Slickpoo, Idaho — Living Community Beyond the Mission History

Slickpoo lies within the Nez Perce Reservation south of Lapwai.

Historical accounts often introduce it through St. Joseph's Mission and Jesuit missionary activity in the nineteenth century. That history matters, but it can easily swallow the people who actually live there.

Catholic institutions became important to some Nimiipuu families while missionary work also operated within a period of intense outside pressure on Indigenous religion, land and culture.

Slickpoo continued after that era.

Families still live there within a sovereign tribal nation, alongside agriculture, churches, roads and ordinary modern community life.

The mission belongs in the story. It does not get to be the ending.