Snake War 1864

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Snake War[edit]

The Snake War (1864–1868) was an irregular war fought by the United States of America against the "Snake Indians," the settlers' term for Northern Paiute, Bannock and Western Shoshone bands who lived along the Snake River. Fighting took place in the states of Oregon, Nevada, and California, and in Idaho Territory.

The conflict was a result of increasing tension over several years between the Native tribes and the settlers who were encroaching on their lands, and competing for game and water. Explorers passing through had minimal effect. In October 1851, Shoshone Indians killed eight men in Fort Hall Idaho. From the time of the Clark Massacre, in 1851 the regional Native Americans, commonly called the "Snakes" by the white settlers,[1] harassed and sometimes attacked emigrant parties crossing the Snake River Valley. European-American settlers retaliated by attacking Native American villages. In September 1852, Ben Wright and a group of miners responded to an Indian attack by attacking the Modoc village near Black Bluff in Oregon, killing about 41 Modoc. Similar attacks and retaliations took place in the years leading up to the Snake War.

In August 1854, Native attacks on several pioneer trains along the Snake River culminated in the Ward Massacre on August 20, 1854, in which Native Americans killed 21 people. The following year, the US Army mounted the punitive Winnas Expedition. From 1858 at the end of the Spokane-Coeur d'Alene-Paloos War, the US Army protected the migration to Oregon by sending out escorts each spring. Natives continued to attack migrant trains, especially stragglers such as the Myers party, killed in the Salmon Falls Massacre of September 13, 1860. As Federal troops withdrew in 1861 to return east for engagements of the American Civil War, California Volunteers provided protection to the emigrants. Later the 1st Washington Territory Infantry and the 1st Oregon Cavalry replaced Army escorts on the emigrant trails.

As gold mining declined in California in the later 1850s, miners searching for gold started to move north and eastward into the upper Great Basin, and Snake River valley, they competed more for resources with the Native Americans. They lived on the land longer and consumed more game and water. Many isolated occurrences resulted in violence, with the result that both sides were taking to arms. The influx of miners into the Nez Perce reservation during the Clearwater Gold Rush raised tensions among all the tribes. The Nez Perce were divided when some chiefs agreed to a new treaty that permitted the intrusion. As miners developed new locations near Boise in 1862 and in the Owyhee Canyonlands in 1863, an influx of white settlers descended on the area. Western Shoshone, Paiute and other local Indians resisted the encroachment, fighting what was called the Snake War from 1864 to 1868.

The Bear River Massacre of 1863 near what’s now Preston, Idaho, left roughly 350 members of the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation dead, making it the bloodiest — and most deadly — slaying of Native Americans by the U.S. military, according to historians and tribal leaders. The death toll, historians say, exceeded some of the country’s most horrific Indian slayings, including the 1864 slaying at Colorado’s Sand Creek, where 130 Cheyennes were killed. And the death count was nearly double the roughly 150 Sioux killed at Wounded Knee. Colonel Patrick Edward Connor led a contingent of California militiamen against a Northwestern Shoshone village in present day Cache Valley, Idaho. Connor and his men destroyed and burned the village, killing roughly 250 Indian men, women, and children over the space of four hours. The militiamen hopelessly outmatched the Northwestern Shoshone warriors who had only “bows and arrows, tomahawks, and a few rifles.” Connor’s men, on the other hand, possessed 16,000 rounds of ammunition for their rifles and handguns, and additional ammunition for their mountain howitzers.

The Snake War would fizzle out and finally finish with the peace talks between George Crook and Snake chief Weahwewa. Despite its being overlooked, the Snake War was statistically the deadliest of the Indian Wars in the West in terms of casualties. By the end, a total of 1,762 men were known to have been killed, wounded, and captured on both sides. By comparison, the Battle of the Little Bighorn produced about 847 casualties.

References[edit][edit]

