November is Native American History Month; next year (2025) will mark the 350th anniversary of King Phillip’s War, the beginning of the end for the native people as the dominant polity on this continent. I’m marking the occasion with a series of daily posts related to the history of the Native Americans and their interactions with encroaching Europeans. Some will have to do with pop culture; others will be weightier. This series is dedicated to Sterling and Samantha.
Nearly 50 years ago my family sat together and watched the ABC telefilm I Will Fight No More Forever (1975). It was a memorable experience. I can still recall certain images from the film though I haven’t seen it since, and have always remembered the broad outline of its saga. We almost certainly watched it at the instigation of my dad, who as I’ve mentioned grew up near the Bell Route of the Trail of Tears, and used to take us on hikes at the site of the Great Swamp Fight, and was generally sympathetic to the plight of Native Americans.
The film commemorates the story of how in 1877 Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce, who’d been ordered to move his people from their Oregon homeland to a smaller reservation in Idaho, did a U turn, and fled with his people, hoping to make it to asylum in Canada alongside Sitting Bull and his Hunkpapa. Chief Joseph and his band made it nearly 1,200 miles before circumstances forced him to surrender a mere 40 miles short of his goal — heartbreakingly close. This doomed Exodus has a lot in common with the one at the heart of John Ford’s last western Cheyenne Autumn (1964), though I recall the tone being similar to more recent revisionist westerns like Little Big Man and Jeremiah Johnson.
The so-called Nez Perce War wasn’t really that, it was more of a case of the army chasing and harrassing this people during their long retreat, with occasional skirmishes resulting along the way. For the most part the Nez Perce managed to evade the bluecoats entirely, confounding efforts to even locate them. The title of the film comes from a famous speech supposedly delived by Chief Joseph at the time of his surrender though apparently published by the army officer who transcribed it, Captain C.E.S. Wood, a remarkable man would later be a radical activist, politician, defense lawyer, and author. Part of it goes:
“I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed…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, to see how many 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.”
In the film, Wood is played by the great Sam Elliott. His commanding officer, the equally remarkable General Oliver O. Howard is played by James Whitmore. Known as “the Christian General”, Howard had served in the Union Army and had served as the head of the Freedman’s Bureau. He was one of the founders of “historically black college” Howard University, which was named after him. Neither of these officers wanted to hurt the people in their charge. It seems likely that they pulled their punches to the extent that they could. They were merely carrying out orders from President Grant, who didn’t want another Little Big Horn on his hands. They seem to have sought to do their duty as humanely as they could under the circumstances. There were many officers in their day would have taken another tack.
Chief Joseph is played in the film by film and TV veteran Ned Romero of the Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana, who would go on to play Chingachgook in tv movies of The Last of the Mohicans and The Deerslayer a couple of years later.
I Will Fight No More Forever was produced by David L. Wolper, whose credits ranged from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory to Roots.