According to Shoshone tradition, the winter camps of the Eastern
Shoshone were in the valley of the Wind River, and their hunting
territory extended north to Yellowstone Park and Cody and east to the
Big Horn Mountains and beyond South Pass. Little is said by informants
of excursions west of the Continental Divide, although historical
evidence suggests that this was actually once their principal hunting
grounds. In partial support of this contention, Shimkin says (1947_a_,
p. 247): "The historical evidence gives some weight to the assumption
that in 1835-1840 the Shoshones were mostly west of the Wind River
Mountains." He also notes that hostilities between the Shoshone and
Crow resulted in the westward withdrawal of the former again in the
1850's (ibid.). In an earlier article Shimkin also stated (1938, p.
415):
This [smallpox epidemics in the first half of the 19th
century], and probably the increased aggressiveness of other
Plains tribes with the spread of firearms as well, led to a
recession of the Shoshone and their retreat to the west in the
middle of the nineteenth century. A final wave of expansion
onto the Plains came with white aid, following the treaty at
Fort Bridger, July 3, 1868.
While agreeing in part with these conclusions, we would not confine
the Shoshone restriction to the territory west of the Continental
Divide to such limited periods. The following data suggest, rather,
that "the heart of this people's territory," as Shimkin describes the
Wind River country, did not extend west of the Wind River Range from
at least 1800 until the reservation period and that the Shoshone,
while frequently entering the Missouri River drainage, did so only for
brief periods and usually in considerable fear of attack.
In Washington Irving's account of the Astoria party, one of our
earliest reliable sources on the Wyoming Shoshone, the author tells
how the Shoshone were pushed out of the Missouri River buffalo country
after the North West and Hudson's Bay Companies put firearms in the
hands of the Blackfoot (Irving, 1890, p. 197):
Thus by degrees the Snakes have become a scattered,
broken-spirited, impoverished people, keeping about lonely
rivers and mountain streams, and subsisting chiefly upon fish.
Such of them as still possess horses and occasionally figure as
hunters are called Shoshonies.
The westward-bound Astoria party traveled up the Wind River Valley in
the middle of September, 1811, without sighting any Indians (ibid.,
pp. 199-200). This was exactly the time of year when, according to
contemporary informants, the Shoshone buffalo party should have been
gathering there. However, on the western side of the Wind River Range,
they found "a party of Snakes who had come across the mountains on
their autumnal hunting excursion to provide buffalo meat for the
winter" (p. 202). In September of the following year, the
eastward-bound party under Stuart encountered a party of "Upsarokas,
or Crows" on the Bear River, who said that they intended to trade with
the Shoshone (p. 289). This Crow party later ran off the trappers'
horses. Throughout their trip to the Green River country, the trapping
party was in continual fear of the Blackfoot (p. 298). Upon arriving
on the Green River on October 17, 1812, they met a party of about 130
"Snakes" living in some 40 "wigwams" made of pine branches (p. 306).
The ostensibly peaceful Crow had run off all but one of the horses of
this camp and had stolen some women also. The Astoria chronicle, then,
documents a situation that appears consistently in later sources: the
Shoshone were usually encountered west of the Continental Divide and
were continually on the defensive against powerful tribes to the east
and north that seemingly entered their hunting grounds at will.
The activities of the early trappers in northern Utah and western
Wyoming brought them into contact with a variety of Indian
populations, not all of which are easily identifiable. This region is
shown by the reports of the fur seekers to be characterized by a great
fluidity of internal movement of Shoshone--and Bannock-speaking groups
and by frequent entry by other tribes for purposes of war, trapping,
and trade. The journal of J. P. Beckwourth gives a vivid, although not
wholly reliable, account of the ebb and flow of population in the area
under consideration. While camped near the east shore of the Great
Salt Lake late in the year 1823, Beckwourth lost 80 horses to the
"Punnaks [Bannocks], a tribe inhabiting the headwaters of the Columbia
River" (Beckwourth, 1931, p. 60). His party pursued the Bannock to
their village, some five days distant, and, after regaining part of
the stolen herd, returned to camp to find some "Snake" (p. 61)
(Shoshonean-speaking) Indians camped near by. He states that this
group numbered 600 lodges and 2,500 warriors. The Indians were
friendly and the locale was said to have been their winter camp
(ibid.). Three years later, Beckwourth and his party were camped near
the same site (today, Farmington, Utah) and encountered 16 Flathead
Indians. Shortly thereafter the trappers were attacked by 500 mounted
Blackfoot Indians, who were driven off (ibid., p. 66). Two days later,
the fur party was joined by 4,000 Shoshone, who aided them in
defeating another Blackfoot attack (pp. 70-71). (Beckwourth's
population estimates are probably quite exaggerated.)
