Chief Joseph

Chief Joseph (Nez Perce name: *Hinmatóowyalahtq̓it*, meaning 'Thunder Rolling in the Mountains'; 1840 – 1904) was a leader of the Nez Perce people. When the federal government forcibly dispossessed his band from their ancestral homeland in the Wallowa Valley in Oregon, Joseph sought peace, but military skirmishes forced a desperate flight.

Over three months in 1877, Joseph, alongside military chiefs Looking Glass and White Bird, led 750 men, women, and children on a harrowing 1,170-mile trek across four states, repeatedly outmaneuvering US Army forces under General Oliver O. Howard in what military historians consider one of the most brilliant strategic retreats in history. Trapped forty miles from the Canadian border in Montana, Joseph surrendered to save his starving, freezing people, delivering his immortal speech: 'Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.' He spent the remainder of his life meeting with US presidents and eloquently pleading for equal civil rights for indigenous peoples.