Chief Joseph (1840–1904), also known as
Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt, was a leader of the Wallowa band of the
Nez Perce people in the northwestern United States. He succeeded his father,
Old Chief Joseph, in 1871, and resisted efforts to remove his people from their ancestral homeland in the
Wallowa Valley. During the
Nez Perce War of 1877, Joseph and other leaders guided hundreds of Nez Perce for more than 1,170 miles (1,900
km) while pursued by the
United States Army before they were surrounded near the Canadian border. He later campaigned for his people's return home, but remained on the
Colville Indian Reservation, where he died in 1904. This portrait photograph of Chief Joseph was taken by the American photographer
Edward S. Curtis in 1903.
Photograph credit: Edward S. Curtis; restored by Adam Cuerden
