I Will Fight No More Forever

Re-enactment of the story of Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce Indians, who lived in the beautiful Wallowa Valley of Idaho and Oregon. In 1877, President Grant opened the valley to white settlement, and the Nez Perce were given thirty days in which to move to the Lapwai Reservation. The government sent the one-armed soldier-chief, General Oliver Otis Howard, to clear all Nez Perce out of Wallowa Valley. Chief Joseph, in a succession of shrewd military actions, outmaneuvered ten pursuing units of the U.S. Army until his outnumbered band, sick, starving, and tired, finally surrendered after a seventeen hundred mile, one hundred eight day fighting retreat. On October 8, 1877, Chief Joseph made his noble speech, "from where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever."