Chapter 14 13. The Escape of the Nose-piercing Clan

1877 On January 1, Queen Victoria was declared Queen of India.On January 25, the U.S. Congress passed the Electoral Commission Act, requiring a recount of electoral votes. The competition between Hayes and Dildon was still in doubt.On February 12, railroad workers went on strike to protest wage cuts.On February 26, Southern Democrats and Hayes Republican representatives met in secret, and reached a compromise in 1877. Southern Democrats supported the Republican Party in exchange for the withdrawal of the Union Army from the South, bringing the reconstruction of the South to an end. .On February 27, the Electoral Commission announced a recount and Hayes prevailed.On March 2, Congress confirmed Hayes' election.On March 5, Hayes became President of the United States.On April 10, President Hayes began the withdrawal of Union troops from the southern states, heralding the end of the era of Southern Reconstruction.On April 10, the first civilian telephones were installed between Boston and Somerset, Massachusetts.On July 14, a general strike disrupted train traffic.On July 20, strike riots spread throughout the United States.From July 21 to 27, fierce battles between troops and railway workers forced the suspension of the national strike.On October 17, the Pennsylvania Railroad signed a contract with Standard Oil, which strengthened its monopoly of oil transportation.In December, Edison invented the phonograph.Published by Tolstoy Anna Karenina.

White people tell one side of the story, mostly not the truth to please themselves.They speak only of their own best behavior, and specifically of the Indian's worst. Chief Yellow Wolf of the Piercing Nose Tribe The earth was created with the help of the sun, and it should be left as it is The field is not formed by boundaries, and it is not what people should do to separate it. To see their single-mindedness in giving us worthless land the earth and myself is one-hearted.Measuring the land is the same as measuring our bodies.If you can tell, tell us that you are sent by the power of creation to negotiate with us.I probably thought that the Creator sent you here to deal with us as you see fit.If I thought you were sent by the Creator, I would think so too, and you have a right to do with us.Don't get me wrong, understand my feelings for the land fully.I never said that the land is mine, and I can do what I like.The one who has the power to deal with it is the one who created it.I claim the right to live on my land and you have the right to live on yours.

Chief Joseph of the Piercing Nose In September 1805, Lewis and Gluck descended from the Rocky Mountains on their way west, and the entire expedition was half starved and ill with dysentery and too weak to defend itself.They were then in the land of the piercers, so called because the French trappers saw these Indians wearing tooth shells in their nostrils.If the nose-piercing tribe had done that, Lewis and Gluck's expedition would have ended on the slopes of the Clearwater River, and their horses would have been stolen.Instead, the Piercers welcomed the white Americans, fed them, and tended the expedition's horses for several months as they continued in canoes to the Pacific coast.

In this way, the friendship between the nose-piercing people and the white Americans began.For seventy years, this tribe boasted that no nose-piercing tribe had killed a white man; but the white man's greed for gold and land finally broke this friendship. In 1855, Governor Steven Stevens of Washington invited the nose piercers to a peace conference.He said there were a lot of white people in this area, and more white people were coming, and he wanted to mark the land so that Indians and white people could be separated.This, he said, was necessary if the people were to live in peace; and if the Indians were to remain in the country, they should keep a place for themselves.

Chief Dukakas, known among the whites as Old Chief Joseph, told Governor Steven that no part of the earth belonged to anyone, nor could a man sell what he did not own . Unable to comprehend this attitude, the Governor asked Chief Joseph Sr. to sign a treaty and accept the gift of blankets.Take your paper away, replied the chief: I will not touch it with my hands. Arya, known to the white people as a lawyer, and many others of the Nose-piercing tribe, signed the treaty.But old Joseph took his people back to his hometown in the Valo River Valley. It was a green field with meandering water, vast pastures, forests on mountains, and a clear green lake.Old Joseph's tribe of piercers, where they kept good horses and cattle, and lived in fine tents, and when they wanted something from the white man, they traded their cattle for it.

Only a few years after the signing of the first treaty, the governor's people flocked around the Chuanbi tribe again, asking for more land.Old Joseph warned the tribe not to accept gifts from them, not even a blanket.After a while, he said: They will surely claim that you have received payment for your land. In 1863 a new treaty was presented to the Pierces, taking the Wallow Valley and the remaining three-quarters of their land, leaving only a small reservation in what is now Idaho State.Old Joseph refused to participate in the signing of the treaty, but the lawyer and several other chiefs, none of them had ever lived in the meandering valley, signed and ruined the land of their tribe.Joseph Sr. called the treaty a thief's treaty, and was so angry that he tore up a Bible that a white priest had given him to persuade him to convert to Christianity.In order to let the white people know that he still had land rights in the Wallow Valley, he erected boundary poles around the borders where he and his people lived.

