A Clash of Cultures

Colonel Patrick E. Connor

Northeastern Shoshone Chief Saguitch and an unnamed wife

Bear River Massacre, January 29, 1863

On this date one hundred and forty-seven years ago two cultures met on the banks of the Bear River, in what was then the tip of Washington Territory and is today the state of Idaho. Mormon pioneers, pushed, often violently, from every place they tried to settle across the east and midwest, settled in northern Utah in the late 1840's and continued to travel to this safe-haven for the next half-century. They brought their farming implements, their horses, sheep, pigs and cattle.

In this western arena, for hundreds of years before, resided the mighty Shoshone people. They were a horse culture, a nomadic people. They traveled where the food was, depending upon the season. When winter came they were entrenched in sheltered valleys across what is now Utah, Idaho, Nevada and Wyoming. Part of their food stores, incredibly, were the grass themselves. Particularly in the Cache Valley of Utah, home of towns such as Logan, the summer grass grew long and rank. In the fall, the Shoshone returned to this valley to harvest the seed, with which they made breads and soups. Their herds of horses also foraged on these grasses throughout the winter.

But when the pioneers arrived here, driven from their own homes and claiming what seemed to be empty lands, ripe for the taking, the Shoshone arrived home to face possible starvation. They soon began to find themselves relying on the generosity of the pioneers, whose stock had trampled or eaten the very grasses that they themselves had to have simply to survive. It was as if someone had walked into your kitchen pantry, or mine, and started eating anything they wanted without asking. Under this threat, the Shoshones, desperate, had to make a stand.

Skirmishes broke out. Men died. As throughout all of history, when a white person died and it was assumed they were killed by Indians, other whites went after the Indians. Seldom did they find the guilty parties, but any Indian was good enough. If they found Shoshones, or even another tribe, they killed them on the spot. The same was true of the Shoshone and other tribes. If a tribe member died, someone had to pay. It didn't matter if the ones who paid were guilty, only that their skin was the same color as the guilty. And so the war between cultures was perpetuated, and hatred boiled.

At the same time, there were "wars and rumors of wars" between the Mormons, the "Saints," and the United States Army. Brigham Young and his followers were tired of being pushed. They had traveled far out of the United States to find the land called Deseret, and here they intended to make their stand.

In the city of Sacramento, capitol of California, Colonel Patrick Edward Connor, one-time Mexican War hero, was sworn in at the outbreak of the Civil War. His mission: to take a well-trained regiment of troopers to Utah Territory, ostensibly to protect the Overland mail from Indian attack, but secretly to watch out over the Mormons and quell any insurrection. Connor's troops wanted to go east to the Civil War arena and fight Confederates. They were bitter about being stuck in the arid lands of Utah, and they were ready to lash out. They found a target at which to lash in the Shoshone Indians.

When a small party of Shoshones killed some miners traveling the Montana Gold Road back toward Utah, a United States marshal was sent to arrest three Indian chiefs, Bear Hunter, Saguitch, and San Pitch, of the northeastern Shoshone tribe. He enlisted the aid of Colonel Connor's men, the Third California Volunteers. And from the very first Connor stated. "I will help. But there will be no prisoners. I don't intend to take any."

In the most bitter part of late January Colonel Connor started his troops out of Fort Douglas, on the bench above Great Salt Lake City, as it was then called. They marched for three days in horrible winter conditions, the wind buffeting them, the cold and snow freezing their feet. Many fell from frostbite before ever reaching the Shoshone camp. It was so cold whisky froze in its flasks. Faces hung with icicles.

In the Shoshone camp, Chief Bear Hunter had a dream that the camp would be attacked. This dream caused the camp to be nearly emptied of the many visitors who had come their for the annual warm dance festivities, which included Chief Pocatello. The others stayed, including Bear Hunter himself, SanPitch, and Saguitch. This was their valley. The soldiers would want to come and talk, and then they would go away. This was how it had always been.

In the pre-dawn darkness of January 29, Major McGarry's cavalry, who had gotten far ahead of Connor's infantry, sat their horses overlooking the sleeping Shoshone camp. It was light enough that Chief Saguitch, who had risen early and was outside his tepee, could see the horses on the ridge above, could see the steam rising from their sweating bodies. The few Shoshone men left in camp gathered and picked up their arms. The cavalry advanced.

Here the account becomes cloudy. Perhaps the Shoshones taunted the troops. Perhaps it was the troops who were the aggressors. Either way, the troops advanced, firing broke out, and in the confusion that followed the majority of the troops who were lost that fateful day died. Connor's infantry arrived, and with the help of the cavalry horses, who made several trips back and forth across the ice-choked river, they reached the battle ground.

But to call it a battle ground begs great forgiveness for the use of the word battle. For quickly this battle descended into the depths of murder, rape and torture and became, on the part of our country's military, the worst butchery ever recorded in United States history. The Shoshone were quickly out of ammunition. They fought with whatever they had when they found they could not surrender. Men, women, children--all were shot either trying to surrender or trying to run. Some were shot trying to swim the icy river. One of those was a baby floating down the river on its cradle board, pushed their by its young mother because it was crying and might give away those who huddled with her under the snowy river bank.

Men and women were scalped on various body parts, the scalps kept for souvenirs. Women were raped or shot or clubbed to death if they would not submit. Others were raped in their death throes. One soldier heated a bayonet red-hot over a fire and shoved it through Chief Bear Hunter's ear into his head. SanPitch fell. The only chief to escape was Saguitch, wounded three times. Two of his sons also escaped. They traveled up the river, soaking wet, frozen, wounded. In demonstration of the incredible fortitude of people back then, many of them who made it out of camp survived. But most who remained in camp were systematically sought out and shot or clubbed to death.

When the massacre was over, Colonel Connor set his troops to burning the tepees and food stores and anything they could not carry away. He did not want any Shoshones who had escaped to be able to come back and find shelter and nourishment. As in all such incidents, there were some dissenters among Connor's troops, some who watched in dismay and didn't take part in the butchery. There were Mormons who came with wagons and carted wounded and dead troopers away. And there were others who came and sought out the Indian women and children, actually adopting some of the orphaned children into their own familes. Many of the Shoshone who escaped the battle ended up joining the Mormon church, in time, devout members of that faith until they died.

The bodies of the Shoshone people were never buried. The Shoshone did not feel safe to do so, and there were too many anyway. The bodies were left to be devoured by crows, ravens, vultures, coyotes and wolves. The landscape was littered with arrows and spent shells, some of which are still being found to this day, along with pieces of bone from those who were never buried but became part of the landscape.

No one alive today had anything to do with the Bear River Massacre, which for over a hundred years was known as the Battle of Bear River, and by which "heroic deed" Colonel Patrick E. Connor became Brigadier General Patrick E. Connor, the mighty Indian fighter. No one alive today is at fault for what happened there, just north of the present-day town of Preston, Idaho. But we are all at fault if we don't study our history, if we don't try to remember, and to keep ourselves from making similar mistakes. For once, let us all try to practice equality. Equality doesn't mean putting Indian people or black people or any other race or belief at the top of the chain any more than it means putting white Christians at the top. It means all of us are equal. Equal.

Please let January 29 always be a day that reminds us that real "equality" does not mean paying one another for things that happened over a hundred years ago. It means treating each other as equals in the here and now. And remember: Any history that we forget is bound to repeat itself. Remember Bear River.