who was involved in the bear river massacre

Some historians have overlooked these incidents because they occurred near the ill-defined boundary of two different territories: those of Washington and Utah. William Beach retired in Seattle, where he died on September 30, 1904. [42] Before they returned, the other five men were attacked by Shoshone, who killed John Henry Smith of Walla Walla and some horses. Colonel Patrick Edward Connor and about 200 California Volunteer Troops swooped down on a Northwestern Shoshone winter village located at the Beaver Creek and Bear River crossing in the Cache Valley . Jasperson wrote, I turned around and counted them back and counted just the same.. The late Harold Schindler was a former member of the Advisory Board of Editors for the Utah Historical Quarterly and an award-winning historian of Utah and the West. James Noble's harrowing discovery on the banks of the Forrest River in 1926 helped uncover a trail of slaughter across WA's east Kimberley and continues to haunt his descendants by Ciaran. He said the Shoshone intended to "kill every white man they should meet on the north side of the Bear River, till they should be fully avenged. The death toll, historians say, exceeded some of the countrys most horrific Indian slayings, including the 1864 slaying at Colorados Sand Creek, where 130 Cheyennes were killed. Site of the Bear River Massacre of January 1863, where U.S. troops killed at least 250 Bannock and Shoshone people--perhaps many more. He reported to the U.S. War Department before the engagement: I have the honor to report that from information received from various sources of the encampment of a large body of Indians on Bear River, in Utah Territory, 140 miles north of this point, who had settlements in this valley to the Beaver Head mines, east of the Rocky Mountains, and being satisfied that they were a part of the same band who had been murdering emigrants on the Overland Mail Route for the last fifteen years, and the principal actors and leaders in the horrid massacres of the past summer, I determined, although the season was unfavorable to an expedition in consequence of the cold weather and deep snow, to chastise them if possible. In addition, nearly 200 rounds of artillery shot were brought with the howitzers. When she was 13, she attended a ceremony in Cache Valley that unveiled a memorial to that event which had been erroneously labeled "The Battle of Bear River," ignoring the almost 500 Natives who were brutally slaughtered. To him, she said, that would have been a sign of cowardice.. In 1862, Beach enlisted in Company K, Second California Volunteer Cavalry, and spent the next seven months at Camp Alert near San Francisco learning the basic skills of a soldier. . To do this, he separated his command into two detachments that were to come together from time to time on their journey to Cache Valley. [45], Throughout most of January 1863, soldiers at Fort Douglas were preparing for a lengthy expedition traveling north to the Shoshone. [49] As orders specific for this campaign, Connor ordered each soldier to carry "40 rounds of rifle ammunition and 30 rounds of pistol ammunition". Answer: Mormons Explanation: "The Bear River Massacre was an event that changed the landscape of northern Utah and the fate of the Shoshone people. Arriving in Salt Lake City, Conover told a reporter the Shoshone were "determined to avenge the blood of their comrades" killed by Major McGarry and his soldiers. Furthermore, they said they would gladly pay this money "for the privilege (original emphasis) of going to the Potomac and getting shot." Madsens study is the best account of the expedition and of the circumstances surrounding it. Connor set forth from Fort Douglas with nearly three hundred men, mostly cavalry, late in January 1863. Franklin County Historical Society and Monument Committee. The miners missed a turn and ended up mired and lost on the western side of the Bear River, unable to cross the deep river. Shoshone historians said Timbimboo later told of how the soldier raised his gun and lowered it twice, looking into his eyes. [1] Robert M. Utley, Frontiersmen in Blue: The United States Army and the Indian, 18481865 (New York: Macmillan, 1967), 22324. Soldiers) maybe, you will all be killed. On January the 29 th, 1863, between 200 and 300 Northwestern Shoshone were slaughtered by California Volunteer troops. Most of the remaining members of the Northwestern band of Shoshone built farms and homesteads under LDS Church sponsorship. His penmanship is quite legible though flavored with misspellings. [6], So impressed were the trappers by the region that they recommended to Brigham Young that he consider the valley as a location for his settlement of Mormon pioneers. Many historians say the biggest reason the Bear River slaying is lost or ignored in history lessons is because its carnage [was] eclipsed by Civil War battles raging at the time, according to Charles S. Peterson, a historian at