Shoshone

01Summary

The 'Snake' people, whose lands included South Pass and the Snake River plain. The Eastern Shoshone, led by Chief Washakie, kept largely peaceful relations with emigrants and supplied guides through the divide. Western (Northern) Shoshone bands had a far harder time as the trail crossed their meager food country.

02History

The Shoshone, Newe, 'The People', were divided in the trail era into Eastern (Wind River), Northern (Lemhi and Northwestern), and Western bands. The Eastern Shoshone controlled the country around South Pass and the upper Green River. The Northern bands lived along the Snake River. The Western bands ranged through Nevada and western Utah.

Eastern Shoshone relations with emigrants were unusually positive throughout the trail era, largely thanks to the diplomacy of Chief Washakie (c. 1804-1900), who saw alliance with the U.S. as the surest way to preserve Shoshone homelands against Lakota and Crow pressure. His warriors guided emigrant trains over South Pass and traded horses, fish, and meat for emigrant goods.

Northern and Western Shoshone bands fared far worse. The trail crossed their meagre food country, the Great Basin's pinyon, sagebrush, and small game, and emigrant livestock destroyed it. The Bear River Massacre of 29 January 1863, when Colonel Patrick Connor's California Volunteers killed roughly 350 Northwestern Shoshone in present-day Idaho, was the largest single-incident killing of Native peoples in U.S. history.

Sacagawea (c. 1788-1812), the Lemhi Shoshone interpreter who travelled with Lewis and Clark in 1805 and 1806, was Shoshone, though her work pre-dates the emigrant era proper.

03Notable leaders

• Chief Washakie
  Eastern Shoshone leader, c. 1804-1900, who held his people in alliance with the U.S. for half a century.
• Pocatello
  Northwestern Shoshone chief, c. 1815-1884, who led survivors away from the Bear River Massacre.
• Sacagawea
  Lemhi Shoshone interpreter for the Lewis and Clark Expedition, c. 1788-1812.

04Today