While Beckwourth's journals are poorly dated, it was no doubt during
the late 1820's that his party was attacked near Salt River in western
Wyoming by a body of unidentified Indians who, he claims, were 500
strong (p. 86). Shortly thereafter he fell in with friendly "Snake,"
or Shoshone, Indians. Near their camp were 185 Bannock lodges, with
whose occupants the hunters had some difficulties (pp. 87-88). While
in this vicinity, the camp of the trappers and the friendly Shoshone
was attacked by a Blackfoot party, after which the trappers and
Shoshone moved to the Green River (p. 89). At the Green River camp,
the combined trapper-Shoshone group was visited by a party of Crow
Indians. Beckwourth comments that "the Snakes and Crows were extremely
amicable." Beckwourth reported further on Shoshone-Crow relations (p.
108):
At this time the Crows were incessantly at war with all the
tribes within their reach, with the exception of the Snakes and
the Flatheads and they did not escape frequent ruptures with
them [over horses].
That this peace was extremely uneasy and manifestly ephemeral was
clearly shown by later developments when the Shoshone, accompanied by
some Ute, attacked a Crow trading party, which later mustered support
and retaliated (pp. 183-184). However, at an even later date
Beckwourth was able to report that 200 lodges of Shoshone had joined
forces with the Crow, ostensibly because of the trading possibilities
afforded by Beckwourth's presence among the latter (p. 249).
The relations between the Shoshone and Crow during the 1820's
apparently were not much unlike those that prevailed at the time of
the passages of the Astoria parties. The Crow, although not relentless
enemies of the Shoshone, as were the Blackfoot, constituted a constant
source of danger. Beckwourth's journals give evidence of amicable
relations between the American trappers and the Shoshone, although he
described the more bellicose Bannock as "very bad Indians, and very
great thieves" (p. 87). Other sources document more serious
difficulties with "Snake" Indians. Peter Skene Ogden reported in 1826
that the American trappers had suffered severe losses at the hands of
the Snake Indians during the preceding three years (Simpson, 1931, p.
285), but these mishaps probably occurred in Idaho. In 1824, however,
Jedediah Smith and Fitzpatrick lost all of their horses to the
"Snakes" on the headwaters of the Green River (Alter, 1925, pp. 38-39;
Dale, 1918, p. 91), and some members of Etienne Provot's trapping
party were killed by "Snakes" in the winter of 1824-25 (Dale, 1918, p.
103).
Little information is available from the eastern side of the Wind
River Mountains during the 1820's. We do know, however, that Ashley
entrusted his horses to the Crow Indians on the Wind River before
setting out for the mountains in the spring of 1824 (ibid., p. 89).
In 1831, an American Fur Company trapper, Warren Angus Ferris, noted
that the two main Crow bands were located chiefly on the Yellowstone
River and its tributaries, but their "war parties infest the countries
of the Eutaws, Snakes, Arrapahoes, Blackfeet, Sious, and Chayennes"
(Ferris, 1940, p. 305). He had this to say of the Eastern Shoshone (p.
310):
Of the Snakes on the plains there are probably about four
hundred lodges, six hundred warriors, and eighteen hundred
souls. They range in the plains of Green River as far as the
Eut Mountains; southward from the source to the outlet of Bear
River, of the Big Lake; thence to the mouth of Porto-nuf
[Portneuf], on Snake River of the Columbia.... They are at war
with the Eutaws, Crows, and Blackfeet, but rob and steal from
all their neighbors.
Ferris saw few Indians in his travels through the Jackson Hole area in
1832 and 1833. However, in "Jackson's Little Hole," presumably at the
south end of Hoback Canyon, he noted, in August, 1832, several large,
abandoned camps, which he assumed were those of the "Grosventres of
the prairies" (p. 158). The supposed Gros Ventre party was later seen
on the Green River and was said to have consisted of 500 to 600
warriors (pp. 158-159). These may well have been Blackfoot, for Zenas
Leonard reported a Blackfoot attack on the upper Snake River in
western Wyoming in July, 1832 (Leonard, 1934, p. 51). The Indians most
frequently sighted in the Green River region, however, were the
Shoshone. In June, 1833, Ferris saw "several squaws scattered over the
prairie engaged in digging roots" (Ferris, 1940, p. 205). These women
apparently belonged to "some fifty or sixty lodges of Snakes, ...
encamped about the fort [Bonneville's] who were daily exchanging their
skins and robes, for munitions, knives, ornaments, etc., with the
whites" (ibid., p. 206).
