Blog 12

“I Will Fight No More Forever” was a speech written by Chief Joseph in 1877. Chief Joseph’s tribe were in a war with the U.S army. The  U.S. wanted Chief Joseph’s tribe, the Nez Perce to move into a reservation. They did not want to go there, so they tried to move to Canada instead.  They crossed through Idaho and Montana having to fight the United States Army the entire way. Many of Chief Joseph’s people died and he did not believe that it was worth all of his people dying. His speech “I Will Fight No More Forever” was actually Chief Joseph’s surrender speech. He gave it on October 5^th, 1877. In his speech, he says that he is “tired of fighting”. He does not like to see his friends from his tribe dying in this war. He has seen so many people die and he says that it is up to the young people to make it stop. He knows that if they move on, they will die because they do not have blankets and they will probably freeze.  In his speech, he says that he wants to see his children. He thinks that his children may be in trouble or in danger. He is afraid that they may be freezing to death.

I think that Chief Joseph valued human life. He did not think that it was worth it to be losing so many of his men in the war. He would rather surrender the war than fight and have more of his men die. I think that Chief Joseph is similar to Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau in the ways that they all value human life. They all believe that each individual person in important. I think that Chief Joseph and Emerson and Thoreau also have some conflicting opinions. Emerson and Thoreau both believe in fighting for what they believe in. They both wanted to fight the civil war and win because they did not like slavery and they wanted it to end. Chief Joseph, on the other hand believed that preserving the lives of his men was more important than fighting in the war.

Bibliography

Chief Joseph. "Chief Joseph." Welcome to Georgia State University. Web. 05 Mar. 2012.