Chapter 16: The Lasting Legacy of Indian Removal: Film: I Will Fight No More Forever (1975)

The Lasting Legacy of Indian Removal

The 1975 made for TV movie I Will Fight No More Forever, depicts the Nez Perce War, which took place between June and October of 1877. Under the leadership of Chief Joseph, the Wallowa Band of the Nez Perce and several other small bands of non-treaty Indians refused to go to a reservation and lead the United States army on a retreat covering more than 1,200 miles on their way to Canada. They had been promised their ancestral homelands by a treaty in 1855, but the discovery of gold and an increase in homesteading changed everything. Chief Joseph’s people had long been known as a peaceful tribe and were imperative to the success of the Lewis and Clarke expedition just a few decades before being chased from their land. Chief Joseph surrendered just 40 miles shy of the border and was moved with 400 remaining tribal members, mostly women and children, to a prisoner of war camp in Kansas.