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Hall of Fame

Chief Joseph Jr (1840 - 1904)

(Nez Perce: Hinmaton-Yalaktit thunder rolling down the mountain)

Chief Joseph the Younger was born in Wallowa Valley in Oregon. He was the son of Joseph the Elder, a Peace Chief and one of the first Nez Perce to be christianized and supporter of longstanding peace with white people. Joseph the Elder even cooperated with the founding of a large Nez Perce reservation that streched ffrom Oregon all the way into Idaho, but as has happened so many times in US history, as soon as white people discovered gold anyway, they'd go beserk and treaties no longer meant anything to them. And here this also was the case. The discovery of gold and the gold rush that resulted from that made the government go back on its decision and reduce the reservation by taking six million acres off its original size, leaving only one tenth of its prior size in Idaho. This betrayal was very serious and Joseph the Elder now destroyed

his American flag and his Bible, denounced the United States all together and  now refused to have his band move from Wallowa Valley to Idaho or sigh a treaty that would make the new boundaries official.

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