Chief Joseph



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Joseph, chief of the Wallowa band of the Nez Percé Native American people of north-eastern Oregon, was respected for his military genius, wisdom, and eloquence. When the United States government opened the land of the Nez Percé to white settlement, Chief Joseph led his people to Canada in an attempt to find refuge. Stopped near the border by the US Army, Chief Joseph surrendered with these words, and he and his people were sent to the region known as the Indian Territory, in what is now Oklahoma. Joseph’s requests to return to his home in the Wallowa Valley were denied, and he died at his campfire in 1904 on the Colville Reservation in central Washington.

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Native Americans; Joseph, Chief

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