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I need to know the time period in which he lived, his historical significance, his contributions, and why he must be considered a great man ?

2006-09-29 05:56:02 · 4 answers · asked by labelle_1989 1 in Education & Reference Homework Help

4 answers

Chief Joseph was a Chief of the Nez Pierce Indians in the late 1800's who lead his tribe on a merry chase around the pacific northwest finally coming to a halt within miles of his Canadian destination.

Never heard him referred to as Joseph Johnson though... might be a different guy, but its a starting point.

If its not the same guy, your guy would be in the last 100 years or so to have a "European" last name.

2006-09-29 06:14:39 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

i think of so. Shakespeare became right into a meant genius, consequently maximum of his performs make type lists. i've got already had to undergo Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar. the only element that made Romeo and Juliet remotely tolerable for me became into that we've been given to video show the movie by potential of Baz Luhrmann. Romeo and Juliet weren't a appealing celeb-crossed couple. They have been 2 utter morons and so became into virtually each and every physique around them.

2016-10-15 08:30:07 · answer #2 · answered by seelye 4 · 0 0

Chief Joseph Brant -- Mohawk, Loyalist, and Freemason

By George L. Marshall, Jr.

Joseph Brant
Mohawk Chief

Perhaps no Freemason who ever lived in America has been so condemned by some authors and praised by others as Joseph Brant, the powerful and influential Mohawk chief who sided with the British during the American Revolutionary War. On several occasions, he put into practice the Masonic virtues of brotherly love, forgiveness, and charity. On others, he exhibited cold-blooded ruthlessness, savagery and disregard for human life. Unfortunately, space does not permit a lengthy discussion of the life or exploits of this remarkable and complex native American. For a full biography, Reference (1) is the standard source.

The parents of Joseph Brant were Mohawks whose home was at Canajoharie on the Mohawk River in New York. Brant, however, was born on the banks of the Ohio River in 1742 while his parents were on a hunting excursion to that region, and was given the Indian name of Thayendanega, meaning "he places two bets". His father was Nickus (or "Nicholas") of the Wolfe family, who, although not a chief, was a Mohawk of some standing in the tribe.

While still in his early youth, Brant became a favorite of Sir William Johnson, the British superintendent of the northern Indians of America, who was extremely popular with the tribes under his supervision. During his time with the Iroquois, Johnson became particularly close to the Mohawk tribes. He was also a Mason and a former Provincial Grand Master of the New York colony. After JohnsonÂ’s European wife Catherine died in 1759, he married his former Indian mistress, Molly, who was BrantÂ’s sister, in an Indian ceremony later that year. It was due largely to JohnsonÂ’s relationship with Molly that Brant received the favor and protection of Sir William and through him the British government, which set Brant on the road to promotion.

Brant and a number of young Mohawks were selected by Johnson to attend MoorÂ’s Charity School for Indians at Lebanon, Connecticut--the school which in future years was to become Dartmouth College. Here he learned to speak and write English and studied Western history and literature. He is the only one of those chosen known to have derived any benefit from the educational process. He left school to serve under Sir William from 1755-1759 during the French and Indian War (1754-1763). After this, he became Sir William's close companion and helped him run the Indian Department, administered by the British out of Quebec. He also became an interpreter for an Anglican missionary and helped translate the prayer book and Gospel of Mark into the Mohawk language.

About 1768 he married Christine, the daughter of an Oneida chief, whom he had met in school. Together, they settled on a farm near Canajoharie which Joseph had inherited. While here, Brant assisted in revising the Mohawk prayer book and translating the Acts of the Apostles into the Mohawk language. He also joined the Anglican Church, was a regular communicant, and evinced a great desire to bring Christianity to his people. His wife died of tuberculosis about 1771, leaving him with a son and a daughter. In 1773, he married his wifeÂ’s sister, Susannah, who died a few months afterward, also of tuberculosis.

In 1774, Sir William Johnson died and was succeeded in his territories by his son Sir John Johnson, and as Superintendent of the Indian Department by his son-in-law, Col. Guy Johnson, both of whom were Masons. The Johnsons, together with Brant and the Tory leaders Col. John Butler and Col. Walter Butler (also both Masons) were to become leaders of the Loyalist resistance and terrorism in Northwest New York.