Further evidence of the virtual absence of the Shoshone from Missouri
waters in the fur period comes from Zenas Leonard. When preparing to
spend the winter of 1832-33 on the Green River, the trappers met a
party of 70 to 80 Crow who said "they were going to war with the Snake
Indians--whose country we were now in--and they said also they
belonged to the Crow nation on the East side of the mountains"
(Leonard, 1934, pp. 82-83). These Crow stole horses from the party,
and the trappers pursued them to their village at the mouth of the
Shoshone River, near modern Lovell, Wyoming. In the summer of 1834,
Captain Bonneville's trappers, one of whom was Zenas Leonard, trapped
on the waters of Wind River, but no mention is made of Shoshone
(ibid., pp. 224-226). In October, however, they met the Crow in the
Big Horn Basin, and they wintered on Wind River in their company (pp.
255-256). No Shoshone were reported in the area.
The Irving account of Captain Bonneville's adventures contains
additional information on Eastern Shoshone settlement patterns. It is
here also that we receive our first information on the Shoshone who
later are known to us as the Dukarika and who inhabited the
mountainous terrain of the Wind River Mountains and adjacent high
country (Irving, 1850, p. 139). The journal also supplements Leonard's
account of the trappers' sojurn in Wind River Valley, which, Irving
wrote (1837, 2:17) was infested by Blackfoot and Crow Indians and was
one of the favorite habitats of the latter (p. 22). One of the
trapping party's members was taken captive by the Crow on the Popo
Agie River, which flows past Lander, Wyoming, but was released
unharmed (pp. 24-25). It is to be noted that the trappers were in the
Wind River Valley at the end of September but saw no Shoshone,
although this was approximately the time of the annual buffalo hunt.
Upon leaving Wind River, Bonneville headed for the Sweetwater River,
which, he stated, was beyond the limits of Crow country (p. 26). He
then went to Hams Fork, a tributary of the Green River, and
encountered a Shoshone encampment with the Fitzpatrick party (p. 27).
It is doubtful whether Shoshonean peoples hunted extensively
east of the Continental Divide in the period following their
eighteenth-century retreat from the northern Plains and before the
disappearance of the buffalo west of the Rockies. Although the great
herds of the Missouri drainage were not found in the lands inhabited
by the Shoshone, it is quite possible that there were sufficient
buffalo there to meet the needs of the population. Bonneville met a
group of twenty-five mounted Bannock in the neighborhood of Soda
Springs, Idaho, in November, 1833, and, at their invitation, joined
them in a buffalo hunt there (p. 33). After taking sufficient meat,
the Bannock returned to their winter quarters at the mouth of the
Portneuf River (p. 35). The winter of 1834-35 again found Bonneville
on the Bear River, this time on its upper reaches, where he made
winter camp with "a small band of Shoshonies" (p. 210). Farther
upstream was an encampment of "Eutaw" Indians, who were hostile to the
Shoshone (p. 213). Bonneville, however, managed to prevent conflict
between the two groups. One advantage of this winter camp, and a
possible source of attraction for the Ute Indians, was the presence of
antelope during the winter. Bonneville witnessed one successful
"surround" by horsemen, aided in their efforts by supernatural charms
reminiscent of Great Basin antelope drives (pp. 214-215).
Nathaniel Wyeth evidently saw few Shoshone in his travels through
Wyoming, and his journals do not add greatly to our understanding of
the area. He traveled from the Snake to the Green River in June and
July, 1832, via the Teton country and mentioned no Shoshone except for
a small encampment near Bonneville's post on the upper Green River
(Wyeth, 1899, pp. 203-205). However, he reports that a white trapper
was attacked in July, 1833, on the lower Wind River by a party of
fifteen Shoshone who had left Green River shortly before (p. 207),
and, in 1834, he found himself among "too many Indians ... for comfort
or safety" while near Hams Fork, Wyoming (p. 225).
The journals of Osborne Russell provide documentation of population
movements in Wyoming during the years 1834-1840. Despite the decline
of the fur trade during this period, the area was still turbulent. In
November, 1834, a party of trappers was reported as having arrived at
Fort Hall, Nathaniel Wyeth's new post, after having been routed by the
Blackfoot on Hams Fork (Russell, 1955, p. 8). The spring of 1835 took
Russell to the west side of Bear Lake, where he found "about 300
lodges of Snake Indians" (p. 11) and in July of that year he
encountered a small party of Shoshone hunting mountain sheep in
Jackson Hole (p. 23). The lure of trade still attracted many other
Indian groups into the Green River country during and preceding the
time of the summer rendezvous. Russell reported an encampment of 400
lodges of Shoshone and Bannock and 100 of Flathead and Nez Perce on
the Bear River above the mouth of Smith's Fork on May 9, 1836. The
congregation was so large that it was forced to fragment in order to
seek subsistence; all planned to return on July 1, when supplies were
expected (p. 41). Russell spent the winter of 1840-41 with some 20
lodges of Shoshone in Cache Valley, Utah, and near Great Salt Lake (p.
