An early glimpse at the people inspiring my next poetry collection
Chief Joseph was born in Oregon’s Wallowa Valley around 1840. He became a leader of the Wallowa band of the Nimíipuu, also known as the Nez Perce, and spent much of his life trying to protect his people’s right to remain in their homeland.
To understand his stand, we have to begin with a promise the United States failed to keep.
An 1855 treaty established a large reservation that included the Wallowa homeland. Then gold was discovered within the reservation’s boundaries in 1860. Thousands of miners entered without permission. Instead of removing them and protecting the land set aside by treaty, the federal government pursued another agreement. The 1863 treaty reduced the reservation by about 90 percent and excluded the Wallowa Valley.
Some Nimíipuu leaders signed. Others, including Joseph’s father, Old Joseph, refused. The United States treated the agreement as binding on the bands that had rejected it. Among the Nimíipuu, it became known as the “Thief Treaty” or “Steal Treaty.” The name tells us what a simple account of a “new treaty” leaves out: people were being told to surrender a home they had never agreed to sell.
After his father’s death, Chief Joseph argued for years that his band was not bound by that agreement. In 1877, the U.S. Army ordered the resisting bands onto the smaller reservation. The conflict that followed sent roughly 800 Nimíipuu, including children and elders, on a flight of more than 1,100 miles. Joseph was one of several leaders who guided and spoke for them. At Bear Paw, near the Canadian border, he surrendered amid devastating losses, saying, “From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever.”
Even then, the broken promises continued. Those who surrendered expected to return west. Instead, they were sent to Kansas and then Indian Territory. Joseph spent the rest of his life petitioning for his people to return. He died in 1904 without being allowed to resettle in the Wallowa Valley.
I am writing this series because the people inspiring my poems stood up to power, often at great cost. Their stories lose their meaning when we soften what they faced. Today, as the administration directs a review of Smithsonian exhibits to favor more “uplifting” portrayals of American history, I believe we must be especially willing to tell the parts that cast our government in a poor light. A treaty broken to make way for gold seekers is part of American history. So is Chief Joseph’s refusal to let his people’s claim to their homeland be forgotten.
His life is one of the inspirations for my upcoming collection, Inspired Poetry: Justice, Freedom & Human Rights.
Further reading: The Nez Perce Tribe’s history, the National Park Service’s accounts of the treaty era and the aftermath of the 1855 treaty, and the White House directive concerning historical exhibits.