A success!

One of the more difficult aspects about the Bear River Project is the limited amount of in-depth historical research that has been done in Southeastern Idaho. This is not to say that the history isn't there because it is, but it is hidden from view. Pioneers and settlers in Idaho and Utah are well known for keeping journals and family histories (a common practice in the 1800's, but especially encouraged by the LDS church). Many of these diaries and resulting family stories and histories are just now beginning to see broader publication as families post them on the Internet.

It was one of these histories that I stumbled on not long ago and was startled to find a note saying there was an included document with transcribed oral history from a significant figure in the Bear River Massacre. A few emails later and the kind gentleman who posted the original story was eventually able to retrieve the second document, scan it, and send it to me. Sure enough, it was unpublished material that cast a great deal of light on the mid-to-late 19th century in Southeastern Idaho!

There have been other similar successes that are resulting in a much clearer picture of what life was like during that time, the people who were involved, and the events of the massacre. Each scrap of information adds to the overall panorama. We are discovering information found in California, Massachusetts, and other far flung regions, but the most exciting tend to be from our region of the state. As families moved north into the Pocatello region and spread even farther northward to Idaho Falls (then Eagle Rock) and west to American Falls they brought with them their diaries and other records. Some traveled back and forth to visit friends and others came to know those who had been involved with the massacre.

This is an exciting time to be alive for a historian. Research of this depth used to take decades and now we can do much the same work in just a year or two. Please keep looking in your old family records and photo albums. You never know, maybe your family is hiding the next great historical find for Idaho!

Idaho Winters

As winter finally sets-in around Idaho I had the opportunity to drive through the region of the massacre site again. As I drove through the Bear River bottoms steam rose from nearby hot springs, snow lay lightly on the ground, and the sky turned to soft purples, pinks, and blues.

There's no doubt that winter in Southeast Idaho can be a harsh experience. Subzero temperatures, strong winds, and heavy snows make for a dangerous environment. However, geothermal springs in places like Bear River and wintering grounds for deer and elk nearby made the Shoshone camp a snug place to spend the winter. The warm springs could sooth the aches and pains of the elders while hunting in the mountains to the north (in picture above) was relatively easy for the younger men.

The continued encroachment of the settlers and freight wagons though threatened not only the natives' way of life, but their lives. By 1863 wintering grounds for the Shoshone and Bannock were reduced to small parcels. Previously the Shoshone had used large portions of Cache Valley, but no more. As they were pushed farther and farther North their chance of survival dropped more and more.

About that bear paw image

Some of you have undoubtedly noticed the photograph of the bear paw on the front page of the site. Nobody is quite sure how old it is or who carved it into a boulder that now resides in a park in Pocatello, Idaho. However, it is undoubtedly related to the Shoshone and Bannocks that traveled through this region and camped near the Portneuf River for centuries and traveled South to Bear River to spend their winters there.

If you happen to know of similar petroglyphs in the Southeastern Idaho region there is something more you can do to help out. First, protect the petroglyph! Don't tell irresponsible people where it is. Don't pour liquids on it. Don't expose it to the elements if it's protected by an overhang or vegetation. And whatever you do, don't try to remove it! Damaging or removing a petroglphy (or any artifact on public land) is a felony.

Second, please photograph the petroglyphs you know of. If you send them to us please give us a general idea of where it is located. We will not publish that data, but instead store it for researchers. GPS data is even better, but not necessary.

One of the issues with Idaho petroglyphs is that we do not have a Rosetta Stone to help us interpret them. Some symbols are known, but many are in dispute. By recording the symbols we can build an archive of them for further study.

History Everywhere

Sometimes you go hunting for history. Sometimes history goes hunting for you. Last night, after a long day, I sat down to read an old magazine that my dad gave me last year. It had been sitting in the reading pile, but I just hadn't gotten around to it. Five minutes later I was making a copy of an article. It turns out that particular magazine had a particular article by a particular author who just happened to ask someone a particular question that just happened to answer a particular question in my research I hadn't been able to resolve yet.

That's the reason for publishing this website and asking the community if they have any old family photos are documents that mention or relate to the Bear River Massacre. You never know what someone's grandfather, great uncle, or friend wrote down in their diary or that letter to Mom in 1945. Who knows, maybe your closet has the one document that changes history!

Why history and why this project?

For a large portion of the past year I have been reading every document known that is related to the Bear River Massacre. I have read thousands of pages. I have read first-person accounts of horrible events and outright lies. I have seen half-truths propagated and legends born. I have seen the fall of societies and the birth pangs of the world's first super power.

