I Will Fight No More Forever

Following the publication of the surrender speech in Harper’s Weekly, Chief Joseph became one of the most widely recognized and respected Indigenous figures among white Americans. Of particular interest was the eloquence of the words and his reputation as a great orator, which confused and confounded the common narratives popularized by white writers and politicians regarding the intelligence and capabilities of Indigenous people. Pervasive and damaging stereotypes regarding Indigenous speakers as capable of only monosyllabic speech and possessing only childlike understandings of the world were directly challenged and overturned by Chief Joseph’s powerful words, which were circulated in respected national publications.

Though this speech overturned one stereotype, it was used by those in power in the media and Congress to reinforce another. Like Sitting Bull, Chief Joseph was used by white Americans as a living example of the thesis that Indigenous people could be “civilized,” a word that ignored the reality of the complex and functional Indigenous civilizations disrupted by federal policies and settlers. This stereotype grew in popularity as federal laws shifted toward forced assimilation. Chief Joseph’s popularity posed a double-edged sword as his surrender speech and status as an orator afforded him opportunities to address those in power on behalf of the remaining Wallowa band. He was invited to speak before Congress and held audiences with Presidents Hayes and Roosevelt. His notoriety also allowed white people in power to misappropriate his words and intentions in support of broader narratives of white supremacy that justified the assimilationist policies that would continue to fragment and dispossess Indigenous people of their lands and culture.

Today, the speech can be read and interpreted as an Indigenous testimony and eyewitness account of the impact of federal policies following the Indian Removal Act. Though brief, consisting of only 154 words, Chief Joseph’s surrender remains a revealing testimony of both the injustices facing Indigenous people due to federal policies and the strength of the Nimíipuu in surviving the hardship and loss. The power of Chief Joseph’s speech stems from the candid voice, heartsick tone, simple syntax, and spare use of detail and imagery that combine to paint a lucid and unflinching account of war crimes and theft still unrecompensed.

Paired with a candid voice that seeks to report facts plainly, Joseph’s heartsick tone invites empathy. In stating the camp’s condition after the five days of battle with as few words and descriptions as possible, Chief Joseph’s plain speech is immediately believable. He does not take time to include details of wounds and frostbite, preserving the privacy of victims while remaining honest and factual about the nature of the camp’s distress. He says, “We are cold, we have no blankets; the little children are freezing to death” (Line 4), bearing witness to the scope of the suffering but remaining objective for an effect that plays on the audience’s sense of right and wrong.

Though he reports facts objectively and unsparingly, he is a witness to injustice and the great suffering of his people and is experiencing grief himself. Though he must lead, he cannot rid himself of his emotional response to the tragedy, and the effect is one of someone putting on a brave face. The undercurrent of his grief in response to the dire situation of his people is conveyed in lines such as, “I am tired; my heart is sick and sad” (Line 6), and in those in which he refers to his own heart while appealing to General Howard’s heart. Chief Joseph’s grief and heartsick tone come through when he objectively reports, “Our chiefs all are dead,” then clarifies, “Looking Glass is dead, Too-hool-hool-shute is dead. The old men all are dead” (Line 3). In naming the dead, all of whom he looked to for guidance, Chief Joseph articulates the scope of his losses. Though the audience, Generals Howard and Miles, are not in the same situation, Chief Joseph’s voice and tone invite this audience to not only see his perspective but to believe in its validity.

Chief Joseph’s use of short and repetitive sentences supports the sense of objectivity in his testimony and contributes to the overall sense of grief conveyed throughout the speech. His short, declarative sentences sound tired, weary with grief, measured carefully to convey only what is needed and nothing more. Many of Chief Joseph’s sentences are simple sentences that transmit a single, clear idea, and some of the more complex sentences still carry the effect of a short, declarative sentence through the use of semicolons or dashes. “I am tired; my heart is sick and sad” might technically provide clarification of a single fact (Line 6), but it still sounds like two distinct declarations, particularly considering the origin of the work as a speech onto which the nuances of punctuation might have been added only later. Clear pronouncements also convey a sense of objectivity, as simple declarative sentences leave no room for interpretation on the part of the audience and do not allow for embellishment on the part of the speaker. A statement like “Our chiefs all are dead” cannot be interpreted as something else (Line 3), nor can it be accused of bending the truth.

Even when Joseph chooses longer structures, it is not to embellish or create a spectacle, but to clarify. “My people, some of them, have run away to the hills and have no blankets, no food” is a more complex sentence (Line 5), but the information feels objective because it seeks to clarify the situation for the audience, assuring the generals that not everyone is gone and explaining to them that those who have run do not have the tools to survive. This rhetorical choice makes the speech difficult to argue with or poke holes in and adds to its power as a trustworthy account of historical events. Despite the speech’s objectivity, Chief Joseph’s spare but strategic use of detail and imagery combine to paint a lucid and unflinching account of war crimes.

Though it might be an objective fact that “the old men all are dead” and the “little children are freezing to death” (Lines 3-4), it is also a powerful moral indictment leveled at the generals. These details undermine any claim that the people Chief Joseph traveled with were all warriors engaged in a war against the United States. They instead paint a picture of civilians starving and freezing to death under siege. As subtext at the time of delivery, Chief Joseph uses these details to remind the generals of noncombatants who are suffering and in need of care, and to appeal to a sense of the moral obligation to help fellow humans. It also robs the generals, and by extension, the United States, of a sense of military victory. The repeated detail that they have “no blankets,” the images of children starving, and people freezing and lost, and the fact that they had “no food” tell a narrative focused less on war and fighting and more on a lack of necessities (Lines 4-5). Chief Joseph allows for no illusion that the war was decided by a clean fight of equally matched combatants and instead speaks to the end of a long and harrowing journey in which ill-provisioned civilians were defeated by siege.

Though some used Chief Joseph’s speech in the interest of promoting white supremacy and forced assimilation, scholars today use the testimony contained in the document to interrogate how history is remembered and for whom it is recorded. Shifting perspectives away from the 19th-century preoccupation with the eloquence of the speaker reveals a speech that does more than offer reasons for surrender in skillful words. It also bears witness to injustice and reveals the strength of a leader in the face of impossible adversity.