Research Article| July 01 2007 Show Ethnohistory (2007) 54 (3): 509–546.
Chief Joseph, who gained fame during the Nez Perce War of 1877, is one of the best-known Indian orators in American history. Yet the two principal texts attributed to him were produced under questionable circumstances, and it is unclear to what extent they
represent anything he ever said. This essay examines the publication history of these texts and then addresses two questions about the treatment of Indian oratory in the nineteenth century. First, given their uncertain provenance, how and why did these texts become so popular and come to represent Indian eloquence and an authentic Native American voice? Second, what was the political significance of Indian speech and texts of Indian oratory in the confrontation between Euro-Americans and Indians
over land? I argue that the production and interpretation of Indian speech facilitated political subjugation by figuring Indians as particular kinds of subjects and positioning them in a broader narrative about the West. The discursive and political dimensions of the encounter were inseparable, as Indian “eloquence” laid the way for Indian defeat. I conclude by advocating a disruptive reading of Indian oratory that rejects the belief that a real Indian subject lies behind these texts in any
straightforward sense. To make this argument, I draw on linguistic anthropology and critical theory, analyzing firsthand accounts, newspaper reports, and descriptions of Indian speech and Nez Perce history. The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Aoki, Haruo 1989 Chief Joseph's Words. Idaho Yesterdays 33 ( 3 ): 16 -21. Armstrong, Virginia Irving, comp. 1971 I Have Spoken: American History through the Voices of the Indians . Athens, OH: Swallow. Balgooyen, Theodore J. 1968 The Plains Indian as a Public Speaker. University of Wyoming Publications 34 ( 2 ): 12 -43. Barbeau, Marius 1932 Indian Eloquence. Queen's Quarterly 39 : 451 -64. Barthes, Roland 1989 The Death of the Author. In The Rustle of Language . R. Howard, trans. Pp. 49 -55. Berkeley: University of California Press. Bauman, Richard, and Charles L. Briggs 1990 Poetics and Performance as Critical Perspectives on Language and Social Life. Annual Review of Anthropology 19 : 59 -88. Beal, Merrill D. 1963 “I Will Fight No More Forever”: Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce War . New York: Ballantine. Bender, Margaret 2002 Signs of Cherokee Culture: Sequoyah's Syllabary in Eastern Cherokee Life . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Berkhofer, Robert F., Jr. 1978 The White Man's Indian: Images of the American Indian from Columbus to the Present . New York: Vintage. The “Bible Chief” 1877 Chicago Times , 26 October . Bierwert, Crisca 1998 Remembering Chief Seattle: Reversing Cultural Studies of a Vanishing Native American. American Indian Quarterly 22 ( 3 ): 280 -304. Boyd, James 1925 Interview by David Heilger, 28 May, transcript. Montana Historical Society, AC94-40, Collection SC 2083. Broken Pledges: How Red Joseph Was Sold by His White Brethren 1879 Washington Post , 18 January . Brown, Mark H. 1967 The Flight of the Nez Perce . New York: Putnam. 1972 The Joseph Myth. Montana: The Magazine of Western History 22 ( 1 ): 2 -17. The Captive Chief 1877 San Francisco Chronicle , 1 November [datelined 10 October], 3. Chalmers, Harvey, II 1962 The Last Stand of the Nez Perce: Destruction of a People . New York: Twayne. Chief Joseph's Own Story 1879 Army and Navy Journal , 22 March , 586 -87. Clark, J. Stanley 1945 The Nez Percés in Exile. Pacific Northwest Quarterly 36 ( 3 ): 213 -32. Clements, William M. 1996 Native American Verbal Art: Texts and Contexts . Tucson: University of Arizona Press. 2002 Oratory in Native North America . Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Clifford, James 1986 On Ethnographic Allegory. In Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography . James Clifford and George E. Marcus, eds. Pp. 98 -121.Berkeley: University of California Press. Cmiel, Kenneth 1990 Democratic Eloquence: The Fight over Popular Speech in Nineteenth-Century America . New York: Morrow. DeMallie, Raymond J., ed. 1984 The Sixth Grandfather: Black Elk's Teachings Given to John G. Neihardt . Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Derrida, Jacques 1976 Of Grammatology . Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, trans. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Fee, Chester Anders 1936 Chief Joseph: The Biography of a Great Indian . New York: Wilson-Erickson. Fliegelman, Jay 1993 Declaring Independence: Jefferson, Natural Language, and the Culture of Performance . Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Foucault, Michel 1977 What Is an Author? In Language, Counter-memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews . Donald F. Bouchard, ed. Donald F. Bouchard and Sherry Simon, trans. Pp. 113 -38. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Furtwangler, Albert 1997 Answering Chief Seattle . Seattle: University of Washington Press. Goody, Jack 1977 The Domestication of the Savage Mind . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Greene, Jerome A. 2000 Nez Perce Summer, 1877: The U.S. Army and the Nee-Me-Poo Crisis . With a foreword by Alvin M. Josephy Jr. Helena: Montana Historical Society Press. Gustafson, Sandra M. 2000 Eloquence Is Power: Oratory and Performance in Early America . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Hampton, Bruce 1994 Children of Grace: The Nez Perce War of 1877 . New York: Holt. Harbsmeier, Michael 1989 Writing and the Other: Travellers' Literacy, or Towards an Archaeology of Orality. In Literacy and Society . Karen Schousboe and Mogens Trolle Larsen, eds. Pp. 197 -228. Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag. Holler, Clyde, ed. 2000 The Black Elk Reader . Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. Howard, Helen Addison 1941 War Chief Joseph . Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Howard, Oliver O. 1877a Howard's Report. Chicago Daily Tribune , 25 October . 1877b Supplementary Report: Non-treaty Nez Percé Campaign. In Annual Report of the Secretary of War . Vol. 1 , 585 -660. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. 1879 The True Story of the Wallowa Campaign. North American Review 129 ( July ): 53 -64. 1972a [1881] Nez Perce Joseph: An Account of His Ancestors, His Lands, His Confederates, His Enemies, His Murders, His War, His Pursuit and Capture . New York: Da Capo. 1972b [1907] My Life and Experiences among Our Hostile Indians . New York: Da Capo. Howard's Nez-Percé War 1881 Review of Nez Perce Joseph , by Oliver O. Howard. 33 ( 840 ): 95 -96. Hymes, Dell 1981 “In Vain I Tried to Tell You”: Essays in Native American Ethnopoetics . Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Indian Eloquence 1828 Ariel 2 ( 18 ): 142 . 1986 [1836] In Native American Folklore in Nineteenth-Century Periodicals . William M. Clements, ed. Pp. 1 -12. Athens, OH: Swallow; Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Joseph, Chief 1879 An Indian's View of Indian Affairs. With an introduction by William H. Hare. North American Review 128 ( April ): 412 -33. Joseph'[s] Speech in Full 1877 Bismarck [Dakota Territory] Tri-weekly Tribune , 26 October . Josephy, Alvin M., Jr. 1997 [1965] The Nez Perce Indians and the Opening of the Northwest . Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Kaiser, Rudolf 1987 Chief Seattle's Speech(es): American Origins and European Reception. In Recovering the Word: Essays on Native American Literature . Brian Swann and Arnold Krupat, eds. Pp. 497 -536. Berkeley: University of California Press. Krupat, Arnold 1982 An Approach to Native American Texts. Critical Inquiry 9 ( 2 ): 323 -38. 1985 For Those Who Come After: A Study of Native American Autobiography . Berkeley: University of California Press. 1987 Post-structuralism and Oral Literature. In Recovering the Word: Essays on Native American Literature . Brian Swann and Arnold Krupat, eds. Pp. 113 -28. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1989 The Voice in the Margin: Native American Literature and the Canon . Berkeley: University of California Press. Krupat, Arnold, ed. 1994 Native American Autobiography: An Anthology . Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Lavender, David 1992 Let Me Be Free: The Nez Perce Tragedy . New York: HarperCollins. Lossing, Benson J. 1870 Our Barbarian Brethren. Harper's New Monthly Magazine 40 ( May ): 793 -811. Low, Denise 1995 Contemporary Reinvention of Chief Seattle: Variant Texts of Chief Seattle's 1854 Speech. American Indian Quarterly 19 ( 3 ): 407 -21. MacRae, Donald 1981 [1925] Foreword to Chief Joseph's Own Story , by Chief Joseph. Fairfield, WA: Galleon. McCoy, Robert R. 2004 Chief Joseph, Yellow Wolf, and the Creation of Nez Perce History in the Pacific Northwest . New York: Routledge. McWhorter, Lucullus Virgil 1980 [1952] Hear Me, My Chiefs! Nez Perce History and Legend . Caldwell, ID: Caxton. 1983 [1940] Yellow Wolf: His Own Story . Rev. and enl. ed. Caldwell, ID: Caxton. Miles, Nelson A. 1877 Report from Camp near North End of Bear's Paw Mountains, M.T., to Assistant Adjutant General, Dept. of Dakota, Saint Paul, Minn., 6 October. National Archives, Collection M666: Letters Received by the Office of the Adjutant General (Main Series) . Roll 338, frames 528-38 (pages 1-11). Published in O. O. Howard 1877b: 654 -55. 1896 Personal Recollections and Observations of General Nelson A. Miles . Chicago: Werner. 1911 Serving the Republic: Memoirs of the Civil and Military Life of Nelson A. Miles . New York: Harper and Brothers. Murray, David 1991 Forked Tongues: Speech, Writing, and Representation in North American Indian Texts . Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Ong, Walter J. 1982 Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word . London: Methuen. The Pursuit and Battle 1877 Chicago Daily Tribune , 25 October . Robie, Harry 1986 Red Jacket's Reply: Problems in the Verification of a Native American Speech Text. New York Folklore 12 ( 3-4 ): 99 -117. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 1998 [1781] Essay on the Origin of Languages. In The Collected Writings of Rousseau. Vol. 7, Essay on the Origin of Languages and Writings Related to Music . John T. Scott, ed. and trans. Pp. 289 -332. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England. Sanders, Thomas E., and Walter W. Peek, comp. 1973 Literature of the American Indian . New York: Glencoe. Sayre, Gordon M. 2005 The Indian Chief as Tragic Hero: Native Resistance and the Literatures of America, from Moctezuma to Tecumseh . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. A Shameful Story: Chief Joseph's Indictment of the Treacherous White Man 1879 Washington Post , 16 January . Sheehan, Bernard W. 1969 Paradise and the Noble Savage in Jeffersonian Thought. William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser. , 26 : 327 -59. Slickpoo, Allen P., Sr. 1973 Noon Nee-Me-Poo (We, the Nez Perces): Culture and History of the Nez Perces . [Lapwai, ID: Nez Perce Tribe of Idaho]. Smith, Sherry L. 1996 Reimagining the Indian: Charles Erskine Scott Wood and Frank Linderman. Pacific Northwest Quarterly 87 ( 3 ): 149 -58. Sorber, Edna C. 1972 The Noble Eloquent Savage. Ethnohistory 19 : 227 -36. Strickland, William 1977 Cherokee Rhetoric: A Forceful Weapon. Journal of Cherokee Studies 2 ( 4 ): 375 -84. The Surrender of Joseph 1877 Harper's Weekly 21 ( 17 November ): 905 -6. Sutherland, Thomas A. 1980 [1878] Howard's Campaign against the Nez Perce Indians, 1877 . Fairfield, WA: Galleon. Tedlock, Dennis 1983 The Spoken Word and the Work of Interpretation . Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Tracy, William 1871 Indian Eloquence. Appletons' Journal 6 ( 11 November ): 543 -45. Vanderwerth, W. C. 1971 Indian Oratory: Famous Speeches by Noted Indian Chieftains . Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Wells, Merle W. 1964 The Nez Perce and Their War. Pacific Northwest Quarterly 55 ( 1 ): 35 -37. Wood, C. E. S. 1877 Gen. Howard and Chief Joseph: Speech of the Indian Chief in Surrendering to Gen. Miles. New York Times , 16 November [datelined 15 November]. 1884 Chief Joseph, the Nez-Percé. Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine 28 ( 1 ): 135 -42. 1893 Famous Indians: Portraits of Some Indian Chiefs. Century Magazine 46 ( 3 ): 436 -45. 