Hero Status for Chief Joseph :: American History Essays

Hero Status for Chief JosephA modest and subdue monument was raised to this giant Indian. A seven and a one-half foot white marble shaft sets atop a consummate(a) hill where a lone, half dead elm tree stands, 14 miles north of the Grand Coulee Dam, in a small Indian settlement on the Colville Indian Reservation. The acre or so of ground is delineated by wire fence. Weeds have oergrown mounds where graves are leave unidentified and only apparent by small mounds of rock. The elm stands, gnarlight-emitting diode, over his grave. White chipped rock fill a rectangle edged with one by four wood planking, smaller in length than this man stood in all of this grown years. To his honor had been placed a coin purse, cigarettes, a dog tag, dried flowers in mason jars, an arrowhead, keys, notes under rocks, a hallucination catcher hanging on the tree, where I placed a Nez Perce beadwork necklace. My heart was sad by the desolation of this mans grave. My heart was sadder, knowing that his g ive way days were spent begging James McLaughlin, Indian Inspector, to let him to diminish to his beloved home in the Wallowa Valley. For Joseph it was a kind of pilgrimage to his transmitted home. When he gazed once more upon the grave of his father...the tears brimmed over in the old primary(prenominal)s eyes. McLaughlin issued an adverse report to the government, never allowing the chief and his people to return to Oregon. Joseph, silent and brooding for weeks sat stoically for built-in days at a time without moving or speaking. academic session before his fire on September 21, 1904, he fell in the lead on his face. He died of a broken heart.This Indian colossus, this gentle Napoleon-Gandhi that led his people in a feat that will likely be handed down as a legend, accomplished miracles and mysteries that make him construe by the white people and the Nez Perce. Tom and I arrived in Nespelem at about 415 in the afternoon after a near four hour drive. 185 miles from Moscow an d 100 miles northeast of Spokane. No signs. No historic landmarks. You just have to know that if you are spirit for the grave of The Red Napoleon you must stop and ask at the gas station. Professor Swagerty, history professor at the University of Idaho, had given these directions when he responded to my email about location of the grave site.