January 29th, 2019

As you read this it will likely be January 29th, 2019, the 156th anniversary of the Bear River Massacre. It was the largest massacre of Native Americans by the United States Army in history, bigger than Sand Creek for which it served as a template, bigger than Wounded Knee. On the frozen banks of a river next to a town best known for Napoleon Dynamite lays the killing grounds of one of the great travesties of our nation’s history, but despite the efforts of a few it’s barely known by the American people outside of Native American tribes, history buffs, and a few locals. Worse, much of what people think they know is only partially true or tainted by a century and a half of bigotry.

Each year Shoshoni and Bannock people trek to the bend in the Bear River from towns and reservations in Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Nevada, and beyond to remember their family members who were senselessly killed there. In recent years more white people have arrived as well to mourn the shameful moment in our nation’s history.

This year many of the same people will gather again, but there will be a difference. For the first time in 156 years the Northwestern Shoshoni can call the ground theirs again. Through the dedicated efforts of tribal elders the last parcel was purchased in 2018. They’ve bought back a small piece of what was stolen from them, the piece where their band was almost completely wiped out by the California Volunteers stationed at Camp Douglas above Salt Lake. The piece where bodies were left on top of the frozen ground to rot as a sign to other bands that the US Army was not to be trifled with.

Their plans for the property include an interpretive center to tell people about what happened from the Shoshoni perspective, what it meant to those who survived, and what it means to their families. 

The photo below was taken from the bluff overlooking the massacre site in 2017. The weather was similar to what it was in 1863. It was bitterly cold and mist rose off the warm springs below the Bear River causing the cold to sink in even deeper. On the left side of the photo, just to the left of the road dismounted cavalry approached the village pitched on the banks of what today is known as Battle Creek.

The Shoshoni put up a strong fight, but the soldiers were better armed and when the fighting entered the village itself their revolvers outmatched the few muzzle loaders, bows, knives, and winnowing pans the villagers used to defend themselves. The slaughter lasted for hours. Colonel Patrick E. Connor had issued his orders and punctuated them with a phrase chilling in its callousness, “Nits make lice” meaning “Kill even the children”. His men complied and waded through the screams hacking, shooting, and indiscriminately murdering men, women, and, yes, even children. 

A few of the villagers escaped by jumping into the river and hiding under the floating chunks of ice. Their survival skills and knowledge of nearby hot springs saved their lives. Many who survived were shot multiple times. At least one woman allowed her whimpering baby to drown so she could silently hide under the river bank and save the lives of other children clinging to her back. 

As the killing wore on Connor was shocked by the brutality of what he had ordered and declared that any woman or child who came forward would be spared. Those few who were not already dead or in the icy water staggered forward to sit on the banks of the river while Connor’s men burned their homes, poured out and trampled their food, and stole anything of value. He magnanimously left them a bag of grain as his men burned the poles from their teepees to warm themselves.

Connor intended the massacre to be so shocking that all of the bands of Shoshone and Bannock in the region would be “pacified” and accept the terms he demanded. It worked, but not for the reason Connor thought. The Shoshone bands had been trying to get the attention of the US government for years, but because of the absolute ineptitude and corruption of the bureaucrats they had been ignored. Now Connor was on the scene and was finally willing to talk. He had just murdered women and children first. 

Treaties were signed. Numerous promises were made. Most were broken and those that were kept were usually one-sided deals. The view of the Americans was that the Indians were a dying race, destined to disappear and the “Indian problem” was figuring out what to do with them until the inevitable occurred. Reservations were agreed to. Children were forced into abusive boarding schools dedicated to the precept “kill the Indian, save the man”. They were forced to wear the clothes of the white man, speak his language, eat his food, wear his shoes and beaten if they disagreed. The boarding schools were hellish nightmares and many children died from disease, their parents were forbidden from seeing them even in their dying moments. Those who survived told harrowing stories of beatings, sexual abuse, and forced labor. Promised resources to help the Shoshone transition to an agrarian lifestyle rarely came and when they did they were usually pilfered by corrupt Indian Agents. Good food was traded out for rotted food so the agents and their co-conspirators could sell the good food for a nice profit. Clothes had holes in them. Animals were sick and lame. Blankets were often so threadbare they were useless. Farm machinery rarely worked and promised help to teach them how to use it was minimal at best.