1936 The Pursuit and Capture of Chief Joseph. Appendix I of Chief Joseph: The Biography of a Great Indian , by Chester Anders Fee. Pp. 319 -36. New York: Wilson-Erickson. Wroth, Lawrence C. 1975 [1928] The Indian Treaty as Literature. In Literature of the American Indians: Views and Interpretations; A Gathering of Indian Memories, Symbolic Contexts, and Literary Criticism . Abraham Chapman, ed. Pp. 324 -37. New York: New American Library. Young Joseph 1879 Council Fire 2 ( 2 ): 22 -23. American Society for Ethnohistory 2007 Data & FiguresSupplementsReferencesAoki, Haruo 1989 Chief Joseph's Words. Idaho Yesterdays 33 ( 3 ): 16 -21. Armstrong, Virginia Irving, comp. 1971 I Have Spoken: American History through the Voices of the Indians . Athens, OH: Swallow. Balgooyen, Theodore J. 1968 The Plains Indian as a Public Speaker. University of Wyoming Publications 34 ( 2 ): 12 -43. Barbeau, Marius 1932 Indian Eloquence. Queen's Quarterly 39 : 451 -64. Barthes, Roland 1989 The Death of the Author. In The Rustle of Language . R. Howard, trans. Pp. 49 -55. Berkeley: University of California Press. Bauman, Richard, and Charles L. Briggs 1990 Poetics and Performance as Critical Perspectives on Language and Social Life. Annual Review of Anthropology 19 : 59 -88. Beal, Merrill D. 1963 “I Will Fight No More Forever”: Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce War . New York: Ballantine. Bender, Margaret 2002 Signs of Cherokee Culture: Sequoyah's Syllabary in Eastern Cherokee Life . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Berkhofer, Robert F., Jr. 1978 The White Man's Indian: Images of the American Indian from Columbus to the Present . New York: Vintage. The “Bible Chief” 1877 Chicago Times , 26 October . Bierwert, Crisca 1998 Remembering Chief Seattle: Reversing Cultural Studies of a Vanishing Native American. American Indian Quarterly 22 ( 3 ): 280 -304. Boyd, James 1925 Interview by David Heilger, 28 May, transcript. Montana Historical Society, AC94-40, Collection SC 2083. Broken Pledges: How Red Joseph Was Sold by His White Brethren 1879 Washington Post , 18 January . Brown, Mark H. 1967 The Flight of the Nez Perce . New York: Putnam. 1972 The Joseph Myth. Montana: The Magazine of Western History 22 ( 1 ): 2 -17. The Captive Chief 1877 San Francisco Chronicle , 1 November [datelined 10 October], 3. Chalmers, Harvey, II 1962 The Last Stand of the Nez Perce: Destruction of a People . New York: Twayne. Chief Joseph's Own Story 1879 Army and Navy Journal , 22 March , 586 -87. Clark, J. Stanley 1945 The Nez Percés in Exile. Pacific Northwest Quarterly 36 ( 3 ): 213 -32. Clements, William M. 1996 Native American Verbal Art: Texts and Contexts . Tucson: University of Arizona Press. 2002 Oratory in Native North America . Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Clifford, James 1986 On Ethnographic Allegory. In Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography . James Clifford and George E. Marcus, eds. Pp. 98 -121.Berkeley: University of California Press. Cmiel, Kenneth 1990 Democratic Eloquence: The Fight over Popular Speech in Nineteenth-Century America . New York: Morrow. DeMallie, Raymond J., ed. 1984 The Sixth Grandfather: Black Elk's Teachings Given to John G. Neihardt . Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Derrida, Jacques 1976 Of Grammatology . Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, trans. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Fee, Chester Anders 1936 Chief Joseph: The Biography of a Great Indian . New York: Wilson-Erickson. Fliegelman, Jay 1993 Declaring Independence: Jefferson, Natural Language, and the Culture of Performance . Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Foucault, Michel 1977 What Is an Author? In Language, Counter-memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews . Donald F. Bouchard, ed. Donald F. Bouchard and Sherry Simon, trans. Pp. 113 -38. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Furtwangler, Albert 1997 Answering Chief Seattle . Seattle: University of Washington Press. Goody, Jack 1977 The Domestication of the Savage Mind . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Greene, Jerome A. 2000 Nez Perce Summer, 1877: The U.S. Army and the Nee-Me-Poo Crisis . With a foreword by Alvin M. Josephy Jr. Helena: Montana Historical Society Press. Gustafson, Sandra M. 2000 Eloquence Is Power: Oratory and Performance in Early America . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Hampton, Bruce 1994 Children of Grace: The Nez Perce War of 1877 . New York: Holt. Harbsmeier, Michael 1989 Writing and the Other: Travellers' Literacy, or Towards an Archaeology of Orality. In Literacy and Society . Karen Schousboe and Mogens Trolle Larsen, eds. Pp. 197 -228. Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag. Holler, Clyde, ed. 2000 The Black Elk Reader . Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. Howard, Helen Addison 1941 War Chief Joseph . Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Howard, Oliver O. 1877a Howard's Report. Chicago Daily Tribune , 25 October . 1877b Supplementary Report: Non-treaty Nez Percé Campaign. In Annual Report of the Secretary of War . Vol. 1 , 585 -660. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. 1879 The True Story of the Wallowa Campaign. North American Review 129 ( July ): 53 -64. 1972a [1881] Nez Perce Joseph: An Account of His Ancestors, His Lands, His Confederates, His Enemies, His Murders, His War, His Pursuit and Capture . New York: Da Capo. 1972b [1907] My Life and Experiences among Our Hostile Indians . New York: Da Capo. Howard's Nez-Percé War 1881 Review of Nez Perce Joseph , by Oliver O. Howard. 33 ( 840 ): 95 -96. Hymes, Dell 1981 “In Vain I Tried to Tell You”: Essays in Native American Ethnopoetics . Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Indian Eloquence 1828 Ariel 2 ( 18 ): 142 . 1986 [1836] In Native American Folklore in Nineteenth-Century Periodicals . William M. Clements, ed. Pp. 1 -12. Athens, OH: Swallow; Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Joseph, Chief 1879 An Indian's View of Indian Affairs. With an introduction by William H. Hare. North American Review 128 ( April ): 412 -33. Joseph'[s] Speech in Full 1877 Bismarck [Dakota Territory] Tri-weekly Tribune , 26 October . Josephy, Alvin M., Jr. 1997 [1965] The Nez Perce Indians and the Opening of the Northwest . Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Kaiser, Rudolf 1987 Chief Seattle's Speech(es): American Origins and European Reception. In Recovering the Word: Essays on Native American Literature . Brian Swann and Arnold Krupat, eds. Pp. 497 -536. Berkeley: University of California Press. Krupat, Arnold 1982 An Approach to Native American Texts. Critical Inquiry 9 ( 2 ): 323 -38. 1985 For Those Who Come After: A Study of Native American Autobiography . Berkeley: University of California Press. 1987 Post-structuralism and Oral Literature. In Recovering the Word: Essays on Native American Literature . Brian Swann and Arnold Krupat, eds. Pp. 113 -28. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1989 The Voice in the Margin: Native American Literature and the Canon . Berkeley: University of California Press. Krupat, Arnold, ed. 1994 Native American Autobiography: An Anthology . Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Lavender, David 1992 Let Me Be Free: The Nez Perce Tragedy . New York: HarperCollins. Lossing, Benson J. 1870 Our Barbarian Brethren. Harper's New Monthly Magazine 40 ( May ): 793 -811. Low, Denise 1995 Contemporary Reinvention of Chief Seattle: Variant Texts of Chief Seattle's 1854 Speech. American Indian Quarterly 19 ( 3 ): 407 -21. MacRae, Donald 1981 [1925] Foreword to Chief Joseph's Own Story , by Chief Joseph. Fairfield, WA: Galleon. McCoy, Robert R. 2004 Chief Joseph, Yellow Wolf, and the Creation of Nez Perce History in the Pacific Northwest . New York: Routledge. McWhorter, Lucullus Virgil 1980 [1952] Hear Me, My Chiefs! Nez Perce History and Legend . Caldwell, ID: Caxton. 1983 [1940] Yellow Wolf: His Own Story . Rev. and enl. ed. Caldwell, ID: Caxton. Miles, Nelson A. 1877 Report from Camp near North End of Bear's Paw Mountains, M.T., to Assistant Adjutant General, Dept. of Dakota, Saint Paul, Minn., 6 October. National Archives, Collection M666: Letters Received by the Office of the Adjutant General (Main Series) . Roll 338, frames 528-38 (pages 1-11). Published in O. O. Howard 1877b: 654 -55. 1896 Personal Recollections and Observations of General Nelson A. Miles . Chicago: Werner. 1911 Serving the Republic: Memoirs of the Civil and Military Life of Nelson A. Miles . New York: Harper and Brothers. Murray, David 1991 Forked Tongues: Speech, Writing, and Representation in North American Indian Texts . Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Ong, Walter J. 1982 Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word . London: Methuen. The Pursuit and Battle 1877 Chicago Daily Tribune , 25 October . Robie, Harry 1986 Red Jacket's Reply: Problems in the Verification of a Native American Speech Text. New York Folklore 12 ( 3-4 ): 99 -117. