How the West Was Bullied

While some Indian tribes were violent, and more apt to rebel against the U.S. Government in very physical ways, the Nez Percés were very cooperative and were not very willing to kill White men, “Whenever the Government has asked us to help them against other Indians, we have never refused. When the white men were few and we were strong we could have killed them all off, but the Nez Percés wished to live at peace.” Throughout Chief Joseph’s document, he speaks of the many great injustices that had been wrought against his people. First, he was moved off his land that he had been told was purchased by the U.S. government, which he never did. When they received the ultimatum to leave, they were not given adequate time to gather their stock, and even then they made a break for it, so to say, for Canada. Then when he agreed to go with General Miles, who promised his land would be returned to him, his land was not returned. The Nez Percés were carted around the American Midwest, being placed in temporary refugee camps that provided none of the amenities that his former land occupied, such as good water supplies, horses, and vegetation. Finally, when the Nez Percés were moved back to the area where they came from, they were not given their exact land. The Nez Percés were given a nearby reservation that was small and cramped (even though they had lost many since they left and fled for Canada). Near the end of his piece, Chief Joseph calls for, what sounds to the reader like, assimilation.

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 follow the religion of my fathers, free to think and talk and act for myself–and I will obey every law, or submit to the penalty.
Here, Chief Joseph is almost begging for the assimilation of the Nez Percés into the governance of the United States. However, with the phrase “follow the religion of my fathers” he clearly does not want to be completely Americanized and turned into a Christian. Chief Joseph wants the legal protections of the nation and still retain the identity of his people. I believe that is the salad bowl of America.

In the Seventeenth Annual Report of the Board of Indian Commissioners, Merrill E. Gates argued a point very similar to, but noticeably different from, Chief Joseph’s in his document. Gates, a white man who lived almost exclusively on America’s East Coast, was perhaps not the best pick to represent the viewpoints of Indian tribes living thousands of miles away. In the report, Gates pleads for the dissolution of the reservation system, and to be completely assimilated into American society. Whereas Chief Joseph wanted the assimilation, but to remain in tribes and keep tribal customs, yet be treated as equally as the White man, Gates seems to want to throw away the Indian identity almost completely, abolish reservations and tribes, and be treated as equals. Gates seems to also favor education, to educate the Indian in the ways of the White man. It seems to me that he may not have quite been on the level with the Indian community, and favored the “Manifest Destiny” crowd. However, he did not want to destroy or obliterate the Indians, so we know he had some of their best interests in mind.

Chief Joseph was quite the celebrity, after rising to fame after testifying in Washington, D.C. He was able to get the word out about the atrocities wrought against his tribe, and what he felt needed to be done–the acceptance of Indians as equals, protection under United States laws, and the retention of tribal customs. Meanwhile, Merrill E. Gates felt that total assimilation into American society was the best thing for the Indian tribes. But, at that point in American history, three things were clear: America was expanding out toward the Pacific Ocean, there were people living where America wanted to expand, and there was no easy solution for what to do with people standing in the way of progress.

Works Cited:

Gates, Merrill E. From the Seventeenth Annual Report of the Board of Indian Commissioners. 1885, Coursepack.
Joseph, Chief. An Indian’s View of Indian Affairs. 1879, Coursepack.