 1850's.