1. ^ Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of Oregon, Volume II, 1848-1888, The History Company, San Francisco, 1888, p.462 note 4.
2. ^ "Settlement: Hostiles Erupt." National Park Service: John Day Fossil Beds. 25 April 2002 (retrieved from web.archive.org 7 August 2011)
3. ^ Michno, Gregory, The Deadliest Indian War in the West: The Snake Conflict, 1864-1868. Caldwell: Caxton Press, 2007. pp 345-346
4. ^ Near Carson City, A depot for California Volunteers and after 1864 Nevada Volunteers. Located in the Washoe Valley five miles north of Carson City.
5. ^ Near Robbers Roost, Nevada A temporary Army post that was intermittently occupied. Located near the Smoke Creek Depot (or Smoke Creek Station) on the Honey Lake stage route. The site is not shown on most maps, but it was located five miles from the state line west of Smoke Creek Desert and north of the Pyramid Lake Indian Reservation.
6. ^ This camp was established at the request of the citizens of Dun Glen to protect them from attacks of the Snake Indians.
7. ^ Eightmile, Nevada Located at the Goshute Indian Reservation between Tippett and the state line. Originally called Eight Mile Station, it was frequently occupied by troops from Fort Ruby.
8. ^
9. ^ The California State Military Museum, Historic California Posts: Camp Susan
10. ^ The California State Military Museum, Historic California Posts: Post at Friday's Station
11. ^ At Little Antelope Mountain, it was an important stage station located about 40 miles west of Ely, Nevada in operation during the 1860s and 1870s. Garrisoned by California Volunteers in 1864.
12. ^ Carey, History of Oregon, pg. 671. On Horse Creek in the Alvord Valley, east of the Steen Mountain Range
13. ^ Carey, History of Oregon, pg. 671 Located slightly east of Camps Maury and Polk.
14. ^ Carey, History of Oregon, pg. 671. This camp, named for Oregon's representative in Congress at that time, was established early in 1864, near the mouth of Jordan Creek, 330 miles from Walla Walla, and was the center of operations in Southeastern Oregon for some time afterward.
15. ^ Carey, History of Oregon, pg. 671 Near Canyon City, on the headwaters of John Day River.
16. ^ Carey, History of Oregon, pg. 671. On the Deschutes River near the mouth of Crooked River.
17. ^ A Civil War training camp once located in Salem, Oregon, at the state fairgrounds, present-day 17th Street and Silverton Road.
18. ^ Near Gerlach, Nevada. Originally called Detachment at Granite Creek, the Army occupied the Granite Creek Station after Indians burned it and killed its employees. Located north of town and east of Granite Mountain.
19. ^ A temporary Army post near Golconda, Nevada that lasted only a few days. It was located south of Golconda at Summit Springs.
20. ^ Carey, History of Oregon, pg. 671 In the Jordan Valley, east of the Owyhee River.
21. ^ IDAHO STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY REFERENCE SERIES, CAMP LYON, Number 357 July 16, 1965
22. ^ Carey, History of Oregon, pg. 671. At the Willow Creek crossing of the Canyon City - Boise Road, south of Baker City.
23. ^ Carey, History of Oregon, pg. 671. On Silver Creek.
24. ^ Carey, History of Oregon, pg. 671 East of Canyon City, on the road to Colfax.
25. ^ Carey, History of Oregon, pg. 671. On the Deschutes River near the mouth of Crooked River.
26. ^ Carey, History of Oregon, pg. 674. Located on the on Silvies River, north of Malheur Lake.
27. ^ Carey, History of Oregon, pg. 671. North of Harney Lake. A temporary state militia encampment on the Silvies River, possibly to the south of Burns, Oregon. Originally Adobe Camp (1865), a 25-yard square sod-walled post, was located here before being replaced after only two weeks.
28. ^
29. ^ Carey, History of Oregon, pg. 671. Located east of Warner Lakes. A Federal camp originally located 20 miles east of Warner (Hart) Lake. It was moved in 1867
30. ^ Carey, History of Oregon, pg. 671. Located west of Warner Lakes.
31. ^ IDAHO STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY REFERENCE SERIES, CAMP THREE FORKS, Number 358, July 12, 1965

Sources[edit][edit]

• The Snake War, 1864-1868, Idaho State Historical Society Reference Series #236, 1966
• Hubert Howe Bancroft, Mrs. Frances Auretta Fuller Barrett Victor, HISTORY OF OREGON, Vol. II. 1848-1888, The History Company, San Francisco, 1888, Chapters XX MILITARY ORGANIZATION AND OPERATIONS 1861-1865 and XXI THE SHOSHONE WARS 1866–1868, pp. 488–654
• Michno, Gregory, The Deadliest Indian War in the West: The Snake Conflict, 1864-1868. Caldwell: Caxton Press, 2007.
• Wooster, Robert, The Military and United States Indian Policy 1865-1903, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988.
• Hook, Jason, and Martin Pegler, To Live and Die in the West: The American Indian Wars, Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 2001.https://www.intermountainhistories.org/items/show/24#:~:text=On%2029%20January%201863%20Colonel,the%20space%20of%20four%20hours.