who was the leader of the nez perce
A+E Networks. On this day in 1904, the remarkable Nez Perce leader Chief Joseph dies on the Colville reservation in northern Washington at the age of 64. The whites had described him as superhuman, a military genius, an Indian Napoleon. But in truth, the Nez Perce Chief Him-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt (âThunder Rolling Down from the Mountainsâ) was more of a diplomat than a warrior.