Those who remained loyal to England, known as "Loyalists" or "Tories", were not all colonists. Other allies of the British were numerous Indian tribes, more especially the Iroquois tribes who occupied the lands from upstate New York south to northern Pennsylvania with scatterings further south and north and extending west to the Great Lakes. The Iroquois League, also known as the Six Nations, was a confederation of upper New York state Indian tribes composed of the Mohawks, Onondagas, Cayugas, Senecas, Oneidas, and Tuscaroras. They lived in comfortable homes, often better than those of the colonists, raised crops, and sent hunters to Ohio to supply meat for those living back in New York.

In August, 1775, the Six Nations staged a big council fire near Albany , after news of Bunker Hill had made war seem imminent. After much debate, they decided that such a war was a private affair between the British and the colonists, and that they should stay out of it. Brant feared that the Indians would lose their lands if the colonists achieved independence. The Johnsons and Brant used all their influence to engage the Indians to fight for the British cause, and ultimately succeeded in bringing four of these tribes, the Mohawks, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas into an alliance with England -- the Oneidas and Tuscaroras ultimately sided with the Colonists.

About the year 1776, Brant became the principal war chief of the confederacy of the Six Nations, due perhaps to the patronage of the Johnsons and the unusual circumstances in which he was placed. With this high office of leadership, he also received a CaptainÂ’s commission in the British army in charge of the Indian forces loyal to the Crown. Immediately after receiving this appointment, Brant made his first voyage to England. By making this trip, he gained time, and was enabled to observe for himself the power and resources of the King and British government. He also went to protest the policy of Guy Carleton, commander of the British forces in Canada, who refused to invite the Six Nations to join the war against the Americans, except to use 40 to 50 men as scouts.

Northwest New York
Area of Operations
Click to Enlarge

Brant was well received in England, and was admitted to the best society. His own education and his close association with educated men and his naturally easy and graceful manner facilitated his reception, and as he was an "Indian King" he was too valuable a person to be neglected. The members of the British cabinet and the nobility fawned over him; gave him expensive presents; invited him to their great estates, and arranged to have his portrait painted by famous artists like Reynolds, Romney, and others. Among his particular friends was the English diarist Boswell. He received official assurances that the Indian Loyalists would be utilized to a greater extent in the American conflict than that indicated by Carleton. Also during this trip Brant received the Masonic degrees in either Falcon Lodge or HiramÂ’s Cliftonian Lodge in London in April 1776. He had the distinction of having his Masonic apron given to him from the hand of King George III.

Brant returned from England in time to see some action in the Battle of Long Island in August 1776. He then departed for his homeland, traveling by night to elude the Americans guarding the Hudson highlands and the area around Albany. He told the young Iroquois braves of his trip to England and of the strength and friendship of the British. He denounced the IroquoisÂ’ 1775 decision to remain neutral and called the Americans the enemy of all Indians. A tradition says that he promised each of his warriors an opportunity "to feast on a Bostonian and to drink his blood". The speech was received with wild enthusiasm and Brant departed on a tour of regional Iroquois villages to similarly stir up support for the British cause.

Brant was certainly not dissuaded or criticized by the British or the Tories for his efforts. In fact, the intent of the British with respect to the use of Indians in the Revolutionary War was aptly expressed in the following poetic example of Gen. John Burgoyne, Deputy of the British forces in Canada, and taken from the Introduction to BurgoyneÂ’s Orderly Book, page xxii:

" I will let loose the dogs of hell,
Ten thousand Indians, who shall yell
And foam and tear, and grin and roar,
And drench their moccasins in gore:
To these IÂ’ll give full scope and play
From Ticonderog to Florida..."

Space in the present article does not permit a detailed discussion of the many battles in which Chief Joseph Brant played an indirect or a direct part. For a description of these, the references listed contain some excellent material. Suffice it to say that his name has been linked with some of the most notable and infamous engagements of the Revolutionary War--the siege of Ft. Stanwix; Oriskany; the Wyoming Valley of the Upper Susquehanna; Mohawk Valley and German Flats; Cherry Valley; Minesink-Port Jervis; Chemung River-Elmira area; Johnstown; Fort Plain; Fort Clyde; Fort Plank; Mohawk Valley and the Western Frontier , all of which occurred during the six year period from 1775-1781.

We now turn to two incidents which are often cited by Masonic writers in reference to BrantÂ’s association with Freemasonry--his saving the life of Capt. John McKinstry and his attempt to save the life of Lt. Boyd.

