At the time of this sitting, December 3, 1903, Chief Joseph, one of the few surviving patriot chiefs, had already fought more than 25 years to regain the lost lands of the Nez Percés in northeast Oregon on the Wallowa River. To this end, he had traveled extensively from coast-to-coast to garner support and financial aid. In Seattle, he met with three staunch supporters of his cause: Sam Hill, president of the Northern Pacific Railroad; Edmond Meany, a professor of history at the University of Washington; and Edward Curtis, the famed Seattle photographer, who had found his life's work in documenting the vanishing North American Indian tribes.

This portrait was made before Curtis received funding from J. Pierpont Morgan through the intercession of Theodore Roosevelt, who had, interestingly, already met Chief Joseph in Washington, D.C.
It was on the strength of his portraits of the great Chief that Curtis was commissioned to photograph the sons of the President at the White House, affording him an opportunity to pitch his idea of expanding the scope of his project, which culminated in the publication of The North American Indian.

In a letter to Edmond Meany on October 13, 1904, less than a month after the death of Chief Joseph, Curtis wrote: At last his long, endless fight for his return to the old home is at end. For some strange reason the thought of the old fellow's life and death gives me rather a feeling of sadness. Perhaps he was not quite what we in our minds had pictured him but I still think that he was one of the greatest men that has ever lived.

This unpublished image and the published variant are considered to be the strongest, most striking portraits, and were made less than a year before his death.

Only 1 or 2 prints of this unpublished image are known to exist.