The Bannock Indian War and the Sheep-Eaters.
For seven years previous to the treaty of 1869, the Bannock Indians had
given no trouble. In the late fifties and early sixties they committed
a number of depredations, and in 1862, General Conner, with a body
of troops from California, administered a defeat to them at Battle
Creek, near the present town of Oxford, that effectually ended their
misbehavior for several years. The bones of Indians killed in this
fight are still found in the vicinity.
It was told in a previous chapter how a confusion of the terms Camas
and Kansas occurred in the Bannock Indian treaty of 1869. The document
stated that the Indians should have a portion of the Kansas prairie,
instead of Camas. The two words were synonymous to the Indians, but
wise men among the whites foresaw that the mistake would cause future
trouble. Accordingly, in the spring of 1873, Mr. John Hailey called on
the secretary of the interior and the commissioner of Indian affairs
in Washington and urged that the mistake be corrected. As a result a
commission of three was appointed to settle all disputed points with
the Nez Perce and Bannock Indians, but nothing was accomplished by the
embassy. The treaty still read “Kansas” and the Bannocks still believed
that they were entitled to a portion of the Camas prairie, where there
were no white settlers at that time, and where the Indians roamed at
will.
* * * * *
The trouble came in 1878. In May of that year some hogs were herded on
Camas prairie and William Silvey, George Nesbet and Lou Kensler drove
a band of cattle and horses there to graze. The men camped about ten
miles south of Corral Creek crossing. On the twenty-seventh of May, two
English-speaking Indians, called Charley and Jim, visited the campers
and appeared in every way friendly. They came again early the next
morning, ate breakfast with the white men and continued their show of
friendliness until Silvey, Nesbet and Kensler had scattered to their
several camp duties. Then Indian Charlie, without warning, shot Nesbet
through the jaws with a pistol as he was gathering up some dishes from
the ground, while Indian Jim fired a shot at Kensler, who was saddling
a horse, and grazed the side of his head. Nesbet and Kensler made a
dash for their tent, where they seized guns and opened fire on the
Indians, who were now shooting at Silvey. They fled before the bullets
and Silvey escaped unharmed.
Nesbet was badly wounded. His companions tended his injuries as well
as they could, saddled a couple of horses, and started with him for
Boise. When they had gone a few miles they looked back and saw a large
body of Indians devastating their camp. They gave the alarm as they
traveled along toward Boise, which Nesbet was a week in reaching. Upon
examination, his mouth was found to be alive with vermin, caused by
fly-blows, but Dr. Treadwell cleansed it and sewed his tongue together,
and after much suffering Nesbet recovered.
The Indians spent a day in the raided camp on Camas prairie, killing
cattle and drying beef, gathering horses and preparing generally for
war. Two white men, Mabes and Dempsey, were with them. The latter had
lived with the Bannocks for several years and had an Indian wife. The
Indians made Dempsey write a letter to Governor Braymen at Boise,
threatening to kill settlers and destroy property all over the state,
if troops were sent to fight them. They then sent Mabes to deliver the
letter, and killed Dempsey.
It was learned later that there was a division among the Indians at
this time, some favoring war, and others counselling against it.
Buffalo Horn, who was bent on mischief, finally secured a following
of some two hundred warriors and a few young Indian women, while the
remainder of the Indians returned to the Fort Hall reservation.
Buffalo Horn and his followers next appeared at King Hill station on
the Overland stage road. They robbed this place and then raided Glenn’s
Ferry, five miles below, on the Snake river, where they destroyed
several wagon-loads of merchandise consigned to Boise merchants, and
held a big spree on some whiskey they found there. The next day they
went on down the river to Bruneau, killing John Bascom and two other
men on the way, and two others, Jack Sweeney and a Mr. Hays, whom they
found at, or near, Bruneau. The murders would have reached a much
higher number had it not been for the alarm spread by Kensler, Nesbet
and Silvey, which gave the settlers an opportunity to escape.