After the surrender of the American forces at the Battle of the Cedars on the St. Lawrence River in 1776, Brant exerted himself to prevent the massacre of the prisoners. In particular, one Capt. John McKinstry, a member of Hudson Lodge No.13 of New York, was about to be burned at the stake. McKinstry, remembering that Brant was a Freemason, gave to him the Masonic sign of appeal which secured his release and subsequent good treatment. He and Brant thereafter remained friends for life, and in 1805 he and Brant together visited the Masonic Lodge in Hudson, New York, where Brant was well received and on whose wall his portrait now hangs.

The American general Sullivan, also a Freemason, ambushed the Indians and Loyalists at Newtown, New York in 1779, resulting in the flight of the Indians and a march across the state by Sullivan to the Genesee Valley, destroying the Indian villages and the power of the Indian confederacy. During this campaign, a certain Lt. Boyd, a young Freemason and scout
for Sullivan, was ambushed and captured along with a soldier named Parker. In the words of John Salmon, who was a friend and fellow-soldier of Boyd, the incident continued as follows: "...When Lieut. Boyd found himself a prisoner, he solicited an interview with Brant, whom he well knew commanded the Indians. This chief, who was at that moment near, immediately presented himself, when Lieut. Boyd, by one of those appeals which are known only by those who have been initiated and instructed in certain mysteries, and which never fails to bring succour to a ‘distressed brother’, addressed him as the only source from which he could ex pect a respite from cruel punishment or death. The appeal was recognized, and Brant immediately, and in the strongest language, assured him that his life should be spared.

"Lieut. Boyd and his fellow-prisoner Parker were immediately conducted by a party of Indians to the Indian village called Beard’s Town…, Brant, their generous preserver, being called on service which required a few hours absence, left them in the care of the British Colonel Butler of the Rangers—who as soon as Brant had left them, Butler commenced an interrogation to obtain from the prisoners a statement of the number, situation, and intentions of the army under Gen. Sullivan...." (2)

Another authority (3) continues: "...Butler ordered Boyd placed kneeling before him, with an Indian on each side, one holding his arms, and another with a tomahawk raised over his head. Butler then three times asked of Boyd information which his loyalty to his commander would not permit him to give. ‘Boyd’, he said, ‘ Life is sweet, you had better answer me’. ‘Duty forbids’, was Boyd’s reply, ‘ I would not if my life depended upon the word.’ Boyd three times refused and Butler delivered him to the infuriated Indians who put him and Parker to death with terrible torture, he remaining faithful to the last to his trust, (and) forfeited his life rather than yield up his integrity."

Returning to SalmonÂ’s account (2), " ... The bodies of Lieut. Boyd and Private Parker (who were killed by decapitation--author) were found and buried near the banks of BeardÂ’s Creek, under a bunch of wild plum-trees....I was one of those who committed to the earth the remains of my friend and companion in arms the gallant Boyd....The foregoing account, according to the best of my recollection, is strictly correct."

Thus it would seem that Brant, the "savage", was more charitable in his actions toward his patriot Brothers than were the British Tory Freemasons with whom he was in league. But we should not forget that Brant had received the education of a civilized man, had read the Scriptures, and professed to be a Christian and a Freemason, and he knew that the rapine and atrocities practiced by the Indians were unjustifiable. One can only wonder why Brant did not release Boyd and Parker after he had agreed to spare them, or why he did not have greater influence and control over his Indians to prevent the execution of these unfortunates at ButlerÂ’s hands.

In spite of their defeat by Sullivan, the Iroquois raids persisted until the end of the war and many homesteads had to be abandoned. About 1782, Brant married for the third time to Catherine Croghan, daughter of an Irishman and a Mohawk. He discouraged further Indian warfare, but kept his commission in the British army. He was awarded a tract of 675,000 acres on the Grand River in Ontario to which he led 1,843 Mohawk and other Indian Loyalists in 1784 where they settled and established the Grand River Reservation for the Mohawk.

He became affiliated with Lodge No. 11 at the Mohawk village at Grand River of which he was the first Master (presiding officer); he later affiliated as well with Barton Lodge No.10 at Hamilton, Ontario. In later years, the town of Brantford, Ontario, on the Grand River was named for him.

Due to some legal difficulties with the title to the Reservation land, Brant again went to England in 1785, where he was again well received. At this time, he was able to obtain compensation for Mohawk losses in the U.S. War for Independence and received funds for the first Episcopal Church in Upper Canada, but failed to obtain firm title to the Reservation, whose legality remains in question today (5). On being presented to the King, he declined to bend his knee or kiss his hand, saying," I bow to no man for I am considered a prince among my own people. But I will gladly shake your hand." (5) However, he added he would willingly kiss the hand of the Queen. Again, he sustained himself well in the best circles of the British metropolis, and became a friend and companion of the Prince of Wales. Another objective of his visit was to find out whether the Indians could rely on the support of Great Britain if a general war between the Indians and the United States should erupt. The British government declined comment on so delicate a matter, and referred him to the governor of Canada. Brant returned home to Canada in 1786.

