One Small Request
Quick answer: What happened at Chief Joseph's surrender in 1877?
On October 5, 1877, after a four-month, thousand-mile flight toward Canada, Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce surrendered at Snake Creek in Montana's Bear Paw Mountains, forty miles short of the border. A young Army lieutenant wrote down his words, ending: “From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.”
Fresh snow covers Snake Creek in Montana's Bear Paw Mountains in October 1877. The Nez Perce have come more than a thousand miles from Oregon, Canada is forty miles away, and soldiers ring the camp. Chief Joseph sends his answer, and a young lieutenant writes it down: “From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.” That lieutenant, Charles Erskine Scott Wood, later lobbied for Joseph's return home and became his friend. In the 1890s his teenage son Erskine spent two autumns in Joseph's tepee at Colville. Before leaving, the boy asked if his father could do anything for him. Joseph asked for a stallion to improve his ponies. It seemed too small a thing for a great chief, so the boy waved it off and never told his father. He regretted it until he died at 104. In 1997, at Wallowa Lake, the Wood family gave Joseph's descendants a black-and-white Appaloosa stallion. John asks us to pay one small debt this week.
Why it matters for leaders: Keeping your word to someone with no power over you is the plainest test of character there is.
Q: What did Chief Joseph ask of Erskine Wood?
A: A stallion to improve his ponies. The boy thought it too small and never passed it on; the Wood family gave Joseph's descendants an Appaloosa stallion at Wallowa Lake on July 27, 1997.
Q: What became of the lieutenant who recorded the speech?
A: He left the Army for law in Portland, lobbied Congress to let Joseph go home, became his friend, and sent his teenage son to spend two autumns with Joseph at Colville.
Read the full essay on Substack → https://heroespath.substack.com/p/one-small-request
By John Fenzel, founder and CEO of Heroes' Path Foundation