Not long after, in 1871, Joseph Sr. died, and the chieftainship of the clan passed to his son Joseph Jr., who was only thirty years old at the time.When the government officials came and ordered the piercing nose tribe to leave the Wallow Valley and move to the Rapuwe Reservation Area, Joseph Jr. refused to listen to this.He said: "Neither the lawyer nor any other chief has the right to sell this land. It has always belonged to my people, and it has been passed on to them by our fathers and ancestors. As long as a drop of blood from the Indians can To warm the hearts of our people, we must defend this land.

He appealed to Grand Master Grant to let his people stay where they had always lived.On June 16, 1873, the President issued an executive order removing the Wallow Valley from the white settlement. Not long after, a group of committee members came and started to form a new management office (clan station) in the valley.One of them mentioned the benefits of the school for the Joseph tribe, and Joseph replied that the nose-piercing tribe did not want white schools. Why don't you want school?asked the commissioner. They teach us to have a church.replied Joseph. Don't you want church?

No, we don't want churches. Why don't you want a church? They'll teach us about God's dispute, Joseph replied: We don't want to learn that.Sometimes we can't avoid arguing with people about earthly matters, but never about God, let's not learn from that. It was during this period that white residents invaded the valley and watched over the land of the Piercers.Gold was found in the mountains nearby, the gold miners stole the horses from the Indians, the herdsmen stole their cattle and branded them so that the Indians could not claim them back, and the white politicians went to Washington and told lies about the nose-piercing people, The Indians were accused of being a threat to the peace and of stealing the settlers' livestock.This is really contrary to the facts, as Joseph said: We have no friends who bring such cases to the courts for plea.

Two years after the Patriarch promised that the Wallow Valley would belong to the Joseph tribe forever and ever, he issued a new proclamation reopening the valley for white settlers; Reserved area to go.Joseph had no intention of giving up the valley that belonged to his father and ancestor, but in 1877 the government sent the one-armed chieftain General He Hua to clear all the nose-piercing tribes in the Wallow Valley area. It had been four years since Howard had dealt with the Kejies and the Apaches with fairness and justice, and he had learned that there was no tolerance for Indians in the Army.Now that he was in the Northwest Territories, he was determined to restore unity with the military and carry out his orders quickly and thoroughly.He told his confidantes in private that it had been a great mistake to take Joseph and his tribe of piercing noses from the valley.But in May, 1877, he summoned Joseph to a meeting at La Puwe where they were to decide the date on which they must surrender the land.

