I Will Fight No More Forever

"I Will Fight No More Forever” is a realistic writing that shows the struggles of the Indians and the way of life of their people. The people were in pain and had nothing to do and nowhere to go. The Indians had been moved from their native lands and homes in the forest and plains and put on to reservations by the white people. On these reservations the Indians had bad crop land and could not produce enough food for them so many were starving to death. “My people, some of them, have run away to the hills and have no blanket, no food; no one knows where they are- perhaps freezing to death” (Chief Joseph 533). This is awful and the government was doing this to them and they believed that is it was okay that they were allowed to do this because the Indians did not own the land. The Indians had been living on the lands for thousands of years way before the English set foot on America and then for them to claim that they owned all the land is wrong. Thoreau would have been very upset that the government was able to treat people that way. He was very antigovernment and this mistreatment of the Indians goes against what he believes in greatly. The Indians were living of the land and with nature, which was something that Thoreau valued greatly. He even moved into the woods away from society to find peace and happiness. Thoreau if he could probably wished he could have been an Indian because of his love of nature and his want to get away from the corruption of society. Thoreau explained, "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived” (Wayne). The going against society and dealing with only important decision and trouble that truly mattered was the goal of Thoreau during his time in the wood.

Wayne, Tiffany K., ed. "Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson." Critical Companion to Ralph Waldo Emerson: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work, Critical Companion. New York: Chelsea House Publishing, 2010. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc

Chief Joseph."I Will Fight No More Forever." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009.533. Print.