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 1998 [1781] Essay on the Origin of Languages. In The Collected Writings of Rousseau. Vol. 7, Essay on the Origin of Languages and Writings Related to Music . John T. Scott, ed. and trans. Pp. 289 -332. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England. Sanders, Thomas E., and Walter W. Peek, comp. 1973 Literature of the American Indian . New York: Glencoe. Sayre, Gordon M. 2005 The Indian Chief as Tragic Hero: Native Resistance and the Literatures of America, from Moctezuma to Tecumseh . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. A Shameful Story: Chief Joseph's Indictment of the Treacherous White Man 1879 Washington Post , 16 January . Sheehan, Bernard W. 1969 Paradise and the Noble Savage in Jeffersonian Thought. William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser. , 26 : 327 -59. Slickpoo, Allen P., Sr. 1973 Noon Nee-Me-Poo (We, the Nez Perces): Culture and History of the Nez Perces . [Lapwai, ID: Nez Perce Tribe of Idaho]. Smith, Sherry L. 1996 Reimagining the Indian: Charles Erskine Scott Wood and Frank Linderman. Pacific Northwest Quarterly 87 ( 3 ): 149 -58. Sorber, Edna C. 1972 The Noble Eloquent Savage. Ethnohistory 19 : 227 -36. Strickland, William 1977 Cherokee Rhetoric: A Forceful Weapon. Journal of Cherokee Studies 2 ( 4 ): 375 -84. The Surrender of Joseph 1877 Harper's Weekly 21 ( 17 November ): 905 -6. Sutherland, Thomas A. 1980 [1878] Howard's Campaign against the Nez Perce Indians, 1877 . Fairfield, WA: Galleon. Tedlock, Dennis 1983 The Spoken Word and the Work of Interpretation . Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Tracy, William 1871 Indian Eloquence. Appletons' Journal 6 ( 11 November ): 543 -45. Vanderwerth, W. C. 1971 Indian Oratory: Famous Speeches by Noted Indian Chieftains . Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Wells, Merle W. 1964 The Nez Perce and Their War. Pacific Northwest Quarterly 55 ( 1 ): 35 -37. Wood, C. E. S. 1877 Gen. Howard and Chief Joseph: Speech of the Indian Chief in Surrendering to Gen. Miles. New York Times , 16 November [datelined 15 November]. 1884 Chief Joseph, the Nez-Percé. Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine 28 ( 1 ): 135 -42. 1893 Famous Indians: Portraits of Some Indian Chiefs. Century Magazine 46 ( 3 ): 436 -45. 1936 The Pursuit and Capture of Chief Joseph. Appendix I of Chief Joseph: The Biography of a Great Indian , by Chester Anders Fee. Pp. 319 -36. New York: Wilson-Erickson. Wroth, Lawrence C. 1975 [1928] The Indian Treaty as Literature. In Literature of the American Indians: Views and Interpretations; A Gathering of Indian Memories, Symbolic Contexts, and Literary Criticism . Abraham Chapman, ed. Pp. 324 -37. New York: New American Library. Young Joseph 1879 Council Fire 2 ( 2 ): 22 -23. RelatedCiting articles viaEmail alertsRelated ArticlesRelated TopicsRelated Book ChaptersWhat was the purpose of Chief Joseph surrender speech?In his surrender speech, "I Will Fight No More Forever," Chief Joseph confesses his own exhaustion and offers a list of the hardships that have befallen his people while attempting to escape the U.S. army.
What was the outcome of Chief Joseph's speech?Out of the great Native American chiefs and warriors who represented bravery, leadership, strength, and military skill, Chief Joseph was known for his heart. On October 5, 1877, his speech, as he surrendered to General Howard, immortalized him in American history forever: "I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed.
What did Chief Joseph want?Chief Joseph spent the rest of his life fighting peacefully for the rights of his people. He met with President Rutherford B. Hayes and President Theodore Roosevelt to state his case. He hoped that one day the freedom of the United States would also apply to Native Americans and his people.
What did Chief Joseph fight for?In 1873, Chief Joseph negotiated with the federal government to ensure that his people could stay on their land in the Wallowa Valley as stipulated in 1855 and 1863 land treaties with the U.S. government.
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