Hallalhotsoot

{{Short description|Nez Percé tribal leader}}

{{Infobox person

|name = Hallalhotsoot
(Chief Lawyer)

|image = Chief.Lawyer.1861.jpg

|image_size = 200

|caption = Hallalhotsoot, c. 1861

|known_for = Nez Perce leader

|birth_date = c. 1797

|birth_place =

|death_date = {{death date|1876|1|03}}

|death_place = Kamiah, Idaho Territory

|predecessor =

|successor = Chief Joseph

|native_name = Hallalhotsoot

|native_name_lang = nez

|other_names =

|death_cause =

|resting_place = Nikesa Cemetery
First Presbyterian Church
Kamiah, Idaho

| resting_place_coordinates =

|education =

|spouse =

|children =

|parents = {{Plainlist|

• Twisted Hair (father)
• A Flathead woman (mother)

}}

|relations =

|signature =

}}

File:Lawyer-nez-perce.jpg

File:Nezperce01.png

Hallalhotsoot, also Hal-hal-tlos-tsot or "Lawyer"{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=-PxHAAAAIBAJ&pg=6746%2C1846829 |newspaper=Spokane Daily Chronicle |location=Washington |last=Ruark |first=Janice |title=Lawyer led Nez Perce in peace before war |date=February 23, 1977 |page=3}} (c. 1797–1876) was a leader of the Niimíipu (Nez Perce) and among its most famous, after Chief Joseph. He was the son of Twisted Hair, who welcomed and befriended the exhausted Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1805.{{Cite web |url=http://washingtonhistoryonline.org/treatytrail/context/bios/lawyer-nez-perce_print.htm |title=Washington History Online |access-date=2015-07-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150708225151/http://washingtonhistoryonline.org/treatytrail/context/bios/lawyer-nez-perce_print.htm |archive-date=2015-07-08 |url-status=dead }} His mother was a Flathead woman. Lawyer learned the languages of his parents and knew some English.{{sfn|Spalding|Smith|Drury|1958|p=93}}

His name appears as early as 1836 in a meeting with Marcus Whitman, and received the nickname "Lawyer" for his eloquence. He served as a guide for Whitman.{{cite book|author=E. Jane Gay|title=With the Nez Perces: Alice Fletcher in the Field, 1889-92|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PIAkNZ6rEBAC&pg=PA182|date=1 October 1987|publisher=U of Nebraska Press|isbn=0-8032-7024-0|page=182}}

After a group of missionaries arrived at Whitman Mission Station in Waiilatpu in 1838, Lawyer taught Asa Bowen Smith the Nez Perce language,{{sfn|Spalding|Smith|Drury|1958|p=93}} from which Smith developed a grammar and dictionary entitled Grammar of the Language of the Nez Perces Indians.{{Cite book |last1=Smith |first1=Asa Bowen |last2=Tingley |first2=Sylvanus |date=1840 |title=Grammar of the Language of the Nez Perces Indians Formerly of Oregon, U.S.: From the manuscript of Rev. A.B. Smith dated Sept. 28, 1840. Now in archives of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Boston, Mass. Volume 138. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/39088111 |access-date=2021-11-04 |via=WorldCat |oclc=39088111}} Two missionary couples—Cushing and Myra Eels and Elkanah and Mary Richardson Walker—were going to be stationed with the Spokane people. Lawyer helped them learn their language, which was similar to that of the Flatheads.{{sfn|Spalding|Smith|Drury|1958|p=93}}

In 1855, he took part in the Walla Walla Council and signed the Treaty of Stevens.{{cite book|author=David Sievert Lavender|title=Let Me Be Free: The Nez Perce Tragedy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YzZ6OTrs4HsC&pg=PA151|year=1999|publisher=University of Oklahoma Press|isbn=978-0-8061-3190-0|pages=151–155, 166–167}}{{cite book|author1=avid|author2=Miles Richardson|title=Beyond Conversion and Syncretism: Indigenous Encounters with Missionary Christianity, 1800-2000|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6CeRXk9cBY8C&pg=PA265|date=15 October 2011|publisher=Berghahn Books|isbn=978-0-85745-218-4|pages=265–267}} This obtained for him a reservation to the greater part of his territory, between the Clearwater and Salmon rivers.

After gold was discovered in Pierce in 1860, Lawyer agreed to new cessions of land in the Treaty of 1863,{{cite news |url=https://www.nps.gov/nepe/learn/historyculture/the-treaty-era.htm |publisher=Nez Perce National Historical Park |agency=National Park Service |title=The Treaty Period |accessdate=April 5, 2016}}{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=hhNMAAAAIBAJ&pg=5235%2C2849427 |newspaper=Spokane Daily Chronicle |location=Washington |last=Montgomery |first=James W. |title=Controversial Nez Perce chieftain defended by western historian|date=November 24, 1979 |page=5}} in 1868, which Old Joseph (c.1785–1871) did not accept and considered it a betrayal. Therefore, in 1872, Hallalhotsoot was displaced by Chief Joseph as the only head of the tribe.

Lawyer Creek in north central Idaho, a tributary of the Clearwater River, is named for him. It carved the {{convert|300|ft|-1|adj=on}} deep Lawyer's Canyon, between Ferdinand and Craigmont, and flows east to its mouth at Kamiah.{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=hC1WAAAAIBAJ&pg=4459%2C4781799 |newspaper=Spokesman-Review |location=Spokane, Washington |title=Lawyer's Canyon |date=February 27, 1949 |page=15 }} He died in Kamiah and is buried at its Nikesa Cemetery at the Presbyterian church,{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=6lZYAAAAIBAJ&pg=6241%2C1086053 |newspaper=Spokane Daily Chronicle |location=Washington |agency=(photo) |title=Grave part of history |date=July 6, 1965 |page=5 }}{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=XO9LAAAAIBAJ&pg=5494%2C658367|newspaper=Spokesman-Review |location=Spokane, Washington |title=In the footsteps of the Nez Perces |date=June 18, 1972 |page=8, Sunday Magazine }} where he was an elder.