112).
The general territorial situation had changed little by the end of the
fur period. Wislizenus, who visited Wyoming in 1839, commented (1912,
p. 76): "In the vicinity [of the Big Horn Mountains] live the
Crows.... They often rove through the country between the Platte and
the Sweet Waters, which are considered by the Indians as a common war
ground." Tribes friendly to the Shoshone visited the week-long
rendezvous on the Green River. Wislizenus notes that "of the Indians
there had come chiefly Snakes, Flatheads, and Nez Perces, peaceful
tribes, living beyond the Rocky Mountains" (p. 86).
The journal of Thomas J. Farnham, written in 1839, documents the
growing economic difficulties of the Shoshone of the Wyoming-northern
Utah area. In July of that year, Farnham received news that the
Shoshone on the Bear River were "starving" and subject to the
depredations of marauding Blackfoot and Siouan war parties (Farnham,
1906, p. 229). While on "Little Bear River" (a Bear River tributary),
Farnham observed that, despite the present barrenness, he had heard
that this area was formerly rich in buffalo and that game had abounded
in the mountains (p. 233). Further indication of the growing poverty
of the Shoshone country is seen in his comment that the Shoshone
suffered less from enemy attacks because "the passes through which
they enter the Snake country are becoming more and more destitute of
game on which to subsist" (pp. 262-263).
Poverty, it would seem, did not bestow complete immunity upon the
Shoshone of Wyoming nor did it entirely inhibit occasional forays
against their enemies. Father De Smet, who was present at the Green
River rendezvous in 1840, wrote that the "Snakes" were then preparing
a war party against the Blackfoot (De Smet, 1906, 27:164). But by
1842, the Shoshone had other concerns than the traditionally hostile
Blackfoot. Medorem Crawford noted that on July 23, 1842, the
encampment of whites then situated near the Sweetwater River was
joined by a party of over one hundred "Sues and Shians who had been to
fight the Snakes" (Crawford, 1897, p. 13). The Shoshone had
experienced previous armed encounters with Siouan groups to the east,
but the pressure of the latter in these years was such that the Crow
and Shoshone allied for defense against the powerful eastern tribes
(Fremont, 1845, p. 146). The Crow, according to Fremont, had been
present at the 1842 rendezvous on Green River (p. 50). Despite the
alliance, Fremont regarded the Wind River Mountains as the eastern
limit of Shoshone occupancy. He noted in 1843 that the Green River was
twenty-five years earlier "familiarly known as the Seeds-ke-dee-agai,
or Prairie Hen River; a name which it received from the Crows, to whom
its upper waters belong" (p. 129), and both Farnham (1906, p. 261) and
Russell (1921, pp. 144-146) placed the Shoshone no farther east than
the Green River drainage in the years immediately preceding Fremont's
observation.
Siouan aggressions continued over an indefinite period, for Bryant
reported in June, 1846, that about 3,000 Sioux had collected at Fort
Laramie preparatory to an attack against the Shoshone and Crow
(Bryant, 1885, p. 107). Bryant and his companions informed the
Shoshone of the impending raid when they arrived at Fort Bridger on
July 17, 1846. The approximately 500 Shoshone assembled there broke
camp immediately, presumably to organize a defense (pp. 142-143).
During the decade of the 1840's, accounts of the presence of Shoshone
beyond the Continental Divide are found with increasing frequency. In
1842 W. T. Hamilton, while on the Little Wind River, noted that the
trappers and the Shoshone were in continual jeopardy in this region
because of "Blackfeet, Bloods, Piegans and Crows" (Hamilton, 1905, p.
52). Although his party was attacked by a Blackfoot group at this
time, they sighted a Shoshone party shortly thereafter (p. 61) which
was under the leadership of Chief Washakie (pp. 63-64). Other Shoshone
joined this group, claiming that they had fought with Pend Oreille
Indians near the Owl Creek Mountains on the north side of the Wind
River Valley (p. 69). (The identification of this group may well have
been erroneous in view of the northerly locale of the Pend Oreille.)
The Shoshone met by Hamilton later gathered at Bull Lake to prepare an
attack against the Blackfoot on the Big Wind River (p. 71); twenty
"Piegans" were later encountered in the Owl Creek Range (p. 80).
These events apparently transpired in the late spring or early summer
of 1842, for summer found Washakie's people at Fort Bridger (p. 92),
and later at Brown's Hole on the Green River in northwestern Colorado
where a "few Ute and Navajos came up on their annual visit with the
Shoshone, to trade and to race horses." The Shoshone left for their
fall trapping in September (p. 97), but some were there in winter camp
when Hamilton's party returned to Brown's Hole to winter (p. 118).
