Chief Joseph Legacy

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Chief Joseph(or Joseph the Young) was a humanitarian and also a Chief of the Nez Perce tribe. He held beliefs that stemmed from his roots, one of the most important being “all men are created equal under the “Great Spirit Chief”. It was Chief Joseph’s influences and beliefs that made him attempt to avoid conflict, but in the end, it was also those same beliefs that would help him plead his people’s case after the war he fought was over, these things ultimately giving him a legacy after he passed.
To begin with, Chief Joseph was born on March 3, 1840, in Wallowa Valley which was located on a reservation in Oregon. Known to his people as Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt, or “Thunder Rolling Down a Mountain” in English, he would later be known as “Joseph”,
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Chief Joseph witnessed his father lead the Nez Perce for three decades before he himself became Chief. His father was an enormous advocate for the idea of peace with the “white man”, and by watching his father lead, he gained many beliefs that his father owned as well. Chief Joseph himself would later go on to attempt to promote peace, even until the Nez Perce War occurred. He also deeply cared about his people, as proven in his speech of surrender when he declared “...the little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are - perhaps freezing to death. ...Hear me, my Chiefs! I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.” His influences and beliefs, as well as how deeply he cared about his people would later lead to him taking a stand by speaking to Congress and pleading for them to be allowed to return to their homeland - something he would never get to witness when he died in 1904.
Although dead, Chief Joseph’s legacy lives on in the form of memory and media. Multiple films have been made about him, one of the most well known being the historical drama “I Will Fight No More Forever(1975)”. He has appeared as a character in the hit Broadway show “Indians”, and has had multiple novels and literary works written about him. His famous speech of surrender has