Eventually the Bannocks, who were placed on the Fort Hall reservation and resided primarily to the West of the city of Pocatello, grew desperate. Seeing their children starve in the face of the passive disdain of the government officials finally pushed them to fight again sparking the Bannock War. 

The surviving members of the Northwestern band of Shoshoni decided their best chance was to integrate with the Mormon settlers of Northern Utah whom they knew as their neighbors and some of whom opened their homes to the fleeing and wounded refugees. Even there though they found it difficult to survive in a new world thrust upon them. In just a few years they went from a hunter-gatherer existence to witnessing the Industrial Revolution sweeping in with trains and electricity, and then later automobiles and even airplanes. Forced to adjust in a single lifetime from their life on horseback to a modern world they set their teeth and successfully transitioned despite the claims that they were a “disappearing breed” and the all-too-present cloud of racism hanging over their heads. However, they made sure their children knew and could recite their family stories of the day when Connor and the pony soldiers rode in and murdered their people. They were integrating and learning to live in the new world thrust upon them, but they refused to forget who they were and how they had come to be there.

For his part, Connor was brevetted to General in the Army as a reward for his glorious victory at what was then known as the “Battle of Bear River”. He went on to consult with other commanders (such as those in command at Sand Creek) and eventually lead the US Army’s attempts to pacify tribes on the Great Plains and in Montana, but he found very little success due to the ineptitude of his own command and that of the officers beneath him. Connor finally retired from the Army and focused on mining ventures in Utah. While Chivington was called to account for Sand Creek, Connor was hailed a hero and lived out his life mostly in Salt Lake making money through his mining ventures, and enjoyed entertaining famous people who travelled through, even the President of the United States who happily posed for a photo with Connor on his front porch.

Connor and his men always felt cheated by history. In their minds they had fought a desperate battle that should have gone down in the history books as one of the greatest marches ever in the winter. Their dreams of immortality were lost though in the mists of the American Civil War and the great battles at places like Gettysburg, Atlanta, and Appomattox. 

The village site on the Bear River was left as it was. There were too many bodies to bury for the few survivors to manage and the ground was frozen anyway. Those they could get to the river were given a water burial, but most were left where they lay. The ground was left stained with the blood of the dead and odd blotches of color from dried berries smashed into the snow. In the coming months and years coyotes and birds played with the bones while relics of the fight rusted and slowly sunk into the ground. A Mormon settler moved his cattle into the Bear River bottoms and they grazed alongside Battle Creek, turning up the ground with their hooves. The settler would occasionally find a button from a coat, a rusted rifle, or a bone. Just memories that appeared now and then during his daily work. The road to Montana ran through the site too and wagons would pass. More settlers eventually came to the area and built a few houses nearby. Their children would look for relics and play Army and Indians. Eventually a railroad came up from Utah and ran right through the middle of the site. A small boom town appeared, also named Battle Creek. Canals and ditches were dug. Each time the site was disturbed again and more bones and relics were found. Bones were usually ignored, relics were taken as souvenirs. One man who came through on the train was writing a tour guide and mentioned how someone could take a short walk from the station at Battle Creek to the site of where the village once stood and still observe bones bleaching in the sun.

The railroad moved to another route. The road became a highway and then the highway grew quieter when the freeway was placed one valley to the west. Some of the well-meaning locals from Preston built a monument to the “Battle of Bear River” but despite their good intentions it portrayed a decidedly one-sided view of the event. The world moved on and even those who pulled over to read the roadside signs found it difficult to tell where the fight had actually occurred. The townspeople from nearby remembered in their own way, but outside the Cache Valley precious few white people had ever heard of the events that had occurred there. Each year though the Shoshoni would return to remember, to tell their stories, to pray, and to hope that one day the village site could be protected, and long-dead family members could finally rest in piece. 

It’s taken a long time.