Hamilton's later travels took him on a buffalo hunt into the Big Horn
Basin with Washakie in October, 1843 (p. 182). At "Stinking Water"
(Shoshone River) the party encountered Crow Indians on their way to
visit the Shoshone (p. 183). The buffalo-hunting group returned to the
Green River in November for the winter (p. 186). At this time Hamilton
noted that Washakie claimed the Big Horn country as far as the
Yellowstone River, but that the Crow, Flathead, and Nez Perce hunted
upon it and it was regarded as neutral hunting ground by other tribes
(p. 187). October, 1848, again found Hamilton in the Big Horn country,
where he met a party of Shoshone in the Big Horn Mountains (p. 197).
The group was in pursuit of a Cheyenne war party that had stolen
horses from them; the offenders were overtaken on the North Platte
River and the horses were recovered (p. 198). Hamilton was informed
that Washakie was then on Greybull Creek, but planned to move to the
Shoshone River (p. 199).
Further information on the activities of the Shoshone east of the
Continental Divide comes from Bryant, who, on July 14, 1846, sighted
near Green River (Bryant, 1885, p. 136):
... a party of some sixty or eighty Shoshone or Snake Indians,
who were returning from a buffalo hunt to the east of the South
Pass. The chief and active hunters of the party were riding
good horses. The others, among whom were some women, were
mounted generally upon animals that appeared to have been
nearly exhausted by fatigue. These, besides carrying their
riders, were freighted with dried buffalo meat, suspended in
equal divisions of bulk and weight from straps across the back.
Several pack animals were loaded entirely with meat and were
driven along as we drive pack mules.
The apparent increase in the use of the Wind River Valley and adjacent
areas was in part a result of Crow amity in the face of a common
enemy, but it can also be explained in terms of the Shoshone need to
seek their winter store of buffalo meat regardless of dangers. The
buffalo herds west of the Continental Divide were greatly diminished
by 1840, and, by the end of the decade, the intrusion of emigrants
must have decimated the remaining stock. As early as 1842, Fremont
commented that he saw no buffalo beyond South Pass (Fremont, 1845, p.
63), and in 1849 Major Osborne Cross observed that "scarcely any were
to be met with this side of the South Pass" (Cross, 1851, p. 178). The
Major later wrote (p. 182):
Game in this section of the country is scarce, compared with
the ranges passed over on the route. We had now gone nearly
through the whole buffalo range, as but few are now met with on
Bear River. Fifteen years ago they were to be seen in great
numbers here, but have been diminishing greatly since that
time.
Despite periodic forays to the east, the report of Indian Agent Wilson
of Fort Bridger in 1849 indicates that the generally recognized area
of Shoshone occupancy was substantially unchanged (J. Wilson, 1849, p.
1002):
Their claim of boundary is to the east from the Red Buttes
[near Casper, Wyoming], on the North Fork of the Platte, to its
head in the Park, De-cay-a-que or Buffalo Bull-pen, in the
Rocky Mountains; to the south, across the mountains, over to
the Yam pa pa, till it enters Green or Colorado River; and then
across to the Back bone or ridge of mts. called the Bear River
mountains, running nearly due west towards the Salt Lake, so as
to take in most of the Salt Lake, and thence on to the Sinks of
Mary's or Humboldt River; thence north to the fisheries on the
Snake river, in Oregon and thence south (their northern
boundary) to the Red Buttes, including the source of Green
River.
Joseph Lane, the Superintendent of Indian Affairs in Oregon territory
also wrote in that year that "the Shoshonee or Snake Indians inhabit a
section of country west of the Rocky mountains, from the summit of
these mountains north along Wind river mountains to Henry's fork...."
(Lane, 1857, p. 158).
Continuing reference to the presence of Shoshone east of the
Continental Divide is found in reports dating from the 1850's,
although the Green River country continued as the central area of
Eastern Shoshone occupation. Indian Agent Holeman sought to bring the
Shoshone to a treaty conference at Fort Laramie in 1851 and reported
(Holeman, 1852, p. 445):
... met the village assembled on Sweet Water, about fifty miles
east of the South pass. On the 21st of August I had a talk with
them, which resulted in their selecting sixty of their
headmen, fully authorized to act for the whole tribe....
In September, 1852, Brigham Young arranged a peace conference between
the Ute and Shoshone. The Mormon governor reported (Young, 1852, p.
438):
I then asked the Shoshones how they would like to have us
settle upon their lands at Green River. They replied that the
land at Green River did not belong to them; that they lived and
inhabited in the vicinity of the Wind River chain of mountains
and the Sweet River (or Sugar Water, as they called it), but
that if we would make a settlement on Green River they would be
glad to come to trade with us.
