Chief Joseph
1840–1904 2 entries
Biography
Chief Joseph, in his own language Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt, “Thunder Rolling Down the Mountain”, was a leader of the Wallowa band of the Nez Perce, in today’s Oregon. Born in 1840 in the Wallowa Valley, he succeeded his father as chief in 1871. In 1877 the government of the United States ordered his people to leave their homeland for a small reservation in Idaho, and when fighting broke out, some eight hundred Nez Perce set out on a flight of about 1,900 kilometres towards Canada, pursued by the army.
After nearly four months and several battles, he surrendered in October 1877 in the Bear Paw Mountains of Montana, only some sixty kilometres from the border, with words that became famous. His people were sent into exile in Kansas and the Indian Territory, where many died, and in 1879 he travelled to Washington to plead for their return. In 1885 they were allowed to go back to the Northwest, though not to the Wallowa Valley. He died in 1904 on the Colville Reservation in Washington; the agency doctor wrote that he had died of a broken heart.
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