Historically, Chief Joseph takes place during the 1877 Nez Perce War in the American Northwest. The action begins in Idaho, near the Oregon-Washington border, as General Oliver Otis Howard orders the Nez Perce to leave the Wallowa, meaning "Land of the Winding Waters" in Nez Perce, and move to the Lapwi Reservation. With Joseph's decision to lead his people to Canada, where they can live in peace and pursue their old way of life, the narrative follows the Nez Perce's sixteen-hundred-mile march from Idaho into northern Montana, then south through Montana to Big Hole and Camas Creek, where the tribe crosses into Wyoming and Yellowstone Park, and then toward Canada.

About thirty miles from safety in Canada, the Nez Perce are surrounded by the U.S. Army at Bear Paws Mountains, and Joseph surrenders. Because the action takes place on the frontier of the American West, the specific story...