I need you so much closer... so come on

[Transatlanticism, Death Cab for Cutie]

This is something Darla pointed me to, and you should check it out:

Click this link

I think that the genocide of American Indians / Native Americans / First Peoples is the single most ugly scar in our nation's history, save for the ugly brutalities of slavery (to me, both are horrid). The tragedy is that many of the problems on reservations today can be traced back to the efforts to essentially wipe out an entire race, and to strip the culture and humanity from those who remained.

Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce is one of the bravest men in history, in my opinion, yet very few children ever learn his name. What child never learns about Abraham Lincoln, Paul Revere, Samuel Adams, or FDR? They are lauded, among countless others, as heroes, yet a man like this chief of the Nez Perce fought to save his people with the same qualities of leadership. He, however, was forced to surrender a group of primarily the elderly, women, and children because his warriors were killed in battle, and the remaining people were starving, sick, and dying in droves as a result of their attempt to escape the US troops and find exile in Canada.

This Native leader's famous speech should be taught with the same fervor as Revere's midnight ride, the Gettysburg Address, or FDR's famous "day of infamy" speech following Pearl Harbor.


In case you don't know it, I want to share it with you here:

I WILL FIGHT NO MORE FOREVER

(Surrender Speech)

by Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce

I WILL FIGHT NO MORE FOREVER -

I am tired of fighting.

Our chiefs are killed.

Looking Glass is dead.

Toohulhulsote is dead.

The old men are all dead.

It is the young men who say no and yes.

He who led the young men is dead.

It is cold and we have no blankets.

The little children are freezing to death.

My people, some of them,

Have run away to the hills

And have no blankets, no food.

No one know where they are-

Perhaps they are freezing to death.

I want to have time to look for my children

And see how many of them I can find.

Maybe I shall find them among the dead.

Hear me, my chiefs, I am tired.

My heart is sad and sick.

From where the sun now stands

I will fight no more forever.

When he surrendered the Chief was led to believe he would eventually return with his people to the lands of his ancestry; instead they spent years in Kansas, and then Oklahoma. He finally returned to the Pacific Northwest, but to a reservation in northern Washington state as opposed to his ancestral homes in northeastern Oregon.

The greatest tragedy is that Chief Joseph died a lonely and broken man, still denied the right to go home, from what his doctor diagnaosed as "a broken heart".

I pray that those who learn the truth would never forget it, and allow compassion into their hearts before they judge and label Native Americans.