I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. Looking Glass is dead; Too-Hool-Hool-Suit 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 (Ollacut) 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 against the white man forever.
— Chief Joseph, speech in surrendering to General Nelson Appleton Miles after evading a pursuit nearly to Canada in 1877 (historical evidence points to the author being Charles Erskine Scott Wood). |
