The Twin Bridges area lies within the Wyandotte Nation. The Wyandotte ancestral homeland was along the St. Lawrence River and Upper Great Lakes region, but a series of conflicts and removals forced the nation southward. In the late 1850's, the Wyandotte left their homes in Kansas and moved to Indian Territory as guests of the Mixed Band Seneca-Shawnee. After the Civil War, the Wyandotte purchased a reservation on the north side of the Seneca's lands in present-day Ottawa County. This region is also important to many other Native American tribal groups and nations. The Cherokee Nation's governmental jurisdiction includes the western portion of Ottawa County, with the Grand River as its border. The tribal lands and government headquarters of the Cayuga, Modoc, Ottawa, Peoria, Quapaw, Seneca, and Shawnee are also in the Grand Lake region. After spending the winter of 1877 at Fort Leavenworth, Chief Joseph and his Nez Perce tribe were forced to move to Indian Territory, where their encampment stood on the Spring River east of the community of Quapaw. In October 1878, the Nez Perce moved to another reservation near Tonkawa. Their time in Indian Territory was a tragic chapter in Nez Perce history, and many died from sickness and lack of supplies. In 1885, the U.S. government allowed the Nez Perce to return to the states of Idaho and Washington.