In the meantime, W. C. Tatro, who had met the fleeing campers and
learned of the outbreak from them, carried the news to Rocky Bar, where
a company of volunteers was at once raised by Hon. G. M. Parsons. At
the same time, Colonel Bernard, accompanied by Colonel R. Robbins, who
had rendered valuable services in the Nez Perce war of the previous
year, led a body of troops from Boise. Both parties took up the trail
of the Indians at Camas Prairie and followed in their tracks.
The people of Silver City in Owyhee county, hearing that a band of
hostile Indians was encamped in the mountains to the north, sent a
company of twenty-six men, under Captain Harper, to give them battle.
The white men were greatly outnumbered and the Indians had the
advantage of position. A long and fierce fight ensued, during which
Captain Harper lost two men. The result was indecisive, the white men
returning to Silver City, and the Indians withdrawing the following day.
When he heard of the Silver City engagement, Col. Bernard hurried
thither, and sent Col. Robbins out with a detachment of men to see
why the mail stage, due the day before, had not arrived. They found
the stage destroyed by the Indians, and the driver killed. The only
passenger had escaped on one of the lead horses of the stage.
The Bannock Indians soon persuaded others to join them. They gained
recruits from the Duck Valley Indians, the Lemhis, Winnemuccas,
Malheurs and Snakes, and with their allies numbered about two thousand
warriors, women and boys. As they traveled they killed or stole all
the cattle and horses they met and destroyed a large amount of
property.
From Silver City, Col. Bernard moved on to Fort Harney. Col. Robbins,
who was scouting ahead, succeeded in locating the camp of the Indians
by night. He followed their trail for some distance and then climbed
a steep hillside to a level plateau, along which he crawled until
opposite the red men’s camp. In the clear starlight, he could see all
the Indian camps and calculated that they contained at least a thousand
warriors. The white men had less than three hundred soldiers.
After a conference, Colonels Robbins and Bernard decided to attack the
hostile camp. Col. Robbins, with thirty-five men, charged and surprised
the enemy in the early morning, while Col. Bernard, with the main
force, proceeded up Silver Creek to the canyon where the Indians were
encamped.
Although completely surprised, the red men betook themselves to some
fortifications they had made among the rocks, while the soldiers
shielded themselves as best they could. The two parties kept up a
fusilade throughout the day, and during the following night, June 23rd,
the Indians decamped, leaving a hundred dead behind. Five soldiers were
killed and a few slightly wounded.
Before beginning the battle, Col. Bernard had sent word to General
Howard, who was at Malheur, saying that he was about to enter an
engagement with a large force of Indians and might need reinforcements.
The general arrived the following morning and took command in person.
Colonel Robbins and his scouts followed the Indians, who headed in a
northwesterly direction, while the troops came on behind.
Within a few miles of John Day river, Robbins came to a sheep corral
in which a large fire had been built by the Indians. The brutes had
then bound together the hind legs of the lambs found on the place and
thrown them into the corral to burn to death. They had killed the old
sheep and left them to rot. In another place the scouts found a herd
of Merino bucks, whose forelegs the Indians had cut off at the knee,
leaving the poor animals in agony. Such exploits were typical of the
Indian on the warpath.
On another occasion the scouts saw a white man on foot running for his
life from a party of pursuing Indians, who overtook and killed their
victim before the rescuers could arrive. The man was found, scalped and
mutilated, and although still breathing, too far gone to give even his
name.
Scalping was quite an art among the Indians, and one in which, sad
to say, some white men became very proficient. The Indians did not
remove the whole head of their victim’s hair, but only a circular
portion, about the size of a silver dollar, from the crown of the head.
Sometimes in an attempt to win false glory, a man would cut two or
three scalps from one head, taking the extra ones from the sides, but
a judge of scalps could always detect the fraud, and unerringly select
that which had been taken from the crown. Some white scouts scalped
the Indians they killed, and sold the trophies, properly cured, for
good sums, the price among eastern curio seekers ranging from fifty to
seventy-five dollars. The wound inflicted by scalping was by no means
fatal, although most people who went through the ordeal died, because
they had been badly wounded first. But instances are on record of men
who afterward recovered and were none the worse for their experience.
