It is not certain to me when the phrase "I will fight no more forever" first came to my attention. Perhaps Junior High school, though probably before. The saga of Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce fascinated me then, and this morning I caught up on the historical record at the PBS website.
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.
Three chapters of the Nez Perce story have stayed with me these many years. First, there was the attempted retreat to Canada.
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."
Second was Chief Joseph's surrender speech, excerpted above. Finally, there was the inevitable American chicanery, seen clearly by the vanquished Native American, if not by generations of Kroger Joey clones.
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."