Chief Joseph - Nez Pierce

James Todd

A large portrait by James Todd done using relief, in this case woodcut, cut like a woodengraving, with the white line creating the composition, a series of lines and cross-hatch lines that allow the image to emerge from the black background.

The man who became a national celebrity with the name "Chief Joseph" was born in northeastern Oregon in 1840. He was given the name Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt, or Thunder Rolling Down the Mountain, but was widely known as Joseph or Joseph the Younger as his father had taken the Christian name Joseph when he was baptized in 1838.

When his father died in 1871, Joseph was elected to succeed him. With his new status as Chief he faced the problem of the US government taking away millions of acres of tribal land granted to his father as a reservation. The battles that followed killed many members from the Nez Pierce tribe and those remaining were forced to live on reservations in Oklahoma. This taking of Indian land is a stain on the history of the U.S. and Chief Joseph has become a symbol of the grace, dignity, and honor of the American Indian.