"I Will Fight No More Forever": Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce War

by Merrill D. Beal

Overview

Unpublished letters and diaries by eyewitnesses, interviews with decedents, an intimate knowledge of the country enrich this narrative of the heroic Nez Perce Indian War waged in 1877 against relocation.

The result is a well documented chronicle offering new perspective on prewar Indian-white relations, United States government pressures and nontreaty rebellions, the five battles, subjection and surrender, and on the character of the leaders on both sides.

“From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever,” Chief Joseph said in surrender. But as a guardian and protector of his people he at last succeeded in bringing back the remaining members of his tribe to their beloved valley.

Calling Professor Beal’s book, “definitive, but not final,” Herman J. Deutsch, professor emeritus of American history at Washington State University, writes in the foreword: “Joseph and his band remain an example and inspiration to those who today are seeking recognition as human beings, equal in the sight of God and therefore entitled to like status among men. Those who recognize that such aspirations must not for long remain unfulfilled can derive from Nez Perce history examples of the consequences of policies conceived in ignorance and colored with disdain of the culture and way of life of minority peoples. ...A world surfeited with deceptive success stories can ill afford to forget a people and their leader who attained their true moral stature as they were facing their doom.”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780295740096
Publisher:	University of Washington Press
Publication date:	06/28/2000
Pages:	393
Sales rank:	299,998
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 8.00(h) x (d)
Lexile:	1130L (what's this?)
Age Range:	18 Years

Table of Contents

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgements

From Peace to War

1) The Nez Perces at Home

2) A Golden Age of Indian relations

3) Indian Treaties and Controversies

4) On the Warpath

The Campaign in Idaho

5) The Battle of White Bird Canyon

6) Aftermaths, Skirmishes, and Repercussions

7) The Battle of the Clearwater

Crossing the Bitterroot Ranges

8) Crossing the Lolo Trail

9) Affairs at Fort Fizzle and in Montana

10) From Lolo Creek to the Big Hole Basin

11) The Battle of the Big Hole

12) Casualties, Evaluations, and Reactions

13) Incidents on the Route to Camas Meadows

14) The Raid and battle of Camas Meadows

15) On to Yellowstone National Park

16) Indians and Soldiers Cross the Park

Flight toward Canada

17) Escaping the Absaroka Blockade

18) The Batle of Canyon Creek

19) From the Musselshell to the Bear Paw Range

Seventh Cavalry Success

20) Colonel Nelson A. Miles Enters the Campaign

21) The Battle of the Bear Paws

22) “I WIll Fight No More Forever”

23) A Summary of the Nez Perce Campaign

Exile Decreed, Applied, and Abandoned

24) Trails of Triumph and Tears

25) Survival in Exile

26) Epical Twilights

Notes

Bibliography

Index