Chief Joseph - Notable Native Americans
Chief Joseph was a leader of the Wallowa band of Nez Perce, and is one of the most famous Native American Chiefs in history. The story of his people's trek toward Canada in an attempt to remain free is one of the most iconic and widely-known stories of Indigenous survival . His father - Old Chief Joseph - had signed the Treaty of Walla Walla in 1855, which established a reservation in present-day Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. However, as more settlers arrived to the territory, government commissioners attempted to have the Nez Perce sign a second treaty, which would force Chief Joseph's band to remove permanently onto a much smaller reservation in western Idaho. Joseph and several other Chiefs resisted, and fled towards Canada with 700 men, women, and children with the intent of crossing the border and camping with Sitting Bull of the Lakota, who had been living in Canada. The Nez Perce evaded capture over a 1,170-mile journey, fighting retreating skirmishes and battles along the way in a desperate attempt to remain free. They were eventually cornered 40 miles away from the border, and those who survived were forced to the new reservation. When he died in 1904, the doctor determined his cause of death to be from a "broken heart."
"Do not misunderstand me; but understand me fully with reference to my affection for the land. I never said the land was mine to do with as I choose. The one who has a right to dispose of it is the one who created it. I claim a right to live on my land, and accord you the privilege to return to yours."
