Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt ("thunder traveling out from the lake to mountains") was the son of Old Joseph (Tu-eka-kas), chief of the Wallowa Nez Perce during much of the 19th Century. Before he was born, Young Joseph's half-sister, Eliza, married the mountain man Joseph Gale (in the mid-1830s). When Old Joseph died in 1871, Young Joseph and his brother Ollokot became joint heads of the Wallowa band, each man having inherited his father's considerable intelligence and diplomatic skill. The two brothers continued their father's policy of firm, peaceful defense of the Wallowa Nez Perce's right to live in peace on their ancestral lands.
In 1877, the U.S. government demanded that the non-treaty Nez Perce move onto reservation lands in Idaho. In the ensuing armed conflict, Chief Joseph and the other non-treaty Nez Perce (approximately 800 men, women and children, plus thousands of horses) were pursued across some of the roughest terrain in the Rocky Mountains. During a 3 month period, the Nez Perce retreated 1,500 miles towards sanctuary in Canada. All the time, about 200 warriors held the U.S. army at bay. In the end, the Nez Perce were defeated by the telegraph, which allowed a second Army column to intercept the tribe on the Montana plains, just 40 miles from Canada. Joseph and the Wallowa Nez Perce were forced to surrender, and were relocated to Kansas and Oklahoma. In 1885, the Nez Perce were permitted to move to the Colville Indian Reservation in central Washington, where Chief Joseph died in 1904.
In happier days, Chief Joseph and members of his tribe used to camp at the Gale farm in Eagle Valley to fish, hunt and visit with relatives.
Updated September 11, 2009