Chief Joseph
Chief Joseph, leader of the Nez Perce. was a powerful orator and advocate for his people’s right to remain on their homelands in Oregon’s Wallawa Valley. He is best known for leading his people on an epic four-month-long flight after refusing to relocate to an Idaho reservation. This became known as the Nez Perce War, in which Chief Joseph led 300 warriors and 500 women and children in a guerilla campaign that eluded U.S. troops over 1300 miles, before they finally surrendered, hungry, cold, and outnumbered, just 40 miles short of the Canadian border and freedom.