Difficulties soon developed between the Mormons and the Indians on
Green River (Holeman, 1858, pp. 159-160). The report of Lieutenant
Fleming of Fort Laramie in 1854 suggests that the Shoshone had not
relinquished the Green River country to the Mormon colonists, despite
Young's claim (H. B. Fleming, 1858, p. 167):
The mountain men have wives and children among the Snake
Indians, and therefore claim the right to the Green River
country, in virtue of the grant given them by the Indians, to
whom the country belongs, as no treaty has yet been made to
extinguish their title.
The Morehead narrative in Connelley's edition of the Doniphan
expedition notes that some two or three thousand Shoshone were camped
on the Green River in the summer of 1857; Chief Washakie was present
at this encampment (Connelley, 1907, p. 607). And Alter's biography of
James Bridger states that in the winter of 1857-58 "Chief Washakie and
two thousand Shoshone tribesmen at the crossing of the Green had no
particular difficulty that winter" (Alter, 1925, p. 303). Forney, in
June, 1858, wrote of his plans to establish the Shoshone "under Chief
Wash-A-Kee" on the tributaries of the Green River (Forney, 1860_b_, p.
45) and reported that the group was located on that river in May, 1858
(Forney, 1859, p. 564).
Albert H. Campbell, General Superintendent of the Pacific Wagon Roads,
wrote in 1859 that the Shoshone were restricted to the area west of
the Rockies (1859, p. 8):
The Snakes have received very little attention hitherto from
the authorities of the United States, and frequent wars with
their powerful neighbors, the Blackfeet and Crows, have
compelled them in a manner to withdraw from the buffalo range
and keep within the mountain fastnesses, where they derive a
scanty subsistence from roots and the smaller game.
The total context of historical material indicates, however, that the
Shoshone were hunting buffalo on the eastern side of the Continental
Divide during this period and, in so doing, were following a pattern
of transmontane hunting familiar to us among the Plateau tribes.
Forney wrote in September, 1858 (1859, p. 564):
I have heretofore spoken of a large tribe of Indians known as
the Snakes. They claim a large tract of country lying in the
eastern part of this Territory, but are scarcely ever found
upon their own land.
They generally inhabit the Wind River country, in Oregon and
Nebraska Territories, and they sometimes range as far east as
Fort Laramie, in the latter Territory. Their principal
subsistence is the buffalo, and it is for the purpose of
hunting them that they range so far east of their own country.
This tribe numbers about twelve hundred souls, all under one
principal chief, Wash-a-kee. He has perfect command over them,
and is one of the finest looking and most intellectual Indians
I ever saw.
The duration of the previously mentioned peaceful interlude between
the Crow and the Shoshone of Wyoming cannot be accurately determined.
However, Lander reported them at war in 1858 (1859, p. 49):
The Crow and Shoshonee Indians having broken out into open war
in the north, did not permit of my risking or exposing the
large stock of mules of the expedition at the camp selected as
the wintering ground of last year's expedition, on Wind River.
Lander encountered Washakie and "the whole of the great tribe of the
eastern Shoshonees" hunting antelope on the headwaters of the Green
River (p. 68). The Shoshone spent the winter on Wind River but "the
last account from them say they are in a starving condition; they are
at war with the Crows, and are afraid to go out to hunt for game" (p.
69). The Shoshone had fought with the Crow on October 27, 1858, which
had probably prevented them from attempting the fall buffalo hunt.
They apparently undertook a hunt during the following spring, for Will
H. Wagner, an engineer on the South Pass wagon road, observed in May
of 1859 that only a few Shoshone lodges were found on Green River, the
main body still being in the Wind River Valley (Wagner, 1861, p. 25).
In February, 1860, Lander wrote a summary of Eastern Shoshone
territorial use as of 1859 (1860, pp. 121-122):
The Eastern Snakes range from the waters of Wind river or
latitude 43 deg. 30' on the north and from the South Pass to the
headwaters of the North Platte on the east, and to Bear river
near the mouth of Smith's Fork on the west. They extend south
as far as Brown's Hole on Green River. Their principal
subsistence is the roots and seeds of the wild vegetables of
the region they inhabit, the mountain trout, with which all the
streams of the country are abundantly supplied, and wild game.
The latter is now very scarce in the vicinity of the new and
old emigrant roads.
The immense herds of antelope I remember having seen along the
route of the new road in 1854 and 1857 seem to have
disappeared. These Indians visit the border ground between
their own country and the Crows and Blackfeet for the purpose
of hunting Elk, Antelope and stray herds of buffalo. When these
trips are made they travel only in large bands for fear of the
Blackfeet and Crows. With the Bannacks and parties of Salt Lake
Diggers they often make still longer marches into the
northwestern buffalo ranges on the head waters of the Missouri
and Yellow Stone.
