Chief Joseph - Anadarko, OK
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hamquilter
N 35° 04.384 W 098° 13.714
14S E 570332 N 3881418
Joseph, Himmaton-yalakit was a warrior and leader of the Nez Perce Tribe in southwestern Oregon.
Waymark Code: WMCMBF
Location: Oklahoma, United States
Date Posted: 09/20/2011
Views: 2
Chief Joseph is depicted in bronze at the National Hall of Fame for Famous American Indians. Sculptor Kenneth F. Campbell shows him wearing a loose shirt with five necklaces. His hair is in two braids. This sculpture was dedicated in 1957. The plaque reads:
CHIEF JOSEPH (HIMMATON-YALAKIT)
1838 (APPROX>) – 1904
Famous in Military and Tactical
Skill for his Tribe, the Nez Perce.
Joseph was born March 3, 1840 in the Wallowa Valley of Oregon. In 1871, as his father, Joseph the Elder, lay dying, young Joseph promised to never sell his people’s country. When he became Chief upon his father’s death, he followed the path of peace his father had, but the closeness of the whites led to killings on both sides.
The whites wanted the Nez Perce out of Oregon. In the war following the cession of their tribal lands in the Treaty of 1883, Chief Joseph was eventually forced to surrender, and under military escort he and his band of 431 were taken to Indian Territory. In 1885, the Nez Perce were allowed to return to the Northwest to reservations in Washington State, and then in 1900, they returned to their former lands in northeastern Oregon.
Chief Joseph died September 21, 1904 on the Colville Reservation and is buried in Nespelem, Washington.
[Biographical information from the Museum’s Self-Guiding Tour pamphlet.]