Joseph went to Lapuwei, and the people who chose to accompany him were White Bird, Magnifying Glass, his younger brother Olokot, and the prophet Du Hehe of the Valo Valley.The prophet was a tall, strong-necked, ugly Indian, but he had the ability to rebuttal. A white man described him as a fugitive from hell.The meeting was held in a house across from the brig at Fort Rappwe, and Joseph suggested that Du He was a spokesman for the Wallow Valley Piercer Indians. Some of the Chuanbi people gave up their land, but the prophet said: We have never, the earth is a part of our body, we will never give up the land. You all know perfectly well that the government has set aside a reservation and that the Indians must go there.He Hua announced. Who is it that wants to divide the land and place us on it?Du Hehe asked. That person is General Ben, who represents the president here, and He Hua couldn't hold back anymore: My order is clear and must be carried out. The prophet continued to contradict the one-armed chief, asking him how it was possible for the land to belong to the whites since it was passed down from the ancestors of the piercing tribe.He said: We come from the land, and our bodies must return to the land, where our mothers are. I don't want to offend your religion, He Hua exploded: But you must say something practical.About the fact that the land is your mother, and that the land has taken the position of chieftain, I have heard it about twenty times, and I don’t want to hear any more, so let’s get down to business right away. Du Heheshou retorted: Who can tell me what to do in my own territory? The debate continued until He Hua felt that it was time for him to show his skills, so he ordered the prophet to be arrested, taken to a confinement room, and then bluntly notified Joseph to give the nose-piercing tribe thirty days to move from the Wallow Valley. Go to Rapway Reservation. My people have always been friends with white people, Joseph said: Why do you want to be so urgent?I can't be ready to move the village in thirty days, our animals are scattered, and the Snake River is high, let's wait until autumn, shall we?Then the river will be low. If you let the time pass by one day, He Hua replied sternly: There will be troops there to drive you into the reserved area. Those who are still outside the reserved area at that time, all your livestock and horses will fall into the hands of white people. inside. Joseph knew that there was no other way now, and it was impossible to defend this river valley with less than a hundred soldiers.When he returned home with his little chiefs, he found that the soldiers had arrived.They held a meeting and decided to round up the livestock at once and move the village to Lapuwe.White people are plentiful, we are like deer, we can't disagree with them like grizzly bears.Our place is small, their place is big.We advocate keeping everything as it was when the great gods created them, and they will not. If they think it is inappropriate, even the rivers and mountains will be changed. Even before they began this long march, some of the warriors had begun to speak of preferring to fight than to be driven like dogs from the land where they grew.Du Hehe, who was released from the confinement room, claimed that only blood could wash away the humiliation imposed on him by the one-armed soldier chief.However, Joseph continued to exhort peace. In order to meet the deadline set by General He Hua, they had to leave a lot of livestock in the valley; when they reached the Snake River, the snow on the mountain was melting and the water was rushing. It was a miracle that the river was taken without any serious accident; but just as they were doing the work with all their might, a group of white men came and stole some cattle from the herd awaiting the transition.Later, when they were in a hurry to swim the animals across, many were lost in the fast-flowing river. The chiefs, growing emotional, demanded that Joseph halt his advance toward the rocky canyon and hold a meeting.Du Hehe, Shiratori, and Olokote all spoke for the main battle, and Joseph told them: It is much better to live in peace than to fall down and die at the beginning of the war.Everyone called him a coward, but he wouldn't budge. When they camped in the canyon a small group of warriors slipped out one night, and when they returned the Nose Piercers could no longer claim to have never killed a white man.In retaliation for the cattle being stolen and driven from the valley, the warriors killed eleven. Joseph, like many other peaceful Indian chiefs, was caught in the pressure of the whites and the desperate anger of the tribe at this time.He chose to be with the same clan.If I can save the killer of the tribe, he said: I will sacrifice my life.I scolded the young people in the tribe, and I blamed the white people. If possible, I should lead the tribe to the bison country (Montana) without fighting. We crossed the White Bird Creek, which is 25 kilometers away, and camped there. Tried to drive the cattle together before leaving, but the soldiers attacked us, and the first battle was fought. Although the disparity is two to one, on June 17th, the Piercing Nose Clan led He Hua's troops into the trap of the White Bird Canyon, killed a third of them, and crushed the rest. up.Ten days later, the one-armed soldier chief brought reinforcements to fight again, but the Nose-piercing tribe slipped away in the mountains.Under a series of swift military actions, Joseph outnumbered the pursuing troops, dealt a heavy blow to the advance guard, and then rushed to the Clearwater River, where the chief magnifying glass and more soldiers were waiting. After the troops of the Chuanbi clan were united, there were now 250 warriors, 