Despite being a statement of surrender, the speech asserts the will to survive and endure as a people. Chief Joseph’s opening line, “Tell General Howard I know his heart” (Line 2), is a strategic choice and an important condition of surrender because it refers to a promise to return the Wallowa band to Idaho territory. Though this return to a corner of Nimíipuu lands is a small consolation compared to the lands taken, Joseph knows that his people’s physical and cultural survival after this conflict hinges on return to the lands that are the home of their culture and identity. They know which foods to gather and when they are in season, where to find resources, and where to hunt for game. It is also the place where their elders are buried and the place from which they draw their identity and spiritual power.

Forced relocation to an unfamiliar region, a common practice of the US government during this period, would mean physical and spiritual death. In this sense, Chief Joseph’s opening line is a bargain for survival, not an admission of defeat. In describing the conditions of the camp, Chief Joseph illuminates in stark and spare detail the nearness, not simply of individual deaths, but the annihilation of his people.