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US Indian Map

Submitted by Roanman on Wed, 10/12/2011 - 09:23

 

Among the links Kaitlyn sent over the other morning was one to Indian-languages.org which produced the following map.

Click the map below to open up their state by state interactive on the individual tribes and branches of tribes that were roaming your state prior to Columbus.

Pretty neat stuff.

Then, and also from Kaitlyn, Access Geneology provides a very good writeup on the history and leadership of most of the tribes, organized by state and/or tribe and subtribe, maybe faction or branch is a better way to describe it, offered occasionally with a distinct point of view.

Very good stuff and occasionally pretty funny.

 

 

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To quote Chief Joseph over and over and ...

Submitted by Roanman on Sun, 10/09/2011 - 08:43

 

So I'm sitting here at about 3:15 AM, wide awake, minding my own business and trying to decide what to post this AM when Outlook offers it's friendly little ding to let me know that I have mail.

"Hmmm. What's a Kaitlyn." I wonder as I open the link.

Well, evidently Kaitlyn is a regular around here, breeds the occasional Appaloosa horse and has forgotten more about Chief Joseph, the Nez Perce people, their culture and horses than most people are ever going to know.

And ......... she's got the links to prove it.

Viola, this mornings post.

With the exception of the first paragraph, these quotes were taken from an 1879 speech Chief Joseph made to a group of Congressman and "other dignitaries" in Washington DC where he had journeyed to meet President Rutherford B. Hayes in an effort to secure a better deal for his people.

The photo will link you up to an interesting timeline from student sketchbook project offering beau coup links to maps and first person accounts of the history of the Nez Perce War.

 

" I will not move (to the reservation). I do not need your help; we have plenty, and we are contented and happy if the white man will let us alone. The reservation is too small for so many people with all their stock. You can keep your presents; we can go to your towns and pay for all we need; we have plenty of horses and cattle to sell, and we won't have any help from you; we are free now; we can go where we please, our fathers were born here. Here they lived, here they died, here are their graves. We will never leave them."

 

Treat all men alike. Give them the same laws. Give them all an even chance to live and grow. All men were made by the same Great Spirit Chief. They are all brothers. The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it.

 

You might as well expect all rivers to run backward as that any man who was born a free man should be contented penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases. If you tie a horse to a stake, do you expect he will grow fat? If you pen an Indian up on a small spot of earth and compel him to stay there, he will not be contented nor will he grow and prosper.

 

I have asked some of the Great White Chiefs where they get their authority to say to the Indian that he shall stay in one place, while he sees white men going where they please. They cannot tell me.

 

I know that my race must change. We cannot hold our own with the white men as we are. We only ask an even chance to live as other men live. We ask to be recognized as men. We ask that the same law shall 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.

 

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 talk, think and act for myself -- and I will obey every law or submit to the penalty.

 

Whenever the white man treats the Indian as they treat each other then we shall have no more wars. (Yeah, I'm not altogether sure about that one) 

 

Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekht has spoken for his people.

 

To quote Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce tribe

Submitted by Roanman on Wed, 10/05/2011 - 07:20

 

On October 5, 1877 after what is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest strategic retreats in all of military history, Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce people of the Wallawa Valley of what is now Northwest Oregon spoke the following words and surrendered his tribe to the United States government.

 

 

The following history lesson was taken entirely from PBS’ fine series New Perspectives on the West.

 

Chief Joseph’s father Joseph the Elder was one of the first Nez Percé converts to Christianity and an active supporter of the tribe's longstanding peace with whites. In 1855 he even helped Washington's territorial governor set up a Nez Percé reservation that stretched from Oregon into Idaho. But in 1863, following a gold rush into Nez Percé territory, the federal government took back almost six million acres of this land, restricting the Nez Percé to a reservation in Idaho that was only one tenth its prior size. Feeling himself betrayed, Joseph the Elder denounced the United States, destroyed his American flag and his Bible, and refused to move his band from the Wallowa Valley or sign the treaty that would make the new reservation boundaries official.

When his father died in 1871, Joseph was elected to succeed him. He inherited not only a name but a situation made increasingly volatile as white settlers continued to arrive in the Wallowa Valley. Joseph staunchly resisted all efforts to force his band onto the small Idaho reservation, and in 1873 a federal order to remove white settlers and let his people remain in the Wallowa Valley made it appear that he might be successful. But the federal government soon reversed itself, and in 1877 General Oliver Otis Howard threatened a cavalry attack to force Joseph's band and other hold-outs onto the reservation. Believing military resistance futile, Joseph reluctantly led his people toward Idaho.

Unfortunately, they never got there. About twenty young Nez Percé warriors, enraged at the loss of their homeland, staged a raid on nearby settlements and killed several whites. Immediately, the army began to pursue Joseph's band and the others who had not moved onto the reservation. Although he had opposed war, Joseph cast his lot with the war leaders.

What followed was one of the most brilliant military retreats in American history. Even the unsympathetic General William Tecumseh Sherman could not help but be impressed with the 1,400 mile march, stating that "the Indians throughout displayed a courage and skill that elicited universal praise... [they] fought with almost scientific skill, using advance and rear guards, skirmish lines, and field fortifications." In over three months, the band of about 700, fewer than 200 of whom were warriors, fought 2,000 U.S. soldiers and Indian auxiliaries in four major battles and numerous skirmishes.

By the time he formally surrendered on October 5, 1877, Joseph was widely referred to in the American press as "the Red Napoleon." It is unlikely, however, that he played as critical a role in the Nez Percé's military feat as his legend suggests. He was never considered a war chief by his people, and even within the Wallowa band, it was Joseph's younger brother, Olikut, who led the warriors, while Joseph was responsible for guarding the camp. It appears, in fact, that Joseph opposed the decision to flee into Montana and seek aid from the Crows and that other chiefs -- Looking Glass and some who had been killed before the surrender -- were the true strategists of the campaign. Nevertheless, Joseph's widely reprinted surrender speech has immortalized him as a military leader in American popular culture:

"I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. Looking Glass is dead. Toohoolhoolzote is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say, "Yes" or "No." He who led the young men [Olikut] 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 knows where they are -- perhaps 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 sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever."

 

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