450 non-combatants, their luggage, and 2,000 horses.They had seized several rifles in White Bird Canyon, and a large supply of ammunition. Beyond the Clearwater River (the place where their grandparents had welcomed the pioneers of white civilization, Lewis and Grack), Joseph called a meeting of chiefs.All those present knew that they could never return to the Meandering Valley, nor could they go to the Lapwe Reservation with impunity.There was only one way left for them to escape to Canada.Sitting Bull and the Sioux had fled to Granny's land, and the GIs were afraid to go there and kill him.If the Piercers could make it to the Lo-La Trail and climb over Bitter Root Mountain, they might be able to escape to Canada. Because they were used to crossing the Bitter Root Mountains to go hunting in Montana, the nose-piercing tribe quickly left He Hua's army with heavy luggage far away.On July 25th, they walked all the way down the canyon near the mouth of Luoluo River, when Tanma saw the soldiers in front of them.The blue military uniform is building a barrier with wood at this pass. Holding a white flag, Joseph, the magnifying glass and Shiratori rode down the mountain to the barrier, dismounted calmly, and shook hands with Captain Ryan.The chiefs noticed that there were about two hundred soldiers in this camp. If you let us pass, we will pass here without fighting, Joseph said to the captain: But we will pass you anyway. Ryan told Joseph that they would have to disarm to get through, and Shiratori replied that his warriors would never do that.Captain Ryan knew that General He Hua was approaching from the west, and another large army commanded by Colonel Gippen was also marching from the east, so he decided to use a plan to slow down the troops.He proposed to meet again tomorrow to discuss arrangements for clearance.The chiefs agreed on this, but after two days of fruitless negotiations.The nose-piercing leader decided that he could not wait any longer. In the early morning of July 28, Chief Magnifying Glass led the soldiers to form a screen guard line in the woods on the hillside above the canyon.At the same time, Joseph led the non-combatants and livestock up a valley and climbed to the top of the mountain. When Captain Ryan discovered what the nose-piercing tribe was doing, he had already bypassed the barrier of the pass.Captain Ryan pursued, but after a brief encounter with Joseph's fighters in the rear, he decided not to venture into real combat, and returned to the now useless barrier. The chiefs believed that they had passed He Hua, but they didn't expect Ji Peng's army to approach, so they decided to go south to the familiar hunting ground along the Dakong River.If the white folks let them go, they probably wouldn't have to be with Sitting Bull in granny's land. On the night of August 9th, Colonel Gippen the Lame led a mixed column of local volunteers and mounted infantry, and hid the troops behind the hillside overlooking the Dakong River.As it was getting dark, the Volunteers asked Gibbon if he would take prisoners in this attack.Gippen replied that he did not want Indian prisoners, male or female.It was cold at night, and officers and soldiers drank whiskey to keep warm.Several of them were drunk when Gibbon ordered the attack at dawn.Starting from the infantry line, a volley of guns was fired, and then rushed towards the nose-piercing cone. Fifteen-year-old Katorik was sleeping when he heard the bang of rifle fire.I jumped up from the blanket and ran for about ten meters, then got down on my knees and crawled on my hands.There was an old woman, Patscomy, who came out of the cone and crawled on her hands and knees in the same way.She was on my left, shot in the chest, and I heard the sound of the bullet.She said to me: You'd better not stop here, let's go, I got caught.This is dead.Of course I ran for my life and hid in the bushes.There seemed to be soldiers shooting everywhere, into the cones, or wherever Indians could be seen.I saw children killed and grown men fall under the rain of guns. Another teenage black hawk woke him up with a gun shot through the cone of his home.He was so frightened that he ran for a while and jumped into the river, but the water was too cold.He got up from the river again, helped rescue the horses, and drove the horses up to a hill, out of sight of the soldiers. At this time, the Indians had recovered from the unexpected shock. When Joseph was directing the rescue of non-combatants, Shiratori deployed soldiers to carry out a counterattack.Kill!Beat them to death!He cried out: We can shoot as well as any soldier. In fact, the marksmanship of the piercing nose tribe is much better than that of Ji Peng's officers and soldiers.We beat the soldiers very badly at this time, and the yellow wolf said: "They were so frightened that they turned around and ran across the river. Their actions seemed to be drunk. We think some people were beaten to death because they were drunk." When the soldiers tried to set up a howitzer, the nose-piercing warriors swarmed up to the gunner, snatched the cannon, and destroyed it.The sight of a soldier's rifle aimed at Colonel Gibbon, limping him twice. At this time, Joseph had already moved the whole camp, and only a few soldiers nailed the Gippeng soldiers to the wood and behind the temporary obstacles created by turning right.The nose-piercing tribe resumed their flight, this time turning around and heading south away from Canada, because they believed that this was the only way to escape their pursuers.The soldiers killed thirty soldiers and wounded at least forty others; however, under Ji Peng's brutal dawn attack, eighty of the nose-piercing tribe died, and two-thirds were women and children. Corpses had been sieved by