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Chief Joseph’s “I Will Fight No More Forever”

21st Century Skill: Critical Thinking and Communication

Directions: Read and annotate the following speech as well as the encyclopedia article on the Trail of Tears. Then complete an iRACES for the following prompt: How is Chief Joseph’s tone in “I Will Fight No More Forever” influenced by historical events?

1877

I WILL FIGHT NO MORE FOREVER

Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce

Joseph, Chief (Indian name: Hinmaton-Yalaktit) (1840-1904) American Indian chief of the Nez Perce tribe of Idaho. Chief Joseph and his tribe were defeated and captured in 1877 by Colonel Nelson A. Miles. I Will Fight No More Forever (1877)- This is Chief Joseph's Surrender Speech rendered into verse. Opening lines: I am tired of fighting/ Our chiefs are killed.

I WILL FIGHT NO MORE FOREVER

I am tired of fighting.

Our chiefs are killed.

Looking Glass is dead.

Toohulhulsote is dead.

The old men are all dead.

It is the young men who say no and yes.

He who led the young men 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 they are 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 sad and sick.

From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.

Trail of Tears

International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences | 2008 |

Andrew Jackson’s 1828 election as U.S. president presaged congressional approval of the Indian Removal Act, which initiated processes that led in the mid- and late 1830s to the notorious Trail of Tears. Although Jackson justified his actions in compelling relocation of southeastern Indian tribes to plains west of the Mississippi River as “a just, humane, liberal policy,” implementation led to widespread suffering, cruel deprivation, and painful deaths for many. All told, perhaps 60,000 Choctaws, Chickasaws, Cherokees, Creeks, and Seminoles found themselves uprooted from traditional homes; the ordeal experienced by Cherokees stands out as emblematic of the policy’s inhumanity.

Understanding of the Trail of Tears and its impact requires recognition of circumstances then prevalent in the United States and of the targets of Jackson’s policy other than Native Americans. For example, beginning with the 1803 Louisiana Purchase certain national leaders including Thomas Jefferson and, later, John C. Calhoun had argued for relocation as the only “permanent solution” to “the Indian problem.” Controversy greeted such calls, but national policy by the time of the Jackson presidency offered Native Americans a strictly limited number of options: acculturation, relocation, or extermination.

Meanwhile, egalitarian and antislavery tides of the American Revolutionary period had subsided in the wake of profound changes in American life. First, a rising tide of immigration had begun to swell the nation’s northern cities. This created competition for livelihoods between the new arrivals, particularly the Irish, and free blacks at a time when Jackson and his allies courted the white immigrant vote. Extension of the “Cotton Kingdom” in the South coincidentally created huge demands for new lands and slave labor, as well as for enhanced governmental protections for chattel slavery. Further accelerating the processes at play were European intellectuals who formulated supposedly scientific theories regarding race, racial superiority, and racial inferiority. As a result, the nation found itself accepting new racist concepts that countenanced harsh and arbitrary treatment of Indians and black Americans.

Finally, Jackson’s personal experiences contributed to the implementation of racist policy. He repeatedly had invaded Spanish Florida to suppress challenges to southern expansion posed by the defiance of Upper (or Red Stick) Creek warriors and of maroon fighters later called Black Seminoles. His troops had destroyed the Apalachicola River Negro Fort in 1816; battled maroons at the Suwannee River in 1818; and, through the agency of Lower Creek raiders, obliterated the Tampa Bay area sanctuary known as Angola in 1821. Having failed to subdue his nemeses, Jackson aimed early implementation of the removal policy at Florida. By 1835 his actions led to the outbreak of the Second Seminole War, the longest Indian war and, arguably, the largest slave uprising in U.S. history. As noted by General Thomas Jesup, “[This is] a negro and not an Indian War.” Eventually, the Black Seminoles accepted western relocation but mostly after negotiated surrender rather than by military defeat. Thus, the Trail of Tears saw African Americans, as well as Native Americans, paying dearly for political and social changes that had placed the nation on the road to Civil War.

"Trail of Tears." International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. 2008. Encyclopedia.com. 13 Jul. 2013 <