On October 5, 1877, in Montana’s Bear Paw Mountains, the starved and exhausted Nez Perce ended their two-thousand-mile flight and surrendered to General Oliver Howard and his Ninth Cavalry. When the legendary Nez Perce leader, Chief Joseph, stood and said, “My heart is sick
And
Sad.
From
Where
The
Sun
Now
Stands,
I
Will
Fight
No
More
Forever”
he thought they were his final words. He had no idea that he would live for another twenty-seven years. First, he watched hundreds of his people die of exile in Oklahoma. Then Joseph and his fellow survivors were allowed to move back to the Pacific Northwest but were forced to live on the Colville Indian Reservation, hundreds of miles away from their tribe’s ancestral home in Oregon’s Wallowa Valley. Exiled twice, Joseph still led his tribe into the twentieth century, though he eventually died of depression. But my grandmother, who was born on the Colville Indian Reservation, always said she remembered Joseph as a kind and peaceful man. She always said that Chief Joseph was her favorite babysitter.
Yes,
He
Would
Sit
In
His
Rocking
Chair
And
Braid
My
Grandmother’s
Epic
Hair.