I am tired of fighting . . . It is cold and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are—perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children and see how many I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead.
—"I Will Fight No More Forever": Chief Joseph

Use the passage to answer the question.
What event in the history of the West in the late 1800s prompted Chief Joseph to give this speech?
A. the expansion of buffalo hunting by American Indians like the Nez Percé
B. the death of Sitting Bull, an important Lakota leader
C. the defeat of American Indian peoples by United States troops
D. the Ghost Dance, a new American Indian religious ceremony