Bear River Massacre

Background

Cache Valley, known to the Shoshone as Seuhubeogoi, was a traditional hunting and gathering ground for the Northwestern Shoshone. Beginning in the 1840s and accelerating with the founding of Salt Lake City in 1847 and Mormon settlement of Cache Valley from 1856, white settlement and travel along the California, Oregon, and Montana trails steadily depleted game and food resources the Shoshone depended on. Territorial officials, including Superintendent of Indian Affairs Jacob Forney in 1859 and James Duane Doty in 1862, documented Shoshone starvation and destitution caused by settler encroachment, but federal authorities took no substantive action such as establishing a protective reservation. Facing starvation, some Shoshone raided settler farms and cattle.

Escalating conflict, 1859–1862

A series of violent incidents between 1859 and 1862 heightened tensions in the region, including an 1859 attack near Fort Hall, the 1860 Utter/Van Ornum party attack, the hanging of a young Shoshone man named Pugweenee by a Cache Valley jury, an 1862 skirmish at Providence Canyon in which Chief Bear Hunter was briefly taken prisoner, and the execution of four captured Shoshone men by a U.S. Army firing squad in December 1862. In January 1863, after Shoshone were blamed for the killing of miner John Henry Smith on the Montana Trail, Utah Chief Justice John F. Kinney issued arrest warrants for chiefs Bear Hunter, Sanpitch, and Sagwitch, and Colonel Patrick Edward Connor, commanding the 3rd California Volunteer Infantry, organized a military expedition.

The attack

Connor's combined force of roughly 300 infantry and cavalry left Fort Douglas in two detachments in January 1863, aiming for a surprise attack in extreme cold (reportedly as low as −20°F). At dawn on January 29, 1863, soldiers under Connor and Major Edward McGarry engaged the Shoshone encampment, which had prepared willow screens and rifle pits along Beaver Creek and the Bear River. After an initial frontal assault was repelled, Connor's forces flanked and encircled the village. Fighting lasted about two hours until the Shoshone exhausted their ammunition. Chief Bear Hunter was killed. Contemporary and later accounts state that U.S. soldiers raped Shoshone women during the attack.

Casualties and aftermath

The California Volunteers reported 14 soldiers killed and 49 wounded (7 mortally). Connor reported his forces killed more than 224 of an estimated 300 Shoshone warriors, destroyed 70 lodges, and captured 175 horses; settlers in nearby Franklin reported a higher death toll than Connor's official count. Estimates of Shoshone dead range from about 250 (per historian Brigham D. Madsen) to 493 (per an eyewitness count by settler Hans Jasperson). Survivors, including Chief Sagwitch, regrouped and later helped found the town of Washakie, Utah, while others relocated to the Fort Hall and Wind River reservations. Connor was subsequently promoted to brigadier general and later brevetted major general. The site was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1990, and the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation acquired the site in 2018 to preserve it as a burial ground.