1593: Chief Joseph (Nez Perce) on Freedom, Law, and Justice
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Personal)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/11/14
How does Chief Joseph’s 1877–1879 speeches clarify his philosophy of freedom, equal law, and Indigenous sovereignty?
1877: “I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.”
1879: “The white man has more words to tell you how they look to him, but it does not require many words to speak the truth.”
1879: “I have heard talk and talk but nothing is done. Good words do not last long unless they amount to something.”
1879: “Words do not pay for my dead people. They do not pay for my country now overrun by white men. They do not protect my father’s grave. They do not pay for my horses and cattle. Good words do not give me back my children. Good words will not make good the promise of your war chief, General Miles. Good words will not give my people a home where they can live in peace and take care of themselves. I am tired of talk that comes to nothing.”
1879: “Treat all men alike. Give them all the same law. Give them an even chance to live and grow.”
1879: “All men were made by the same Great Spirit Chief. They are all brothers. The earth is the mother of all people, and all peoples should have equal rights upon it.”
1879: “You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who was born a free man should be contented when penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases.”
1879: “If you tie a horse to a stake, do you expect he will grow fat? If you pen an Indian up on a small plot of earth and compel him to stay there, he will not be contented, nor will he grow and prosper.”
1879: “We ask to be recognized as men. We ask that the same law work alike on all men. If an Indian breaks the law, punish him by the law. If a white man breaks the law, punish him also.”
1879: “Let me be a free man — free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose my own teachers, free to think and talk and act for myself — and I will obey every law or submit to the penalty.”
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