The United States government sought his aid in securing an end to the wars with the Indians in the North- west Territories newly ceded to the United States by the Treaty of Paris, and he went alone to Philadelphia in 1792 for a meeting with President Washington and his cabinet; and he claimed to have received 1000 guineas down payment, plus the offer of an ultimate reward of 20,000 pounds for arranging " a peace with the Ohio Indians". He assured the United States he would help, but upon his return home he changed his mind and actually worked to foment unrest and rebellion among the Ohio valley Indians against the Americans, traveling in the American West to promote an all-Indian confederacy to resist land cessions. Following this, he devoted the remainder of his life to the interests and moral improvement of his tribe, continuing his missionary work and translations of Bible passages into the Mohawk language.

Brant constructed for himself a spacious dwelling in Canada, where he lived in handsome style with a host of slaves, as many as the aristocratic Virginians who would later rule the United States. His clothes were of the finest material, and in his luxurious home elaborate meals were served on crisp Irish linen. At home, he was a hospitable and convivial man, treating those who visited him kindly and courteously. His children were all well educated and his sons Joseph and Jacob were sent to Dartmouth. Unhappily, in 1795, his oldest son, Isaac, made a drunken assault on his father, who drew his dagger and inflicted a mortal wound. The case came before the Council of Sachems and Warriors, which exonerated Brant on the grounds of self-defense. Also, throughout his life, Brant maintained friendly relations with the English, and favored the introduction of agriculture and the useful arts among his tribe. (15)

What more, then, can be said about this remarkable individual, who was at ease drinking tea from fragile china cups, but could also hurl a tomahawk with deadly accuracy? We know that he was well educated; his compositions are highly respectable in point of thought and style, far beyond many of the farmers he had fought against. Perhaps it would have been impossible for Brant to have supported the American cause; he being too vain and too closely allied with the British Lords of the Mohawk valley to consider casting his lot with the humble farmers who spoke of freedom. For Brant, they had the stink of manure and earth about them; he was more familiar with buckled shoes and cologne. It is hard to imagine any other native American, though, who profited so greatly from the Revolutionary War. (15)

Brant died on November 24, 1807, at the age of nearly sixty-five years, at his own house on Grand River, Ontario, and was buried by the side of the Episcopal church he had built there. In 1850 Freemasons restored his tomb and placed an inscription on it, and a bronze statue of him was unveiled at Brantford in 1886. His last words, uttered to his adopted nephew, were: " Have pity on the poor Indians; if you can get any influence with the great, endeavor to do them all the good you can." (4)

REFERENCES

1. Stone, William L., Life of Chief Joseph Brant, Thayendanega, 1838.
2. OÂ’Reilly, G. H., Sketches of Rochester, 1838.
3. Morse, Sidney, "Freemasonry in the American Revolution", Little Masonic Library Vol. III, Southern Publishers,Inc., Kingsport, TN, 1946, pp.294-296.
4. McKenney and Hall, Indian Tribes of North America, Vol. II, 1854.
5. Penick, Tom, The Story of Joseph Brant, Indigenous PeoplesÂ’ Literature, http://www.indians.org/welker/Brant.htm, 1996.
6. Hines, Thomas, The Great League in Turmoil: A Look at the Iroquois of New York During the American Revolution , Old Dominion University Historical Review, http://www.odu.edu/~hanley/history1/Hinse.htm, 1996.
7. Van Tyne, Claude, The Loyalists in the American Revolution, The MacMillan Co., 1959.
8. Cook, Fred J., Dawn over Saratoga, Doubleday & Co., Inc., Garden City, NY, 1973.
9. Coil, Henry W., CoilÂ’s Masonic Encyclopedia, Macoy Publishing Co., New York, 1961.
10. Garrison, Webb, Sidelights on the American Revolution, Abingdon Press, Nashville, TN, 1974.
11. Crary, Catherine (Editor), The Price of Loyalty, McGraw-Hill Co., New York, 1973.
12. Chidsey, Donald B., The War in the North, Crown Publishers, Inc., New York, 1967.
13. Dupuy R.E. and Dupuy T.N., The Compact History of the Revolutionary War, Hawthorn Books, Inc., New York, 1966.
14. Marshall, George L.,Jr., "Chief Joseph Brant", Knight Templar Magazine, Vol. XXIII, No. 11, November, 1977, pp.5-8.
15. Horan, James D., The McKenny-Hall Portrait Gallery of American Indians, Crown Publishers, Inc., New York, 1972.



