Lorraine Jean Hopping • Hopping Fun Creations

Chief Joseph: The Voice for Peace introduces middle readers and teens to a man with a big, heavy heart. Like peace advocates Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi, this great leader of a Nez Perce band understood to the core that violence begets violence. Despite illegal actions and horrific acts against his people, he refused to give in to rage and revenge.

When the U.S. government tried to seize his people's land in the Wallowa Valley of Oregon, he stood firm and negotiated rather than rebel. When ranchers moved onto his land anyway and murdered his friend, he pleaded with them to surrender or leave and kept his warriors from killing the murderers. When, finally, the U.S. Army threatened to remove his people by force to a small reservation in Idaho, he did everything he could to avoid an all-out war that the outnumbered, outgunned, Nez Perce would surely lose.

In the eyes of American citizens, Chief Joseph became both famous and feared as the ruthless leader of a 1,500-mile rampage along a bloody trail of theft and murder. The truth is, he was an extraordinary man of peace whose most famous words are:

"From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever."

The so-called Nez Perce rampage was, in fact, a long, desperate retreat from five pursuing armies, triggered by the rash killing spree of a handful of warriors. In the summer of 1877, Chief Joseph, the other traditional Nez Perce chiefs, and their 700 or so family members were running for their lives to the safety of Canada.

To his dying day, Chief Joseph remained true to his conviction:

"If the white man wants to live in peace with the Indian, he can live in peace. There need be no trouble."