Joseph spent his first seven years in the Lapwai mission where he received academic and religious instruction. During this time the Nez Perce were dividing into two groups, the Christians and those who kept their traditonal beliefs, who had concern over the new comers from the Oregon Trail. In 1847 the wagons brought 4000 people and an epidemic of measels which killed over half of the Cayuse tribe. This began a Cayuse war from 1847 to 1850 which ended with Indian lands being opened to the settlers by the Oregon Donation Land Law. The Protestant missionaries were banned but some Indian converts still practiced the faith and by 1860 the Christian faction was two-thirds of the tribe. Jospeh's father left to Wallowa Valley to escape the solders and there taught his son the old ways.

On May 24, 1855, at 15, Jospeh went with his father to a treaty council at Walla Walla valley with the Governor and Superintendent of Indian affairs, Isaac I. Steven. Other chiefs there were the Wolf "Utsinmalikin", Three feathers "Metat Waptass", Red Wolf, "Hemene Ilppilp", and "Lawyer", a Christian convert. After much disagreement Lawyer, as head, and Old Looking Glass, Old Joseph, Old James and Timothy and a total of 58 chiefs signed the treaty accepting \$200,000 and a reservation which included much of their homeland. This treaty was followed by a treaty negotiated by Stevens for peace between the Blackfoot and the Nez Perce which opened the door for the land and gold rush by the whites. On May 25, 1863 at Lapwai, Calvin Hale met Lawyer's people and proposed the Nez Perce to sell 90% of their 10,000 square mile reservation and keep 600 sq. miles on the southfork of the Clearwater. Old Joseph, and his son "Big Thunder" (Joseph) arrived with Eagle, Three Feathers, Red Owl, and White Bird to protest. Hale got Lawyer to sign by doubling his reservation size but the other chiefs left the council refusing the treaty. The government having a treaty signed by Lawyer demanded the Nez Perce to abandon their lands within the year, and report to the Lapwai reservation and in return would recieve \$315,000.

In 1873 Joseph became chief of his tribe, but before his death, old Joseph had his son promise never to sell his people's land. Joseph rejected the 1863 treaty that had confined his people to the reservation and led several hundred of his people in 1877 on a march to find refuse in Canada.

General Howard See Photo pursued the Nez Perce from Idaho to Montana. General Gibbon See Photo who had pushed ahead of Howard attacked the Nez Perce camp at Big Hole River in Montana at dawn catching them by surprise and killing many women and children. The warriors regrouped at the edge of camp and caught the army in a crossfire. Ollikut and some sharp shooters kept the army pinned for 24 hours, long enough for the tribe to flee. Joseph had lost only 12 warriors of the 89 Indians killed, because the brunt of the slaughter was on the women children and elderly. Gibbons had lost 29 soldiers. General Howard unable to corner the fugitives sent for Nelson A.Miles to move in front of Nez Perce line of travel. Joseph continued his push to Canada but but was stopped at the border by General Miles See Photo and forced to surrender after a 5 day battle.

Joseph's people were taken to Fort Levenworth on Nov. 2, 1877. After Sherman refusing a petition by Jospeh for a new home in July 1878 they were transferreed to Quapaw reservation in Kansas Territory which they called the "Hot Place". Joseph, Yellow Bull, and an interpreter Arthur Chapman visited Washington to meet Presdient Hayes. On January 14, 1879 Joseph addressed a Lincoln Hall audience where he asked for a new home where his people would not die so fast, if he could not return to his old home. Hayes sent them to Oakland on the Ponca Reservation where they continued to die. After Joseph's cause was adopted by General Miles, the Presbyterian church and the Indian Rights Assoc. it became a national issue. White Bird and Looking Glass's people were to return to Lapwai but Joseph's to Washington on the Colville reservation because the Idaho setters still nursed greivances toward Joseph. In 1889 all the Nez Perce were offered 160 acres on the Lapwai Reservation, Joseph refused still wanting his old home of Wallowa valley but visited his friends at Lapwai. On Sept 21, 1904 Joseph suffered a heart attack and was buried at Nespelem where a monument now stands. He never achieved his lifelong wish of returning to his home in the Wallowa Valley.

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