Thesis Of Chief Joseph's Speech

In 1877, Chief Joseph delivered a speech to not only his people but to the United States military and its people. Prior to his speech, the Nez Perce tribe, to which he belonged, and the US were fighting in a war over land. The purpose of his speech was to surrender to the United States. In his speech, Chief Joseph explains the state of his tribe. He uses rhetorical devices such as repetition and imagery to help drive his point.

Chief Joseph, Helen Hunt Jackson, and Frederick Jackson Turner all wrote about how they felt that the government treated them differently from others. They described how their families, land, and tribes were affected by the limitations placed on them at the time. Each of the authors gave reasonable explanations to support their feelings towards this unequal treatment.

“Silence is a Ocean , Speech is a river “.Chief Joseph and Elie Weisel decided to throw there words in the river .Chief Joseph was a leader of a tribe , Nez Perce that wanted justice and freedom for his people .In addition Elie wiesel was a holocaust survivor that gave his speech at a concentration camp with the Ex President obama .

Can you imagine leading 800 people on a 1,100 mile journey? Chief Joseph was a leader of the Nez Perce, a Native American tribe. The Nez Perce were ordered to a reservation specifically for Native Americans. Chief Joseph did not like this idea and attempted to lead his tribe to Canada. During this trip, the U.S. Army was simultaneously fighting them, making the trip even harder than expected. Rather than making it to Canada, they got trapped about forty miles from Canada and after a five day fight the Nez Perce were defeated. These events ultimately led up to Chief Joseph writing this somber, grim surrender. Chief Joseph uses Pathos, Logos, and Ethos to provide emotion, logic and ethics throughout his speech.

In Letter from Governor Edmund Ross of New Mexico to President Grover Cleveland, Governor Edmund Ross wrote to President Grover Cleveland regarding the white resident’s reactions towards Geronimo’s escape from military custody and Ross’ attempt to further convince the government to rid and even potentially kill off some of the American Indian tribes surrounding their settlements. Despite their small number, which was had a population of “less than five hundred”[ Kent McGaughy, American Perspectives: Readings in American History, Volume 2 (New York City: Pearson Education, Inc., 2015), Page 80] people, the white settlers felt uneasy about the fact that they lived in such close proximities to the tribes and that if some of the tribes (particularly, the Chiricahua and the Warm Springs bands of the Apaches group) were removed, they would feel safer and that the removal of the tribes would have a positive and tranquil impact on their territories and industries as they believed the American Indians were “at constant war with the white race”[ McGaughy, Page 80] and that those wars and raids hindered the settler’s way of life.

1.The Native Americans may have felt that the white settlers new to America exhibited hypocrisy toward them because, the settlers wanted freedom from persecution experienced from the church of England, but instead enforced the same things they were fleeing from on to the Native Americans. In “ Reply to the missionary Jacob Cram”, Red Jacket talks about how the white men deceived them. “ Indians were hired to fight against Indians, and many of our people destroyed. They also brought strong liquor amongst us. It was strong and powerful and has slain thousands” (Bayum 452). In this part Red Jacket is talking about how the settlers used deceit, war, and liquor to enforce their beliefs or Christian religion. In Benjamin Franklin’s “Remarks

Have you ever heard of or known someone in your life who has been controlling you? Someone who makes all of your decisions for you, regardless of your opinion? That person makes you feel inferior, like your opinion does not matter, like you aren’t important. Nobody deserves to feel that way, which is why people should be allowed to make their own decisions.

In Seneca Chief Red Jacket’s Address to White Missionaries and Iroquois Six Nations, Red Jacket delivers a speed in Buffalo Grove, New York in 1805, regarding his tribe’s view on religion. For instance, when giving an anecdote on the history of his ancestors, he states, “Our seats were once large, and yours very small. You have now become a great people, and we have scarcely a place left to spread our blankets, You have got our country, but you are not satisfied; you want to force your religion upon us.” which evokes pity to listeners by telling how the Christian whites stole the land from the Native Americans who had fed them and clothed them only to be returned with nothing but the loss of their homeland (Red Jacket 2). Expressing a contradiction of the treatments, Red Jacket conveys the moral question of whether it was right of Europeans to treat their Native hosts in such a tactless manner. There is no greater sorrow on earth than the loss of one’s native land and Red Jacket expresses that emotion of sorrow by claiming that his people could not even find a place to put their blankets as their land was not in their possession anymore. In addition, whites felt entitled to convert the native americans to the ways of Christ by

