Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce

So... I follow the History Channel on #Twitter. I know, I'm cool... They do this thing where they tweet a short video about "This Day in History" and I usually find it entertaining to see what has happened on a given day, being the history geek that I am. But a few weeks ago, back on October 5th, one of their tweets was on Chief Joseph's surrender to US Army General Oliver Howard, at the conclusion of the the Nez Perce's retreat toward Canada that became known as the Nez Perce War.

The video quotes a short passage from Chief Joseph's speech, but left out what I felt to be the larger and more important concerns involved with his surrender. I felt the speech to be very powerful and moving; though it's total authenticity has recently been called into doubt, the message the speech portrays is no doubt one of suffering and struggling that likely would have been all to real in the plight of a native people at the hands of the US Army in the late nineteenth century.

The text of Chief Joseph's 'speech':

Tell General Howard I know his heart. What he told me before, I have it in my heart. I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed; Looking Glass is dead, Too-hul-hul-sote is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say yes or no. He who led on 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 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.

The video tweeted by the History Channel: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-presidential-speech-on-tv?cmpid=Social_Twitter_TDIH_10052012_4.

Besides the overarching ideas of nativity, belonging, treatment of Native Americans, racism and greed for land that are of course major concerns of the history of Native Americans, this also led me to think about the general depiction of Native Americans in the teaching of history today; I don't remember thinking these things in middle or high school (whether or not that's my own memories escaping me, I'm not sure). All I can recall is the simple, glorified stories of the pilgrims and Manifest Destiny and westward expansion that of course mention the natives in relation to American settlers but still seem to be lacking the depth of understanding that I feel should be there.

Even two semesters ago when I did a project that involved sources from the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, they told an overwhelmingly positive story of the rich cultures and heritage of many native peoples. While important to do, this positivism only tells part of the story. I am far from an expert on what that story actually is, but it tends to upset me when "we" as a people or as a nation tell a story that doesn't really say everything that it should.

The Smithsonian website that I used for my project: http://nmai.si.edu/exhibitions/horsenation/index.html.