So what have I learned? Well, that's the point of the book, but there are still some ideas I'd like to share here. History is a finicky thing. It changes depending on who is telling it, why they are telling it, and when they are telling it. Usually this is done with the best of intentions, but the result is still the same. Rather than presenting truth as the facts of what happened writers want to present Truth (with a capital T) and facts become tools in the hands of the writer. This is inevitable, but if the writer is unaware of it or simply careless then "facts" are turned into lies and they do damage to the very ideals they wish to present. Too often our history is written by those with the best of intentions, but without an attitude of reserved judgment.

When this happens history takes on the aura of legend, a dry textbook, a corny television show, a thriller movie, or just a convenient story that fits the agenda of those in power or with an ax to grind (or a book to sell). It loses the feeling of reality that surrounds our everyday events. It is not really believable anymore and seems distant as it turns from memories into moral platitudes and epic stories. Incidents like the Bear River Massacre are by nature surreal to our everyday lives. The thought of standing in freezing temperatures in a remote corner of nowhere watching men, women, and children bleed out onto winter snow is not one we care to relate to. The idea of hearing children screaming in terror and watching men smash their heads against the ground is so foreign to our lives that we do not have a frame of reference to make it real to us. So we allow it to fade into legend.

However, it is real. It did happen. Not only did it happen, but it happened in a world that is not so different from our own and it happened for a reason. It happened with people as real as our coworkers, our neighbors, and ourselves. It happened to families like ours. The question then is how real people could come to a place like the confluence of Beaver Creek and Bear River and slaughter one another? It seems unreal, but somehow at the moment it was real and they felt justified in their actions. How did people get from one to the other? Why did they do what they did? What really happened? Can we even really know? More importantly, can we avoid it in the future?

One of my guiding principles in research is to keep digging for original sources until I have a sense that the events that happened "back then" are as real as those that happen today. Real life is messy and confusing. People, no matter how evil their actions, are not caricatures. They are complex and conflicted. Hitler played with children, Stalin laughed, and Pol Pot was a patriot saying, "Everything I did, I did for my country." Until we understand Hitler as both a psychotic mass murderer and a man who loved children we don't understand the man and his time. Until we can realize how Pol Pot could justify the Killing Fields we cannot understand the rise of extremism in East Asia. More importantly, until we can understand these men and their times we cannot identify the next Hitler, Stalin, or Pol Pot before they murder millions.

It is the job of the historian to dig and dig until enough is found that we can finally say, "This sounds like real life. This sounds like how people really think." The thought of digging into the world and psyche of men like Hitler and Stalin until we understand them is disturbing. It means we have to come to understand monsters and eventually, on some level, identify with them. We have to admit that "There, but by the grace of God, go I." Is it any wonder then that we stop reading history before we get to that point? The idea that we and Pol Pot have anything in common is abhorrent. We gaze upon the killing fields of Cambodia and say, "I'm nothing like him!" and so we make him into a mythical figure of evil. In doing so we lose the lesson of history - Beware! For there too we may go.

But what about Colonel Connor and his band of California cavalry and infantry volunteers? Were they simply noble soldiers out to tame a land oppressed by renegade Indian chiefs or were they murderous monsters riding on a mission of bloody genocide and rape? Were the emigrants on the Oregon Trail and Mormon settlers victims of depredations or invaders in another people's land? Depending on who you ask you may get completely different answers. However, such broad sweeping descriptions rarely give a true picture of what happened nor the motives of the people who were there. Until we can understand men like Connor, Bear Hunter, McGarry, Pocatello, Brigham Young, and Sagwitch we cannot understand how the world came to such a violent point on January 29, 1863. Until we can make it real again we cannot learn how to identify the next Bear River before hundreds more die in the dead of winter.

In the past few weeks the Bear River Massacre has changed for me. It is no longer a mythical historical event filled with bravado, villains, and heroes. It feels real now. As an artist that was my original goal - to understand the event well enough that when I put paint to canvas I could make history alive. However, what I have come to learn has become so much more complex and far reaching. We are who we are today because of what happened at Bear River in 1863. The effects of that day echo through history and have changed the course of nations. The world pivoted on January 29th in a small corner of Oregon Territory and yet nobody seems to have noticed. The lessons remain unlearned.

This is why this project is so important and why the help of others in the community is critical to its completion. The truth must be told, but more importantly we must come to understand not only what happened, but how we got there and how it led to where we are today.