For thousands of years, the fertile Wallowa Valley was home to many Nimiipuu, or Nez Perce people, and a treaty in 1855 affirmed their ownership of this homeland. Competition for land, grazing and hunting opportunities, and the discovery of gold in 1860 led to a renegotiation in 1863 that reduced the reservation to 10% of the original homeland. In May 1877, General O. Howard ordered the peaceful bands, no longer protected by treaty rights, to move to the reservation near Lapwai, Idaho. The Wallowa band gathered their belongings, livestock, and horses, crossed the Snake River, and assembled at Camas Prairie near Grangeville, where a few young Nez Perce men, agitated by past events, attacked several white settlers. Afterward, nearly 800 men, women, and children with over 2000 horses fled in June 1877 over the Bitterroots, through the Rockies, and onto the high plains of Montana, enduring heat, dangerous mountain passes, and attacks by five different U.S. Army regiments. They came within 40 miles of freedom at the Canadian border before U.S. Army soldiers surrounded them as winter began. After five days of cannon fire, freezing temperatures, and starvation, Joseph negotiated a settlement that would allow the people to return to Idaho, while Chief Whitebird led some people in a nighttime escape to Canada. On October 5, 1877, Chief Joseph surrendered to Colonel Nelson A. Miles. In September 1877, five bands under Poker Joe crossed the Musselshell River and entered the Judith Basin with about 300 warriors, 200 women and followers, 1000 horses, and camp equipment, having distanced themselves from General Howard and Colonel Samuel Sturgis during their attempt to reach Canada. After passing through the basin from Judith Gap to Cow Island Landing, they camped near Reed and Bowles Trading Post below the present site of Lewistown, Montana, visited with Alonzo Reed, and then covered more than 75 miles to Cow Island on the Missouri in less than 36 hours before the final skirmish prior to the siege at Bear Paw. Chief Joseph accompanied his people into exile, first to the lowlands of Kansas and later to the Indian Territory in what is now Oklahoma. The exiled group included 79 men, 178 women, and 174 children and was transported first to Fort Keogh, then to Fort Leavenworth, where they spent a miserable winter, and later to Baxter Springs, the Quapaw Agency, and the Ponca Agency. Amid continued death and deprivation, Joseph publicized their plight and in 1885 the government allowed 268 survivors to return to the Northwest. Of these, 118 went to Lapwai, while Joseph and others who would not renounce their traditional religious beliefs were sent to the Colville reservation near Nespelum, Washington. The tribe was never allowed to reclaim its Wallowa homeland, and Chief Joseph died and was buried in Nespelem in 1904.