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2006-09-29 07:19:09 · answer #3 · answered by dragonsarefree2 4 · 0 0

Here you the complete biography of Chief Johnson.

WHEN YOUNG Chief Joseph plunged his horse into the turbulent stream of Wallows river one cold June day in 1875, to save the crippled wife and the daughter of a traveling Baptist minister, who had just lost his own life while trying to cross the stream, he wasn't thinking of keeping the white out of his beloved Wallows country, or of war, He was merely acting as any brave man would have acted under like circumstances and in doing so was again the friend of the whites, as he had resolved always to be.
He had called to William Webber and his family not to try and cross the river with their wagon as it was to high for fording. But Webber was stubborn and drove on into the water. He may of thought the Indians advise was not worth listening to.His wagon bed turned over as the current caught it and and floated down the stream. He swept under and immediately drowned, but his wife and daughter somehow struggled to a drift in the middle of the river, to which they clung and called for help.As soon as Joseph saw what had happened he jumped on his horse and rode at a gallop to the nearest settler's cabin, that of Logan and Henry Schaeffer. He called out in the Chinook jargon. "Boston lean memaloose (white man killed)." Henry Schaeffer saddled a horse at once and rode with Joseph to the scene of the tragedy.Schaeffer, who was a very large man, held the other end of the rope from the bank. Joseph was a slim, wiry man in those clays and he jumped quickly onto his horse and plunged into the boiling stream, which was so deep that the water flowed over his horse's back. Belle called to him to save her mother first, so he carried Mrs. Webber to the bank and then went back for the daughter Just after Belle was taken safely on to his horse, the drift dislodged and went tossing down the stream. This accident happened on a Friday and the river was so high that Webber's body was not found by the searching settlers until Sunday. Joseph's brave act was always appreciated by the valleys few settlers, although, on the whole, they had little use for the Indians.Whatever their attitude toward the Indians, it was fortunate for the early settlers in the Wallowa country that they had such a man as Joseph to deal with. For, combined with his natural honesty and his pride in the clean Nez Percé record in that tribe's dealings with the white man, there was his intense love of his native land.This love made him cautious, made him keep his young men in check so that there would be no excuse on the part of the whites to drive the Indians out. That is what kept the Wallowa Indians and the white settlers at peace with one another during the early years of white immigration into this valley. Josephs attitude is clearly shown in a letter printed in 1873. "From a private letter received from Lapwal we learn that Chief Joseph has visited the post and is reported to have said that he heard with sorrow that the whites of Wallows valley expected him and his Indians to attack them. He said had not, nor did he intend to do any thing of the kind.The attitude of the majority of the settlers is shown by another letter in the same paper The writer tells about meeting a few of the settlers at night on their way out of Wallowa in their wagons, after some sort of a scare. As they rode, some of them sang:"Run ******, run ******, and try to get away, before Old Joseph kicks up a row."Josephs desire for conciliation with the white settlers has been amply told about in his biographies. But as far as actual contacts go his biographers have dealt mostly with his relations with white men during the Nez Peace war and in his later years, when be became "history and "news."It is a different thing, a warmer thing, to come across these little stories of his actions before the war, when he was still a free and unbroken man, and to know that he was not only conciliatory (a matter of policy in those upset years) with the early settlers, but that he was brave and just and that he really made friends with several of them.In 1872 there were a series of councils between the Wallows Nez Percés and the earliest settlers in the valley. Joseph F. Johnson. who acted as the interpreter and chairman of the meetings between the whites and the Indians, told his son Ernest, in years, that this conversation took place between him and Joseph:"Chief Joseph wanted to know how much land the whites wanted. He said all the Wallowa valley belonged to tile Nez Percé Indians and so he (Johnson) explained that the great white father at Washington told the whites they could come to Wallowa and each man have 160 acres or one half a mile square. Which he illustrated to Chief Joseph by pointing out how large a piece of land it was. That would be all the land each white man would need."Joseph laughed and said: "If that is all, you and your klutchman (women) and papooses can stay and live in peace. It's all right."Joseph and Johnson became friends and later, in 1877, when matters were coming to a head between the whites, the Indians and the United States government, and both settlers and Indians were on edge, Joseph sent six of his trusted couriers to Johnson. These men told him from Joseph, that his young men were determined to go on the warpath, but that he was