Nez perce chief joseph biography

Native American leader (1840–1904)

Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt (or hinmatóowyalahtq̓it in Americanist orthography; March 3, 1840 – September 21, 1904), popularly known as Chief Joseph, Young Joseph, or Joseph the Younger, was a leader of the wal-lam-wat-kain (Wallowa) band of Nez Perce, a Native American tribe of the interior Pacific Northwest region of the United States, in the latter half of the 19th century. He succeeded his father Tuekakas (Chief Joseph the Elder) in the early 1870s.

Chief Joseph led his band of Nez Perce during the most tumultuous period in their history, when they were forcibly removed by the United States federal government from their ancestral lands in the Wallowa Valley of northeastern Oregon onto a significantly reduced reservation in the Idaho Territory. A series of violent encounters with white settlers in the spring of 1877 culminated in those Nez Perce who resisted removal, including Joseph's band and an allied band of the Palouse tribe, fleeing the United States in an attempt to reach political asylum alongside the Lakota people, who had sought refuge in Canada under the leadership of Sitting Bull.

At least 800 men, women, and c

(1840-1904)

Who Was Chief Joseph?

When the United States attempted to force the Nez Perce to move to a reservation in 1877, Chief Joseph reluctantly agreed. Following the killing of a group of white settlers, tensions erupted again, and Chief Joseph tried to lead his people to Canada, in what is considered one of the great retreats in military history.

Early Years

The leader of one band of the Nez Perce people, Chief Joseph was born Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt in 1840 in the Wallowa Valley in what is now Oregon. His formal Native American name translates to Thunder Rolling Down a Mountain, but he was largely known as Joseph, the same name his father, Joseph the Elder, had taken after being baptized in 1838.

Joseph the Elder's relationship with the whites had been unprecedented. He'd been one of the early Nez Perce leaders to convert to Christianity, and his influence had gone a long way toward establishing peace with his white neighbors. In 1855, he forged a new treaty that created a new reservation for the Nez Perce.

But that peace was fragile. After gold was discovered in the Nez Perce territory, white prospectors began to stream onto their lands. The relationship was soon upended when the United States government took back millions of acres it had promised to Joseph the Elder and his people.

The irate chief denounced his former American friends and destroyed his Bible. More significantly, he refused to sign off on the boundaries of this "new" reservation and leave the Wallowa Valley.

Leader of His People

Following Joseph the Elder's death in 1871, Chief Joseph assumed his father's leadership role as well as the positions he'd staked out for his people. As his father had done before him, Chief Joseph, along with fellow Nez Perce leaders, chiefs Looking Glass and White Bird, balked at the resettlement plan.

As tensions mounted, the three chiefs sensed that violence was imminent. In 1877, recognizing what a war could mean for th

Heinmot Tooyalakekt (Thunder Rising to Loftier Mountain Heights), also known as Chief Joseph, was a prominent figure among the Nimiipuu, or Nez Perce. He is best remembered as a leader during the Nez Perce War of 1877. Although his role in that conflict is much misunderstood, Joseph participated significantly in events leading up to the war, and his shrewd leadership afterward was critical to the Nez Perces’ successful return from exile to the Pacific Northwest.

Joseph was born in 1840 in the Wallowa Valley of eastern Oregon. His father, Tuekakas, or Old Joseph, was the head chief of the largest of many independent Nez Perce bands living in Oregon, central Idaho, and southeastern Washington. Like many Nez Perces, Joseph had relatives among the Cayuses, Walla-Wallas, Palouses, and other groups of the Columbia River Basin.

In 1871, when Joseph took over leadership of his band upon his father’s death, the Nez Perces were increasingly divided and in crisis. After first welcoming whites to the region in the 1830s—Old Joseph himself briefly converted to Christianity—many Nez Perces had become disillusioned and wary at the flood of settlers into the Oregon Country. Alarm grew in 1855 when Washington’s territorial governor Isaac Stevens pressed on them a treaty, followed by a calamitous gold rush into lands of the Idaho bands in 1860-1861. Most disturbing was a highly suspect treaty in 1863 that demanded the surrender of 90 percent of tribal lands. Joseph’s band, which never agreed to the treaty, was one of several that the federal government ordered to abandon their home country and crowd in with all other bands onto a small reservation.

Many Nez Perces—eventually a majority—moved to the reservation; but a large minority resisted, and Joseph emerged as their leading spokesman. In meetings and councils from 1874 to 1877 with army officers, Indian agents, and a delegation from Washington, D.C., he argued persistently that the resistant Nez Perce bands were not bound by

About the Sitter

Born in the Wallowa Valley in northeastern Oregon among the Nez Perce (Niimíipuu), Chief Joseph was also known as Young Joseph. His Nez Perce name means “Thunder traveling to higher areas.” His father, Old Joseph, gave up cooperating with the whites when they attempted to drastically reduce his reservation during the gold rush. Young Joseph carried on this policy after his father’s death in 1871.

Although celebrated for his skill in battle, Joseph worked tirelessly for peace with U.S. government authorities. In 1877, under the threat of forced removal from his traditional homelands in Oregon’s Wallowa Valley, Joseph reluctantly began leading his followers toward a reservation in Idaho. However, after a group of warriors killed several white settlers in retaliation for earlier violence, Joseph redirected his party toward the lands of the Crow (Apsaalooke), an allied tribal nation in Montana. In response, federal soldiers began their pursuit of them. The outnumbered Nez Perce embarked on a skillful retreat, at times eluding American forces and at other times repulsing their military advances. General William Tecumseh Sherman remarked that “the Indians throughout displayed a courage and skill that elicited universal praise. . . . [They] fought with almost scientific skill.”

When the Crows refused to come to their aid, Joseph decided to seek sanctuary in Canada. After traveling 1,170 miles with his band of followers, Joseph was intercepted only miles from the Canadian border. He surrendered there on October 5, 1877, stating, “From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever.”

Joseph and his people were taken to a reservation in Oklahoma. Although Joseph visited President Rutherford B. Hayes to demand that his people be returned to the Northwest, this did not happen until 1885. Joseph died on the Colville Reservation in Washington State in 1904.

About the Portrait

This portrait depicts Chief Joseph in 1878 at Fort Leavenworth, Kan