Speeches : Chief Joseph’s Surrender Speech Flashcards
Chief Joseph : Surrender speech
• made to confess his exhaustion to Colonel Nelson Miles, General O. O. Howard
• a list of hardships his people endured while attempting to escape the US Army
• leader during Nez Perce war of 1877 in Bear Paw Mountains battleground, Montana
• born: 3rd March 1840, died: 21st September 1904
The Nez Perce
• Chief Joseph
• leader of the tribe
• takes pride in his culture
• died at 66 (1904)
• fierce and powerful
• father died and buried in the Valley
• Nez Perce - nose pierced
• settled in Coalville Indian Reservation after surrender
• 4 months of war
• 6000 Nez Perce
• very spiritual (learnt about the Creator, receiving more power to go good)
• owned 13 million archers (Idaho, Washington, Oregon)
• had to move over 100 miles in 30 days
• during calf and foal season, rivers bursting w melted snow
• avoided traps and navigated through difficult terrain fast with ease
• motivated and desperate
The US army
• 1805 when first encountered the Nez Perce
• Louis and Clark were taken in and nurtured back to health
• 1836, first missionary met Nez Perce
• Nez Perce welcomed him, he saw them as lost and needed saving
• gave Christian’s potatoes with eyes so they grew and gave non Christians potatoes without eyes so they didn’t grow
• forced them to adopt the white mans culture
• split the tribes
• 90% of the Nez Perce’s land was taken by the government in 1863
• gold rush
• general Howard put in charge of resettling Nez Perce
• 3 Nez Perce take revenge on white men
• one seeking revenge of murdered father
• over a dozen deaths
• chiefs are horrified
• war is not inevitable
• Chief Joseph send a truce party
• trigger happy civilian volunteer shot at them
• 1/3 of the us army at the truce dead, no Nez Perce casualties
• Chief Joseph now wants to fight
• Nex Perce befriended Louis and Clark
• US army was 9 days behind the Nez Perce in the chase
• another soldier army joins the chase (experiences war veteran)
• Nez Perce didn’t know and were found, their camp was set of fire and people were killed
“From when the sun now stands i will fight no more against the white man”
• was never delivered in english (in Sahaptian dialect)
• Lt. Charles Erskine Scott Wood took down the words on the spot
• Arthur chapman translated them
• after Wood’s death in 1944, historians doubted his reliability
• announced Wood as ‘prostituting the truth’, ‘unreliable’, ‘composing the famous speech himself’, ‘not being particular about the truth’
Key people: General Howard
US army general
• negotiations and leadership of war against the Nez Perce
• known as ’Christian General’
• religious piety
Key people : General Miles
US army general
• lead troops on the ground as field commander in war against Nez Perce
Key people: Looking Glass
Nez Perce war Chief and strategist
• directed the 1877 retreat with Chief Joseph
Key people: Tu-hul-hil-sote
Nez Perce Chief
• older member of the tribe
Key people: Yellow Bull
Nez Perce Chief
• accompanied Chief Joseph to Washington
Keep people: Great Father Chief
President Rutherford B. Haynes (1877-1881)
Key people: the Next Great Chief
Carl Schurz
• secretary of the Interior (1877-1881)
Key people: the Commissioner Chief
John Quincy Smith
• commission of Indian affairs (1875-1887)
Key people: the Law Chief
General Butler
• army general
• previous lawyer
Key people: the Great Spirit Chief
God
• or the dirty worshipped by the tribe
Big ideas in Washington speech
• marginalisation of the Nez Perce
• inefficiencies of the US government
• Jeffersonian ideas on equality (all men were made equal)
• constitutional ideas about democracy and justice