These excursions usually last over winter, the more western
Indians who join them passing over a distance of twelve
hundred miles on the out and return journey.
Under the leadership of Washakie, which dates from approximately the
beginning of the period of heavy emigration to the Far West, the
Shoshone of Wyoming had maintained amicable relations with the whites.
The early 1860's, however, saw increased clashes between Indians and
whites in the Bear River country and in southern Idaho. While the
activities of Chief Pocatello's band and of other hostile groups will
be further discussed in the section on Idaho, it would be well at this
point to clarify relations between Washakie's followers and the people
of Bear River. It is impossible to differentiate a Wyoming group as
distinct from the Shoshone of Bear River in earlier periods, and, in
view of the presence of buffalo in the country of the Green and Bear
rivers until at least 1840, it is more than probable that southwestern
Wyoming, northern Utah, and southeastern Idaho were common grounds
roamed over by several nomadic hunting groups. Lander recognized the
affinity between the areas, although he distinguished Washakie's
Eastern Shoshone from the Utah residents on the basis of their
respective relations with the whites (Lander, 1860, pp. 122-123):
The Salt Lake Diggers intermarry with the Eastern Snakes and
are on good terms with them.
Among these Indians [the "Salt Lake Diggers"] are some of the
worst in the mountains. Washakie will not permit a horse thief
or vagabond to remain in his band, but many of the Mormon
Indians go about the country with minor chiefs calling
themselves Eastern Snakes.
Old Snag, a chief sometimes seen on Green River, who proclaims
himself an Eastern Snake, and friend of the Americans, is of
this class....
Southern Indians pass, on their way "to buffalo," (a technical
term,) through the lands of the Eastern Snakes and Bannocks,
and the latter are often made to bear the blame of their
horse-stealing proclivities.
Doty reported depredations on the road between Fort Laramie and Salt
Lake City in 1862 (Doty, 1863, pp. 342, 355), and in the following
year the Army attacked a large number of the hostiles on Bear River
and inflicted very severe losses on them (War of the Rebellion, 1902,
pp. 185-187). Doty reported from Box Elder, Utah, on July 30 of the
same year (ibid., p. 219):
A treaty of peace was this day concluded at this place by Gen.
Connor [who led the Bear River attack] and myself with the
bands of the Shoshones, of which Pocatello, San Pitch and
Sagwich are the principal chiefs.
Earlier, on July 2, 1863, a treaty was entered into at Fort Bridger
between Doty and the bands of "Waushakee," "Shauwuno," "Tibagan,"
"Peoastoagah," "Totimee," "Ashingodimah," "Sagowitz," "Oretzimawik,"
"Bazil," and "Sanpitz" (Doty, 1865, p. 319). Doty noted at this time
that the Shoshone "claim their ... eastern boundary on the crest of
the Rocky mountains; but it is certain that they, as well as the
Bannacks, hunt buffalo below the Three Forks of the Missouri, and on
the headwaters of the Yellowstone" (p. 318). Doty continued (pp.
318-319):
As none of the Indians of this country have permanent places
of abode, in their hunting excursions they wander over an
immense region, extending from the fisheries at and below
Salmon Falls, on the Shoshone [Snake] river, near the Oregon
line, to the sources of that stream and to the Buffalo country
beyond....
The Shoshonees and Bannocks are the only nations which, to my
knowledge hunt together over the same ground.
The Shoshone continued to hunt beyond the mountains after the Fort
Bridger treaty. Superintendent Irish reported in September, 1864, that
the "Shoshonees" were at Bear Lake awaiting their payment and were
impatient to "go to their winter hunting grounds on Wind River"
(Irish, 1865, p. 314). Three hundred Cheyenne lodges were reported in
Wind River Valley in May, 1865, but the group subsequently withdrew to
the "Sweetwater mountains and thence to Powder River" (Coutant, 1899,
1:440). In September, 1865, Irish reported that the Shoshone
frequented the Wind River country and the headwaters of the North
Platte and Missouri rivers (Irish, 1866, p. 311). The Superintendent
described the pattern of movement that had become established (ibid.):
Their principal subsistence is the buffalo, which they hunt
during the fall, winter, and spring, on which they subsist
during that time, and return in the summer to Fort Bridger and
Great Salt Lake City.
Agent Luther Mann of Fort Bridger added (1865, p. 327):
They spend about eight months of the year among the Wind River
mountains and in the valley of the Wind River, Big Horn and
Yellowstone....
The Shoshonees are friendly with the Bannacks, their neighbor
on the north ... but are hostile toward the tribes on their
eastern boundaries, viz: Sioux, Arapahoes, Cheyennes, and
Crows.
Mann observed that the Eastern Shoshone numbered some 150 lodges.
