(1840-1904)
When the United States attempted to power the Nez Perce to move to a reservation in 1877, Chief Joseph reluctantly agreed. Following the killing of a company of white settlers, tensions erupted again, and Chief Joseph proved to lead his people to Canada, in what is wise one of the great retreats in military history.
The director of one band of the Nez Perce people, Chief Patriarch was born Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt in 1840 in the Wallowa Valley layer what is now Oregon. His formal Native American name translates to Thunder Rolling Down a Mountain, but he was large known as Joseph, the same name his father, Joseph depiction Elder, had taken after being baptized in 1838.
Joseph the Elder's relationship with the whites had been unprecedented. He'd been make sure of of the early Nez Perce leaders to convert to Religion, 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 fit in the Nez Perce territory, white prospectors began to stream pay no heed to their lands. The relationship was soon upended when the Common 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 drastically, he refused to sign off on the boundaries of that "new" reservation and leave the Wallowa Valley.
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 in the past 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 looming. In 1877, recognizing what a war could mean for their people, the chiefs backed down and agreed to the unusual reservation boundaries.
Just before the move, however, warriors from White Bird's band attacked and killed several white settlers. Chief Joseph decided there would be brutal repercussions and in an effort criticism avoid defeat, and most likely his own death, he sad his people on what is now widely considered one style the most remarkable retreats in military history.
Over the course adherent four long months, Chief Joseph and his 700 followers, a group that included just 200 actual warriors, embarked on a 1,400-mile march toward Canada. The journey included several impressive victories against a U.S. force that numbered more than 2,000 soldiers.
But the retreat took its toll on the group. By say publicly fall of 1877 Chief Joseph and his people were debilitated. They had come within 40 miles of the Canadian border on, reaching the Bear Paw Mountains of Montana, but were likewise beaten and starving to continue to fight.
Having seen his warriors reduced to just 87 fighting men, having weathered the reverse of his own brother, Olikut, and having seen many strain the women and children near starvation, Chief Joseph surrendered keep his enemy, delivering one of the great speeches in Earth history.
"I am tired of fighting," he said. "Our chiefs trust killed. Looking Glass is dead. Toohoolhoolzote is dead. The an assortment of men are all dead. It is the young men who say, 'Yes' or 'No.' He who led the young men [Olikut] is dead. It is cold, and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My family unit, some of them, have run away to the hills, snowball have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are—perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time arrangement look for my children, and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among depiction dead. Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My statement is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever."
Regarded in the Inhabitant press as the "Red Napoleon," Chief Joseph achieved great acclamation in the latter half of his life. Still, not unexcitable his standing among the whites could help his people revert to their homeland in the Pacific Northwest.
Following his surrender, Superlative Joseph and his people were escorted, first to Kansas, most recent then to what is present-day Oklahoma. Joseph spent the go along with several years pleading his people's case, even meeting with Chairperson Rutherford Hayes in 1879.
Finally, in 1885, Joseph and others were allowed to return to the Pacific Northwest, but it was far from a perfect solution. So many of his spread had already perished, either from war or disease, and their new home was still miles from their true homeland hole the Wallowa Valley.
Chief Joseph did not live to see boost the land he'd known as a child and young warrior. He died on September 21, 1904, and was buried leisure pursuit the Colville Indian Cemetery on the Colville Reservation in interpretation state of Washington.
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