CHIEF JOSEPH
By
Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce saw the white man break treaty after treaty. Driven at last to desperation, he led his tribe from the Wallowa to the Canadian border, through white armies, civilian militia, high mountains, deep rivers and unspeakable privation. Time after time Chief Joseph outwitted officers who prided themselves on their military strategy, and outfought armies twice and three times the size of his own. He saw his beloved tribesmen die, and counted death a small price to pay for freedom. ""...the greatest fighting chief that the Western Indian wars produced"", Chief Joseph successfully brought his people to the edge of freedom. They camped peacefully, thinking they were in Canada, when actually the border was twenty miles away. They were surrounded, surprised and slaughtered by an overwhelmingly larger force. Then Chief Joseph accepted the handwriting on the wall and led the survivors back to the humiliation of the reservation. The biography is somewhat idealized, but avoids sentimentality. The of the freedom is a moving one which throws an unpleased ight on the white man's injustice to the Indian, and the Indian's natural .