However, he also noted that Washakie claimed to be too weak to fight
his enemies. In his next year's report, Mann wrote that on September
20, 1865, the Shoshone set out from Fort Bridger for the Wind River
and Popo Agie valleys where they hunted buffalo, deer, elk, and
mountain sheep and passed the winter. Only five to ten lodges remained
on Green River for the winter (ibid., p. 126).
The Shoshone had some difficulty with hostile tribes during their
hunts in the Wind River Valley. The battle of Crowheart Butte (near
Crowheart, Wyoming) has become a legend on the Wind River Reservation,
and the facts of the event have become well embellished. More reliable
informants claim that the Crow were encamped at the present site of
Kinnear, Wyoming, on the north side of Big Wind River and were driven
out after a strong attack by the Shoshone. The Crow detachment was
evidently not merely a war party, for the men were accompanied by
their women and children. Hebard, using documentary material
unavailable to the writers, places the date of this battle as March,
1866 (Hebard, 1930, p. 151). There is no further mention in the
sources of Crow occupation of the Wind River Valley.
This was not the end of the Shoshones' troubles, however, for in the
following year (1867), Indian Agent Mann noted (1868, p. 182):
Immediately after the distribution of their annuity goods last
year, they left this agency for their hunting grounds in the
Popeaugie [Popo Agie River, near Lander, Wyo.] and Wind River
valleys, the only portion of the country claimed by them where
they can obtain buffalo.
Early last spring the near approach of hostile Sioux and
Cheyennes compelled them to leave before they could prepare
their usual supply of dried meat for summer use.
Mann further reported that, after being paid the annuity on June 8,
1867, "they have since gone to the valley of the Great Salt Lake, as
is usual with them, preparatory to their return to their hunting
grounds in autumn" (p. 183). These accounts further document the
manner in which the Utah and Wyoming populations merged.
The Sioux were apparently especially active east of the Wind River
Range in these years and many other attacks were reported. The
Shoshone went to Wind River in 1868 and were again attacked by the
Sioux. Agent Mann reported that year that a few small bands of
Shoshone had not hunted buffalo in two years for fear of attack (Mann,
1869, pp. 616-618).
The government had a good deal of difficulty in persuading the
Shoshone to remain on the reservation established by the treaty of
1868. Captain J. H. Patterson, the new agent, wrote in 1869 (1870, p.
717): "So powerful are the Sioux, it is only after winter is far
advanced, and from that time until early in the spring, that the
Shoshones can remain on the reservation." They passed the winter of
1868-69 at Wind River, but the Sioux attacked on April 26, 1869,
before they broke winter camp (J. A. Campbell, 1870, p. 173). On
September 14, 1869, Siouan warriors attempted another foray into Wind
River Valley but were repulsed by troops. Fearful of another early
attack and wary of their new reservation co-residents, the Northern
Arapaho and Washakie left Wind River at the end of April of the
following year (1870). The Shoshone departed with little stored meat,
since they were unable to pursue the buffalo far out on the prairie
(G. W. Fleming, 1871, p. 643).
In the following years, we hear little of the hunting activities of
the Shoshone. They were moved permanently to the Wind River
Reservation, where, according to Agent James Irwin in 1873, they
showed a strong desire to abandon their nomadic ways and to learn
agriculture (Irwin, 1874, p. 612). Irwin claimed that, although the
Bannock population of the "Shoshone and Bannock Agency" at Wind River
was transferred in 1872 to Fort Hall, 216 still unsettled Shoshone had
expressed intent in the following year to move to Wind River. The
Shoshone experienced little success in their early attempts at
farming, and the government food allotments were seldom adequate to
last through the year. This, combined with the traditional value
placed on the buffalo hunt, perpetuated the nomadic pattern for a
number of years. As late as 1877, Agent Patten wrote (1878, p. 605):
During the month of October last [1876], while the Shoshones
were on one of their annual hunts, the village became divided;
Washakie, with the greater portion, struck across the country
from the base of the Sierra Shoshone Mountains to the mouth of
Owl Creek on Big Wind River; the smallest party, under two
braves named Na-akie and Ta-goon-dum, started for the river
above the mouth of Grey Bull, where having arrived the prospect
of a successful hunt was propitious. Large herds of buffalo
were everywhere in sight; but the next morning after their
arrival this little band, comprising men, women, and children,
were suddenly attacked by Dull Knife's band of hostile Cheyenne
warriors.
The Plains were evidently still unsafe, and hunting parties traveled
in strength. But the end of the buffalo period was not far off, for
hide-hunters and settlers had already made massive inroads on the
herds, and the open-range cattle-raising industry had begun. It is
interesting to note, however, that the itinerary followed in 1876 was
much the same as that related by Shimkin's informants and by ours.
Except for that given in the one account by Hamilton, it has no
antecedents in the historical literature.