On September 28, 1864 my tribe Cheyenne and our sister tribe Arapaho decided that we should end the endless blood battles between us and the whites. We decided that we wanted peace between our two lands and we no longer wanted to see a land stain with blood. As the co-chief of the Cheyenne tribe, with my co-chief Black Kettle and with the chief of Arapaho we went to the whites to negotiate a peace treaty between us and them. As we left the whites territory the chief of Arapaho and I were both ecstatic and please; we firmly believe that we manage to set peace with the whites. I went to my people running as fast as I could and told them the wonderful news. They were so happy to the point they no longer had any tears left to cry. However, I should

Andrew Jackson, The United States seventh president, was possibly one of the worst human beings to be president and treated the Native Indians horribly. He, was a bully and used his position to get acts and petitions like the Indian Removal Act passed, to help push Native Indians around so he could get his own way. The Indian Removal Act in and of itself seemingly doesn’t contain that much power, however it was all the power Jackson needed. The circumstances of Jackson’s character and the debates surrounding the Act also lend and interesting lens to examine what Jackson intentions were. When looking at Jackson and how he managed to relocate the Native it becomes substantially more integral to examine all the documents with a wide scope to see how he even managed the relocation of Natives.

This can be seen when the Ponca Tribe received word that “the President told [them] to pack up—that [they] must move to the Indian Territory.” In the interest of the President, someone who did not govern over them, he was forcing the Indians to move out of their home. They were given land that was not suitable for anyone to live on and weren’t even paid for the land that was taken away from them. After some time, these Indians would come to find out that everything they’ve been lied to and that “The President said he knew nothing about it.” Even though they lost their homes, it was only the commencement of the hardships and adversities that were to surface soon. For instance, Americans forced the Ponca tribe from their land in Nebraska and made them take the long trek to their new home in Oklahoma all on foot. The travel alone, nearly eradicated the Ponca tribe and as said by Chief Standing Bear that, “Many died on the road. Two of my children died. After we reached the new land, all my horses died. The water was very bad. All our cattle died; not one was left.” The Ponca Indians were deceived to more than once and mistreated due to the fact that they were not considered people under the law of the United States and that America's expansion was more important than their rights as human

In reading Alfred A. Caves’ article, it says that Jackson violated treaties that the U.S. had with the Indians in order to remove them from their land. It says that the government “misunderstood and often times misrepresent the provisions of the law” . Many times the treaties with the Indians were not seen as actual agreement that the government didn’t have to follow and abide by what was said in the agreement. When the Indian Removal Act came along in 1830, the act made things even more complicated. One of the

The United States perspective on the Native people has drastically changed from President to President. “George Washington originally started the ‘Indian Civilization Campaign’, which encouraged the Native people to adopt Western-European culture along with Christianity.” (Sturgis, pg 5) The United States was to recognize the Native groups as the owners of the land they inhabit, with the rights to sell or retain them. This ideology was later adopted and implemented by Thomas Jefferson who believed that it was, “established by Jus gentium for America, that a white nation settling down and declaring that such and such are their limits, makes an invasion of those limits by any other white nation an act of war, but gives no right of soil against the native possessors.” (Sturgis, pg 5)

Chief Joseph's speech "An Indian view of Indian affairs" is a transcription of the speech of the great Indian warrior, based upon his alleged statements about the state of Indian-white relations. It is thus a second-hand source to some degree, because Chief Joseph never learned to speak English, and his speech is only transmitted through a translation. Joseph mourns the duplicity of the white man, defends his tribe's actions, and mourns the death of his people. He portrays his people as a people of peace who, after they realized that resistance against the white man was futile, chose to give up their guns. However, they were displaced, time and time again, after the white man grew greedier and desired the profit and gold that could be gained from the territories where his people lived.

Chief Joseph is the leader of the Nez Perce tribe. He led his tribe through many great accomplishments, although he had to end his success in a surrender. On October 5, 1877, Chief Joseph and to announce his surrender speech in the midst of a battle. In his famous speech, I Will fight No More Forever, Chief Joseph effectively uses appeals like ethos, logos, and pathos.