Chief Joseph was born in 1840 in the Wallowa Valley in what is now northeastern Oregon.  Joseph was the chief of the Wallowa band of the Nez Perce Indians during a time when the United States government was trying to forcibly remove Chief Joseph’s band and other non-treaty Indians on to a reservation in Idaho. Chief Joseph became known as a humanitarian and peacemaker because of his principled resistance to the removal of said Indians.

 “You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who was born free should be contented to be penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases.”   

Spoken by: Chief Joseph