determined that they would never fight in Wallowa valley or spill blood there Johnson's son remembered that his father thanked the men and kept them at his cabin for dinner.Another of Joseph's white friends was A. C. Smith. Smith was very popular with all the Indians, one of the reasons for which, says T. T. Geer in his "Fifty Years in Oregon." was that he "habitually wore moccasins and white duck trousers!"In 1872 Smith started to build a wagon road into Wallowa valley from the Grande Ronde country. Joseph came to Smith's camp to see him about it. He told him he didn't want any road built into the Wallowa valley, because it belonged to him and his tribe. If Smith built the road the whites would soon be coming in to settle. He told him if he wanted, however, he could run it his horse in the valley.Smith said that if he did that the Indians would steal them. Joseph replied, trying to bargain, that if he wouldn't build his rood, any of his horses the Indians stole would be brought back to him. Smith went ahead and built his road, and later, a bridge across the Wallowa river. But he and Joseph remained friends. In fact they stayed friends for more than 25 years. It was Smith who arranged some of the meetings between Joseph and the Wallowa valley citizens in latter years, when Joseph visited the valley trying to get back part of it as a reservation for his people. R. M. Downey, Wallowa county's first assessor, has told about how he traded horses with Chief Joseph and had often beaten him shooting at marks (He didn't mention who beat at the horse trading!)Downey said that one of the times he talked with Joseph, Joseph told him that Chief Moses, from a neighboring tribe, said for him to kill all immigrants as they clam into the Wallowa valley or else he would lose his country, Joseph said "no! Downey also said that Joseph didn't intend for the settlers to build houses or plow here, he thought they would only run their stock on his land he said it would be all right for them to come in.Another early settler, William McCormick, told of Joseph's visit to his cabin on Alder slope and that he "often gave him a quarter of beef to take back to camp with him when he left." Even the killing of the Indian Wil lot yah by A. B. Findley didn't prejudice Joseph against all the settlers, or even against Findley. The fault lay with the other white men In the affair McNall, he said, after being told about it by the Indians present he continued to visit the Findley home. Mrs. Findley often told in later years of how he would take the Findley children on his lap and call them his papooses. He would join them in their game and, its turn, taught them Indian games.
An ever present source of trouble, between the Indians and the whites in the west was gold. After seeing what had happened between the two peoples in other parts of the county Joseph must have worried about the discovery of gold in his Wallowa country.There is a story told by Dan Otto, an old prospector, abut gold or what he felt sure was gold, and Joseph. He said that at one time when he and some other white men were at Chief Joseph's camp near Wallowa lake, some Indians rode up and handed Joseph something that looked like nuggets Joseph looked at them a moment and threw them into the lake. He talked to the Indians who had brought the stones for a few minutes and then, said Otto, "they struck out as fart as they could ride " Otto and the other men there always supposed that Joseph must have told It Pro to go back and cover up the place where: they had found the stones.Joseph's artistic ability is not often mentioned, but that he must have had some such natural ability comes from several varied sources. The first person to speak of it was William Masterson, who was at the council between the early settlers and the Indians held in the forks of the Wallowa and Lostine rivers in 1876. He said that Chief Joseph had made a crude drawing of the killing of the Indian Wil-lot-yah by Findley and McNall, from descriptions given him by Indians who were present. Masterson said that the drawing was so plain that he could recognize McNall, with his old hat pulled down on his head. and Findley with his bobbed hair hanging nearly to his shoulders and his beard. The drawing also included the gun.
E. S. McComas speaks of Joseph "dropping to his knees and sketching a map of northwestern Oregon" when he interviewed him in 1577.Another time that his artistry was spoken of was in "The Oregonian for April 27, 1878 quoting from the Leavenworth Times. "In front of his neatly arranged tent stands a large tree, which he has blazed and on the white wood painted a number of hieroglyphics which detail the cause of his residence on the bank of the Missouri. The base of the blaze is filled with a long row of Indian lodges painted in red Above these are horses, birds, wolves, dogs and men, all represented in such manner as to convey the idea that they are all closely connected."Young Joseph, Hin-mah-too-lat-kahht (thunder rolling over the mountains) was a remarkable man, friend. artist, chief, warrior, strategist, diplomat and orator, but the part of him that will always appeal to the imagination and touch the feelings of men most closely was his devoted love for his native country. Wallowa, "land of winding waters"

2006-09-29 06:30:35 · answer #4 · answered by Ex Head 6 · 0 0

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