Utah State University who wrote the foreword on a book called The Shoshoni Frontier and the Bear River Massacre. He said its ironic that it receives so little attention, given that the well-known Native American woman Sacagawea was Shoshone and became famous for having served as a guide to explorers Lewis and Clark across the West earlier in the 19th century. Connor hired several men to use sleighs to bring wounded men back to Salt Lake City. It also addresses the question of why Bear River has been generally neglected and advances three reasons: (1) at the time, the massacre site was in Washington Territory, some eight hundred miles from the territorial capital, so residents of that territory paid little attention; (2) the event occurred during the Civil War, when the nation was occupied with other matters; and (3) Mormons in Cache Valley welcomed and approved of Connor's actions, and some historians may have been reluctant to highlight the slaughter because of the sanction it received from the the massacre involved Mormons. It was a free fight every man on his own hook. A girl of only five years old had her ears cut off, her eyes gouged out, both legs amputated at the knees, and by all appearances, was made to walk on her stumps. On Jan. 5, 1863, 10 miners traveling south on the Montana Trail were said to have been murdered by Indians. to chastise them if possible. He told U.S. marshal Isaac L. Gibbs that Gibbs could accompany the troops with his federal warrants if he wanted, but it [p. 302] was not intended to have any prisoners.[3] Howeverand this is another controversythere have been many who have questioned whether Connors soldiers actually tangled with the guilty Indians. Then the 1918 flu hit. [71], This conflict marked the final significant influence of the Shoshone nation upon Cache Valley and its immediate surroundings. [54], This military action occurred during perhaps the coldest time of the year in Cache Valley. 2. Local history recorded the Shoshone's name as Pugweenee. The rage-filled slaughter left bodies scattered across the ground, left to be picked away by wildlife and buried, to the point that, in the decades since, farmers would uncover human remains by plowing their fields (via KUER ). In his memoir, William F. Drannan who was an Army scout said when they started to fire it frightened the Indians so that they came running out like jack rabbits and were shot down like sheep.. Controversies over the battle have tainted it ever since. Idaho State Historical Society, State Historic Preservation Office, 2017. According to Irvine, he obtained the four pages from the estate of Richard Harville, a prominent Californian and a descendant of Joseph Russ, an early 1850s overland pioneer to Humboldt County who became fabulously wealthy as a landowner and rancher. Learn more in the interview and on this website: boaogoi.org/ shoshone bearriver interpretive nativeamerican Show more We have that information from a participant, Sergeant William L. Beach of Company K, 2nd Cavalry Regiment, California Volunteers, who wrote an account and sketched a map just sixteen days after the engagement, while he was recuperating from the effects of frozen feet. Between 1846 and 1873, California's Indian population plunged from perhaps 150,000 to 30,000. Their creed was "kill the Indian to save the child." McGarry ordered that these men would be shot if the stock was not delivered by noon the next day. At the onset of his expedition against the Bear River band, he announced that he was satisfied that these Indians were among those who had been murdering emigrants on the Overland Mail Route for the previous fifteen years. Perhaps the actions of the soldiers involved in the massacre, including "beat[ing infants] brains out on any hard substance they could find . [65], Connor estimated his forces killed more than 224 out of 300 warriors. My List. Franklin County Historical Society (Idaho); "The passing of the redman, being a succinct account of the last battle that wrested Idaho from the bondage of the Indians"; [Preston? Rafael Trujillo was in power from 1930 until his assassination in 1961 From late September to mid-October that year, men, women and children were rounded up, then beaten or hacked to death for just. A day later, a group of White men headed to Salt Lake City got lost and were allegedly robbed by Indians. Robert Thornley, an English immigrant and first resident of Summit Creek, defended the young Indian and testified for him. Bear River Massacre Site, near Preston, Idaho, is the site of the Bear River Massacre, in which a village of Shoshone Native Americans were attacked by the California Volunteers on January 29, 1863. [6] The manuscript was written in ink on a large sheet of letter paper folded in half to provide four pages measuring 19.3 cm by 30.6 cm. On page 53, Parry includes (and critiques) the text of a plaque that still stands in Franklin County monument site that reads, "Attacks by the Indians on the peaceful inhabitants of this vicinity led to the final battle here . They had come within 2mi (3km) of the central Shoshone winter encampment north of Franklin. I said to the Indian boys, "Here comes the Toquashes (Shoshone for U.S. Their spirits are still here, and we are still here., The 15,000 American Indians shoved aside by Jamestowns settlers. Unfortunately, Apple's iOS doesn't support home screen shortcuts in the Chrome browser. The rape victim was married. The survivors reported that the attacking warriors took four Van Ornum children captive. Enter Mae Timbimboo Parry (1919-2007), grandmother of Darren Parry, who was the Northwest Band of the Shoshone's matriarch, record keeper and historian. After his research, Irvine put the document away and thought no more of it until he saw the Chronicle article a year later. The tribe, which now has a population of about 560, plans to build an interpretive center to honor the history and those lost at Bear River. He noted that he left a small quantity of wheat for the sustenance of 160 captive squaws and children whom I left in the field.. He served three missions. [36] McGarry instructed Bear Hunter to send his people to bring back the white boy. Reaction to this military campaign was mixed. June 25 marks an important day in U.S. history: The Battle of the Little Bighorn, known to Native Americans as the Battle at Greasy Grass and known to others as Custer's Last Stand, 1876. [10] Despite the policy, the settlers were consuming significant food resources and taking over areas that pushed the Shoshone increasingly into areas of marginal food production. McGarry got his men across the river but had to leave their horses behind. [70], Based on a variety of sources, Brigham D. Madsen estimates about 250 were killed in the definitive history of the massacre. He told his people to be brave and calm, wrote Mae Parry, who died in 2007 and was Darren Parrys grandmother. In addition to discipline problems among the soldiers, there was a minor "mutiny" among the soldiers where a joint petition by most of the California Volunteers requested to withhold over $30,000 from their paychecks for the sole purpose of instead paying for naval passage to the eastern states, and to "serve their country in shooting traitors instead of eating rations and freezing to death around sage brush fires". The settlers also claimed the number of surviving women and children to be much fewer than what Connor claimed. Hundreds of Shoshone men, women, and children were killed near their lodges; the number of Shoshone victims reported by local settlers was higher than that reported by soldiers. Its our place where our old people died, said Rios Pacheco, a tribal elder, said speaking in Shoshone in a video produced about the slaying. [7] Beachs narrative and map would return to Utah. Residents of Franklin sent elected representatives to the Utah Territorial Legislature; they were part of the politics of Cache County, Utah, until 1872 when a surveying team determined the community was in Idaho territory. W. L. Beach. In the early spring of 1862, Utah Territorial Superintendent of Indian Affairs, James Duane Doty, spent four days in Cache Valley and reported: "The Indians have been in great numbers, in a starving and destitute condition. [67], There was a large difference between the number of Indians reported killed by Connor and the number counted by the citizens of Franklin, the latter being much larger. William Hull, the settler who was assisting the Shoshone, noted later: we had two of the three horses loaded, having put three bushels on each horsewhen I looked up and saw the Soldiers approaching from the south. As Connor led his column east, Sergeant Beachs company was assigned to Major McGarry as he swung north to punish the Shoshoni who had attacked a wagon train near Gravelly Ford. The Shoshone received nine bushels of wheat in three sacks. That he had been a participant at Bear River and had drawn a map of the battlefield was a surprise to his descendants. By 1840, the family had located in Upson County, Georgia. 3. Some accounts put the Bear River death toll even higher than 350. Sergeant Beach rarely spoke about his army experience, saying only that he remained haunted by what he witnessed during his Indian fighting service in Utah Territory. The morning of November 29 th, 1864, the Chiefs Black Kettle, White Antelope, One Eye, Yellow Wolf, Big Man, Bear Man, War Bonnet, Spotted . See more ideas about native american indians, native american history, american indians. On the battlefield the troops counted 224 bodies, including that of Bear Hunter, and knew that the toll was actually higher. The history of the American West and the interactions with the American Indians is one full of violence and depredations on both sides. Now, over 150 years after the Bear River Massacre, the Shoshone people are turning the site of this devastating tragedy into a place of .

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