Legends of the Old West Series
Legends of the Old West Series
The man who became a national celebrity with the name "Chief Joseph" was born in the Wallowa Valley in what is now northeastern Oregon in 1840. He was given the name Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt, or Thunder Rolling Down the Mountain, but was widely known as Joseph, or Joseph the Younger, because his father had taken the Christian name Joseph when he was baptized at the Lapwai mission by Henry Spalding in 1838.
Joseph the Elder was one of the first Nez Percé converts to Christianity and an active supporter of the tribe's longstanding peace with whites. In 1855 he even helped Washington's territorial governor set up a Nez Percé reservation that stretched from Oregon into Idaho. But in 1863, following a gold rush into Nez Percé territory, the federal government took back almost six million acres of this land, restricting the Nez Percé to a reservation in Idaho that was only one tenth its prior size. Feeling himself betrayed, Joseph the Elder denounced the United States, destroyed his American flag and his Bible, and refused to move his band from the Wallowa Valley or sign the treaty that would make the new reservation boundaries official.
When his father died in 1871, Joseph was elected to succeed him. He inherited not only a name but a situation made increasingly volatile as white settlers continued to arrive in the Wallowa Valley. Joseph staunchly resisted all efforts to force his band onto the small Idaho reservation, and in 1873 a federal order to remove white settlers and let his people remain in the Wallowa Valley made it appear that he might be successful. But the federal government soon reversed itself, and in 1877 General Oliver Otis Howard threatened a cavalry attack to force Joseph's band and other hold-outs onto the reservation. Believing military resistance futile, Joseph reluctantly led his people toward Idaho.
Unfortunately, they never got there. About twenty young Nez Percé warriors, enraged at the loss of their homeland, staged a raid on nearby settlements and killed several whites. Immediately, the army began to pursue Joseph's band and the others who had not moved onto the reservation. Although he had opposed war, Joseph cast his lot with the war leaders.
What followed was one of the most brilliant military retreats in American history. Even the unsympathetic General William Tecumseh Sherman could not help but be impressed with the 1,400 mile march, stating that "the Indians throughout displayed a courage and skill that elicited universal praise... [they] fought with almost scientific skill, using advance and rear guards, skirmish lines, and field fortifications." In over three months, the band of about 700, fewer than 200 of whom were warriors, fought 2,000 U.S. soldiers and Indian auxiliaries in four major battles and numerous skirmishes.
By the time he formally surrendered on October 5, 1877, Joseph was widely referred to in the American press as "the Red Napoleon." It is unlikely, however, that he played as critical a role in the Nez Percé's military feat as his legend suggests. He was never considered a war chief by his people, and even within the Wallowa band, it was Joseph's younger brother, Olikut, who led the warriors, while Joseph was responsible for guarding the camp. It appears, in fact, that Joseph opposed the decision to flee into Montana and seek aid from the Crows and that other chiefs -- Looking Glass and some who had been killed before the surrender -- were the true strategists of the campaign. Nevertheless, Joseph's widely reprinted surrender speech has immortalized him as a military leader in American popular culture:
I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. Looking Glass is dead. Toohoolhoolzote is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say, "Yes" or "No." He who led the young men [Olikut] is dead. It is cold, and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are -- perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children, and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.
Joseph's fame did him little good. Although he had surrendered with the understanding that he would be allowed to return home, Joseph and his people were instead taken first to eastern Kansas and then to a reservation in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) where many of them died of epidemic diseases. Although he was allowed to visit Washington, D.C., in 1879 to plead his case to U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes, it was not until 1885 that Joseph and the other refugees were returned to the Pacific Northwest. Even then, half, including Joseph, were taken to a non-Nez Percé reservation in northern Washington, separated from the rest of their people in Idaho and their homeland in the Wallowa Valley.
In his last years, Joseph spoke eloquently against the injustice of United States policy toward his people and held out the hope that America's promise of freedom and equality might one day be fulfilled for Native Americans as well. An indomitable voice of conscience for the West, he died in 1904, still in exile from his homeland, according to his doctor "of a broken heart."
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I have carried a heavy load on my back ever since I was a boy. I realized then
that we could not hold our own with the white men. We were like deer. They were
like grizzly bears. We had small country. Their country was large. We were
contented to let things remain as the Great Spirit Chief made them. They were
not, and would change the rivers and mountains if they did not suit them.
I am tired of fighting.... from where the sun now stands, I will fight no more.
Our fathers gave us many laws, which they had learned from their fathers. These
laws were good. They told us to treat all people as they treated us; that we
should never be the first to break a bargain; that is was a disgrace to tell a
lie; that we should speak only the truth; that it was a shame for one man to
take another his wife or his property without paying for it.
We were contented to let things remain as the Great Spirit made them.
Suppose a white man should come to me and say, “Joseph, I like your horses. I
want to buy them.”
I say to him, “No, my horses suit me; I will not sell them.”
Then he goes to my neighbor and says, “Pay me money, and I will sell you Joseph’s horses.”
The white man returns to me and says, “Joseph, I have bought your horses and you must let me have them.”
If we sold our lands to the government, this is the way they bought them.
I am not a child, I think for myself. No man can think for me.
If the white man wants to live in peace with the Indian, he can live in peace.
Treat all men alike. Give them a chance to live and grow.
All men were made brothers. The earth is the mother of all people, and all
people should have equal rights upon it. You might as well expect the rivers to
run backward as that any man who was born free should be contented when penned
up and denied liberty to go where he pleases.
If you tie a horse to a stake, do you expect him to grow fat? If you pen an
Indian up on a small spot of earth, and compel him to stay there, he will not be
contented, nor will he grow and prosper.
The earth and myself are of one mind.
We were taught to believe that the Great Spirit sees and hears everything, and
that he never forgets, that hereafter he will give every man a spirit home
according to his deserts; If he has been a good man, he will have a good home;
if he has been a bad man, he will have a bad home. This I believe, and all my
people believe the same.
Good words do not last long unless they amount to something. Words do not pay
for my dead people. They do not pay for my country, now overrun by white men.
They do not protect my father’s grave. They do not pay for all my horses and
cattle.
Good words cannot give me back my children. Good words will not give my people
good health and stop them from dying. Good words will not get my people a home
where they can live in peace and take care of themselves.
I am tired of talk that comes to nothing It makes my heart sick when I remember
all the good words and all the broken promises. There has been too much talking
by men who had no right to talk.
It does not require many words to speak the truth.
We do not want churches because they will teach us to quarrel about God, as the
Catholics and Protestants do. We do not want that.
We may quarrel with men about things on earth, but we never quarrel about the
Great Spirit.
I believe much trouble and blood would be saved if we opened our harts more. I
will tell you in my way how the Indian sees things. The white man has more words
to tell you how they look to him, but is does not require many words to seek the
truth.
Too many misinterpretations have been made... too many misunderstandings...
The Great Spirit Chief who rules above all will smile upon this land... and this
time the Indian race is waiting and praying.
I am tired of talk that comes to nothing.
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