On July 8th, Colonel Robbins located and surprised the Indians in a
canyon leading up to the Blue mountains in Oregon. He was supported by
Colonel Bernard with his troops, and succeeded in driving the red men
from their position. But the Indians took to the hills and got away,
leaving several dead behind them.
The Bannocks had crossed into Oregon in the hope of persuading
the Umatilla and Yakima Indians to join them. In this they were
disappointed, which, added to the close pursuit of the soldiers
and the, now, well-picketed condition of the country, disheartened
the marauders, and they began to sneak back in small bands to the
reservations from which they had come. On their way they committed many
depredations.
In Umatilla county, Oregon, Mr. Charles Jewell, hearing of the Indian
outbreak, secured an equipment of guns and carried them to his herders,
who were tending his sheep about thirty-five miles from Pendleton.
He stopped at a rancher’s door for a friendly chat, and had barely
alighted from his horse when a volley of shots from some ambushed
Indians laid him on the ground. The other man was killed and Mr. Jewell
was left for dead. When the Indians had gone, he crawled into the house
and secured a pair of blankets and a shingle. On the shingle he wrote:
“Charles Jewell--shot by Indians--is in the brush near by--call me if
you see this.” The wounded man then dragged himself to the road, posted
his sign there, and crawled into the brush, where he wrapped himself in
the blankets. For three days and nights he lay without food or water,
and when finally some passing men found his sign and were led to him
by his feeble answer to their call it was too late. He died a few days
afterward in Pendleton.
The three leading war chiefs of the fighting Indians were Buffalo Horn,
Bear Skin and Egan. The two former had been killed since hostilities
began in May. About the middle of July, Chief Homily of the Umatillas,
with ninety followers, went up into the hills to recover some horses
that Chief Egan’s men had stolen. He arranged for a conference with
Chief Egan and thirty of his men, and in the midst of it, at a given
signal, fell upon Chief Egan, killing him and his thirty companions.
He then affixed the dead chief’s scalp to a long pole, with the
hair flying in the breeze and carried it triumphantly back to the
reservation. General Howard had doubted the loyalty of the Umatillas
up to this time and Chief Homily killed Chief Egan as an evidence of
his good faith toward the whites. Colonel Robbins was sent to the scene
of the massacre to determine whether Chief Egan were really dead.
Everything was found just as Chief Homily had described it.
Chief Egan’s death completely demoralized the Indians. They had now
lost their three greatest fighting chiefs, and wherever they went
they found the white men ready for them. Volunteer companies had been
formed all through that section of the country, even as far south
as Nevada, and the triumphant advance of the red men had turned into
a search for safety. They broke into small parties, traveling along
out-of-the-way trails and largely by night, killing and plundering
when the opportunity came, but always heading for the reservation and
safety. It is now more than thirty-five years since this war ended,
during which time the Bannock Indians have given no further trouble.
The large increase in population makes another outbreak practically
impossible.
* * * * *
Idaho has seen one other Indian war, known as the Sheep-Eater Indian
war. This was fought with the Tookarikkas, in 1879. These people were
a mixture of the Shoshones and Bannocks, apparently inheriting the bad
qualities of both without their good qualities. They were outcasts,
even among the Indians, and won their soubriquet of “Sheep-Eaters” by
stealing sheep from the ranges. They were cowardly and treacherous, and
subsisted largely by theft. In May, 1879, they killed some settlers
and burned some property on Hugh Johnson’s ranch on the south fork of
the Salmon river, near Warrens, and as a result were rounded up by
government and state troops and sent to Vancouver, Wash.
We give this war only passing notice because it belongs to the history
of Bannock county, only through the relationship of the Tookarikka and
Bannock Indians.