The Government did not send the Chief Joseph Pierced Noses to their own country. It was claimed that White Bird had broken the terms, by his escape. At any rate, the Joseph people were kept a long, long time in Indian Territory. Many of them sickened and died. They were mountain Indians. They missed their cold streams and their pure air. They fell away from over four hundred to two hundred and eighty.
Chief Joseph's heart broke utterly. He issued an appeal—his own story—which was published in the North American Review magazine, in 1879.
"If I cannot go to my own home, let me have a home in some country where my people will not die so fast.... Let me be a free man—free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade, where I choose; free to choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to think and talk and act for myself—and I will obey every law or submit to the penalty."
Not until 1884 was he permitted to return to the mountains of the Northwest. The majority of his people were located again in Idaho, among their kindred. He himself was placed upon another reservation, near Spokane, Washington.
He pleaded for the Wallowa Valley—his Valley of the Winding Waters; but that had been settled by the white men. All that he found was his father's grave. A white man had enclosed it with a picket fence. Chief Joseph wept.
He lived to a good age. In 1903 he visited the East; he talked with President Roosevelt and General Miles. He met General Howard. The next year he exhibited himself in an Indian show at the St. Louis fair. That hurt his pride. He was ashamed to sell his face for money.
When he went home, he was sick. This September he died, on the Washington reservation. The doctor asserted that he died from a broken heart.
He was the last of the great chiefs of the American Indians. The Historical Society of the State of Washington has erected over his grave a noble monument. Under it he lies, while people read his name, translated: "Thunder-rolling-in-the-mountains."