Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce surrendered to Colonel Nelson A. Miles of the United States Army after declaring, "Hear me my Chiefs, I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever," beginning an eight-year exile of his people from their homeland in Idaho. Refusing to be herded onto a reservation, the Nez Perce fled eastward in 1877 to find refuge in Canada, and with only 250 warriors Chief Joseph held the military at bay for 15 weeks during at least a dozen encounters and a 1700 mile chase before being forced to surrender at Bear Paw Mountain thirty miles from the Canadian border. The Nez Perce were moved to Fort Levenworth, Kansas, in November 1877, then the following year to the Quapaw Agency near Baxter Springs, Kansas, and in 1879 to the Oakland Reservation in Indian Territory, west of the Chickaskia River and north of the Salt Fork of the Arkansas River, at the present site of Tonkawa, Oklahoma. There the Nez Perce tried to become economically self-sufficient through leasing agreements with area ranchers and established a Day School for adults and children, but the people could not be acclimated, the death rate was abnormally high, and they continued seeking a return to their homeland. In May 1884, petitions presented in Congress demanding repatriation bore fruit when the Indian Appropriation Bill providing funds for such a move passed and became law on July 4, after which Secretary of the Interior Henry M. Teller and Commissioner of Indian Affairs H. Price authorized removal. Chief Joseph and his group were assigned to the Colville Reservation in northern Washington rather than their homeland near Lapwai, Idaho, a plan they opposed as further humiliation that would brand them as "wild." On May 22, 1885, Chief Joseph declared that if he could he would take out his heart and show the Great Father and the White People that it held only kind feelings and love for them. Before boarding the train at Arkansas City, four Nez Perce chiefs signed a document relinquishing all claims to the Oakland Reservation, and because more than 100 Nez Perce children had died in Indian Territory, including Chief Joseph's daughter, Joseph had the burial ground enclosed by a log barrier so the graves might be preserved.