Chief Joseph

Born Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt, Chief Joseph was the son of Chief Joseph the Elder, who in 1855 had helped draw the boundaries of the Nez Perce reservation, which encompassed parts of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. But with a gold rush in 1863, the U.S. government unilaterally reduced the reservation lands by almost ninety percent. The Nez Perce resisted for a decade. In 1873, Chief Joseph’s refusal to move his people out of the Wallowa Valley angered U.S. authorities. When they called in troops to speed the removal of the Nez Perce in 1877, Chief Joseph and eight hundred of his followers began a strategic retreat toward Canada. Only thirty miles from the border, a command led by Brigadier General Nelson Miles intercepted Chief Joseph’s band and forced him to surrender. For the next eight years, he was imprisoned at several sites, including Fort Leavenworth in Kansas.