25 Facts About Chief Joseph

1.

Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt, popularly known as Chief Joseph, Young Joseph, or Joseph the Younger, was a leader of the wal-lam-wat-kain 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.

2.

Chief Joseph succeeded his father tuekakas in the early 1870s.

3.

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.

4.

In October 1877, after months of fugitive resistance, most of the surviving remnants of Chief Joseph's band were cornered in northern Montana Territory, just 40 miles from the Canadian border.

5.

Unable to fight any longer, Chief Joseph surrendered to the Army with the understanding that he and his people would be allowed to return to the reservation in western Idaho.

6.

Chief Joseph was instead transported between various forts and reservations on the southern Great Plains before being moved to the Colville Indian Reservation in the state of Washington, where he died in 1904.

7.

Chief Joseph's life remains an iconic event in the history of the American Indian Wars.

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8.

Chief Joseph was born Hinmuuttu-yalatlat in the Wallowa Valley of northeastern Oregon.

9.

Chief Joseph was known as Young Joseph during his youth because his father, tuekakas, was baptized with the same Christian name and later become known as "Old Joseph" or "Joseph the Elder".

10.

The non-treaty Nez Perce suffered many injustices at the hands of settlers and prospectors, but out of fear of reprisal from the militarily superior Americans, Chief Joseph never allowed any violence against them, instead making many concessions to them in the hope of securing peace.

11.

The Chief Joseph told Young that white men were not welcome near Prairie Creek, and Young's party was forced to leave without violence.

12.

In 1873, Chief Joseph negotiated with the federal government to ensure his people could stay on their land in the Wallowa Valley.

13.

Chief Joseph pleaded for more time, but Howard told him he would consider their presence in the Wallowa Valley beyond the 30-day mark an act of war.

14.

At this council, too, many leaders urged war, while Chief Joseph continued to argue in favor of peace.

15.

Robert Forczyk states in his book Nez Perce 1877: The Last Fight that the tipping point of the war was that "Chief Joseph responded that his clan's traditions would not allow him to cede the Wallowa Valley".

16.

The band led by Chief Joseph never signed the treaty moving them to the Idaho reservation.

17.

Chief Joseph's speech brought attention, and therefore credit, his way.

18.

Chief Joseph earned the praise of General William Tecumseh Sherman and became known in the press as "The Red Napoleon".

19.

McWhorter, who concluded "that Chief Joseph was not a military man at all, that on the battlefield he was without either skill or experience".

20.

In 1879, Chief Joseph went to Washington, DC to meet with President Rutherford B Hayes and plead his people's case.

21.

Chief Joseph continued to lead his Wallowa band on the Colville Reservation, at times coming into conflict with the leaders of the 11 other unrelated tribes living on the reservation.

22.

Chief Joseph rode with Buffalo Bill in a parade honoring former President Ulysses Grant in New York City, but he was a topic of conversation for his traditional headdress more than his mission.

23.

In 1903, Chief Joseph visited Seattle, a booming young town, where he stayed in the Lincoln Hotel as guest to Edmond Meany, a history professor at the University of Washington.

24.

Chief Joseph visited President Theodore Roosevelt in Washington, DC the same year.

25.

An indomitable voice of conscience for the West, still in exile from his homeland, Chief Joseph died on September 21,1904, according to his doctor, "of a broken heart".

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