bullets, heads mashed by boot heels and rifle butts.The air was heavy with sorrow, and Yellow Wolf said: Some soldiers act like they've lost their minds. If General He Hua hadn't led a new force of cavalry to rescue them, the guards of the nose-piercing tribe might starve to death or beat all the soldiers guarded by Ji Peng to death.The warriors retreated hastily, caught up with Joseph, and warned him that the one-armed great chief was stalking him again. We retreated as quickly as we could, said Joseph, and six days later General Howard approached us and attacked him, taking nearly all his mules and horses. In fact, most of the animals he captured were mules, but these pack mules carried He Hua's supplies and ammunition.The Indians left the flustered soldiers behind, and on August 22, crossed the Taki Pass and entered Yellowstone Park. Just five years earlier, the Great Convention in Washington had made Yellowstone the nation's first national park, and in the summer of 1877 adventurous tourists visited its natural wonders.One of them was none other than the great soldier Sherman. He came to the west to review, but found that there were no less than 300 piercing nose warriors, including women and children's family members, and they had outwitted the entire Northwest Army. From his luxurious tent, Sherman was almost within sight of the fugitive Indians, crossed Yellowstone Park, and immediately issued urgent orders to the commanders of the forts in all directions to deal with these reckless Indians. Around the soldiers, a net of the army was laid.The nearest unit to him was the 7th Cavalry Regiment. This regiment had been transferred back to make up for it the year after the fiasco at the Little Big Horn under the leadership of Coster.The Seventh Cavalry now eager to restore the regiment's glory by winning a battle against any Indian who wanted to fight, marched southwest toward the Yellowstone River.In the first week of September, the piercing nose tribe and the scouts from the Seventh Cavalry Regiment saw each other's columns almost every day.Under the clever detour, the Indians only fought a small battle at Canyon Creek, and they left the Seventh Cavalry Regiment and headed north to Canada.They had no way of knowing, of course, that the great warrior Sherman had ordered Miles the Bear to march from Keoburg just across their path. The nose-piercing tribe carried out rearguard operations almost every day. On September 23, they crossed the Missouri River at the pier of Crow Island.During the next three days, the explorers reported that no soldiers were found anywhere.On the 29th, hunters discovered the location of a small group of bison; because they were short of food and ammunition, and their mounts were worn out due to their rapid progress, the chiefs decided to camp at Bear Claw Mountain.The next day, after filling my empty stomach with bison meat, I wanted to make another long-distance march to the Canadian border. We knew that General He Hua was two suns behind our path, and Yellow Wolf said it would not be difficult at all to keep ahead of him. However, the next morning, two scouts galloped up from the south and shouted, "Soldiers!"Soldiers!Just when the camp was ordered to evacuate, another scout on the far hill waved a blanket as a signal that the enemy was rushing towards us!Will attack immediately! This was the cavalry charge ordered by Bear in Miles. His Indians scouted the horses and found the nose-piercing tribe a few hours earlier.Among the cavalry on horseback, there were thirty scouts from the Sioux and Sai'an tribes. They were young soldiers bought by the Blue Army at Fort Robinson. The one who killed Crazy Horse was assassinated. The thunderous hooves of the 600 galloping horses shook the ground, but Shiratori calmly deployed the soldiers in front of the camp.As the first wave of cavalry swooped down on them, the Nose Piercing warriors opened fire with uncanny marksmanship.In a few seconds, twenty-four soldiers were killed, forty-two were injured, and the charge was blocked amidst the startled horses and the chaotic mess of the saddled cavalry. We fired at close quarters, said Chief Joseph, and drove the men back to their main line within twenty paces, and the dead were in our hands.We got their guns and ammunition.On the first day and night we lost eighteen men and three women.Among those who died were Joseph's younger brother Olocote and the prophet Du Hehe. As night came, the nose-piercing tribe wanted to sneak away to the north, but Xiong Yi had already deployed a blockade of soldiers to trap the camp.Soldiers had been digging trenches all night, anticipating further attacks after dawn. However, Xiong Yi did not attack, and sent a military envoy with a white flag.The envoy came with a demand for Joseph to surrender and save the lives of his people.The reply Joseph sent back said!He'd think it over, and he'd let General Miles know of his decision right away.The snow had fallen, and the soldiers were hoping for a blizzard as a screen for their escape to Canada. That afternoon, several Sioux scouts under Miles' command rode forward with white flags, and Joseph walked across the battlefield to meet them.They said they believed that General Miles sincerely and truly needed peace, and I went over to General Miles' tent. During the next two days, Xiongyi violated the truce flag and took Joseph as a prisoner.At the same time, his artillery was transferred to attack again, but the piercing nose warriors still stood firm, and Joseph refused to surrender as a prisoner.During these two days, a gust of bone-gnawing wind and snowflakes blew across the battlefield. On the third day Joseph's warriors tried to set him free.They captured one of Miles' officers alive and threatened to kill him unless the general released their chief.However, on the very day that General Howard arrived with his lumbering army to reinforce Miles, Joseph knew that his dwindling force was doomed.Miles sent a truce envoy to arrange a battlefield meeting, and Joseph went to hear the general's terms of surrender.The conditions are very simple and straightforward.If you come out and lay down your weapons, Miles said: I will spare your lives and send you back to the reserve. Joseph returned to his besieged camp, and called the chiefs for the last time.The magnifying glass and the white bird were to be beaten, if necessary, to death.They have already struggled to escape for 2,100 kilometers, and they cannot stop now.Joseph reluctantly agreed to put his decision on hold.That afternoon, the last fire in the four-day siege, a sniper's bullet hit the left forehead of the magnifying glass, killing him immediately. On the fifth day, Joseph said: I will go to General Miles and surrender my weapons.He also delivered a moving speech of surrender, the English translation of which was taken down by Lieutenant Wu Tak[Note]. [Note] Lieutenant Wu De soon left the army and became a lawyer and writer, writing satirical poems and prose.His experience with Chief Joseph and the nose-piercing tribe influenced the rest of his life; he became a strong fighter for social justice and a defender of the bullied. This speech later became the most quoted of all Indian speeches in the United States: Tell General He Hua, I understand his heart.Everything he told me before is in my heart.I am tired of fighting, our chieftains have been killed one by one.The magnifying glass is dead, Du Heheshou is dead, and all the old people are dead.Now it is the young people who say to fight or not to fight, and the person who led the young people (Ellokod) also died.It was very cold, we had no blankets to cover us, and the children were freezing to death.Some of my people have fled into the mountains, there is no shelter, no food, no one knows where they may have frozen to death.I'll take some time to find my children and see how many I can find, maybe only among the dead.Hear me, my chiefs!I am tired and my heart is sick and sad.From where the sun is now, I will never, ever, never fight a war again. After dark, when arrangements for surrender were under way, White Bird and a band of unyielding fighters crawled across the ravine in small groups, fleeing on two legs towards the Canadian border.On the second day, they crossed the border; on the third day, they saw Indians riding horses in the distance.One of these approaching Indians made a gesture: What Indians are you? Nose piercers, they answered, also asked: Who are you? Sioux, this is the answer they heard. The next day, Sitting Bull led the refugees from the piercing nose tribe to his Canadian village. However, there was little freedom for Chief Joseph and the rest of his tribe.Instead of sending them to the Rapway Reservation, as Bear Miles had promised, the Army shipped them like cattle to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.Treat them as prisoners of war and detain them in a swampy depression.After almost a hundred people died, they were diverted to a barren plain in the Indian country.Also like what happened to the Modaks, the Nose Piercings fell ill and died from malaria and heartbreak. Government officials and Christian gentlemen visited frequently, uttered words of sympathy, and wrote endless reports to various institutions.Also let Joseph go to Washington, where he met with all the great chiefs of the government.They all said they were my friends, and he said: They also said that I should be fair, but they were all right, but I don't understand why they didn't do anything to my people. General Miles promised us that we could go back to their homes.I believed General Miles, or I shouldn't have surrendered at all. Then he made an impassioned plea for justice: I've heard and talked and talked about it, but I haven't done anything.Good words won't last long unless they become something.They do not compensate for our homeland being ravaged by white people.Kind words do not give our people health and prevent their death.Kind words do not give us a people a home where he can live and look after himself in peace.I'm tired of unfulfilled conversations, and the thought of all those words, and broken promises, breaks my heart.You want any man who is born free, imprisoned, denying him the freedom to go wherever he likes, and still be content, you'd rather turn the river back I once asked some white chiefs where they got their authority , it can be said that Indians can only stay in one place, while white people can go wherever they like, they can't answer it. Let me be a free man Free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose my teachers, free to follow the religion of our ancestors, To think, speak and act freely for my own sake I will obey every law or be punished. But no one listened, and they sent Joseph back to Indian land, where he remained until 1885.By that year, only two hundred and eighty-seven nose piercers were still alive, most too young to recall their former lives of freedom, or too old, sick, and a threat to the great power of the United States to depressed.Some of the surviving people were also allowed to go back to the Rapwe tribe's reservation.Chief Joseph and about 150 other tribesmen were deemed too dangerous to be interned with other nose-piercing tribes who might be affected.The government transported them to Nesbyron on the Cowell Reservation in Washington State, where they spent the rest of their lives in exile. On September 21, 1904, Chief Joseph died. The doctor at the management office reported that the cause of death was grief.