Newly uncovered documents claim far higher number of Shoshones killed in Bear River Massacre
By Kristen Moulton
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 02/17/2008 08:50:17 AM MST
BRIGHAM CITY -- The autobiography of a Mormon pioneer written nearly a century ago and recently made public indicates the number of Shoshones killed in the 1863 Bear River Massacre could be much higher than previously believed. In his 1911 autobiography, Danish emigrant Hans Jasperson claims to have walked among the bodies, counting 493 dead (Northwest Band) Shoshones. "I turned around and counted them back and counted just the same," Jasperson writes. He was just 19 at the time of the massacre.
That is a far higher number than previous accounts of the Jan. 29, 1863, massacre when the U.S. Army's Third California Volunteers - intent on punishing the region's Indians for pestering mining supply wagons and pioneers in Cache Valley and along the California Trail - rode from Fort Douglas in Salt Lake City, surrounded the Shoshones on the banks of the Bear River near Preston, Idaho, and slaughtered most of four bands.
Accounts at the time said 210 to 300 (Northwest Band) Shoshones were killed (17 soldiers died on the battlefield and several more died of their wounds later).
The highest previous number - nearly 400 (Northwest Band) Shoshones - was reported by three pioneers who rode horses through the battlefield the next day, says historian Scott Christensen, who wrote a biography of Sagwitch, a surviving chief.
Even at the lower estimates,the Bear River Massacre stands as the worst in the western United States since the nation was founded.
Christensen and another historian described Jasperson's autobiography as "exciting" new information, although it will require much more research.
"Assuming it's true and accurate, it is very, very significant," said Bob McPherson, who teaches history at College of Eastern Utah's San Juan campus in Blanding. He specializes in military and American Indian history, and has led military group tours of the Bear River battleground.
Family documentsMerrill Nelson is a retired accountant living in West Valley City who, realizing it could be significant, last year sent his great-grandfather's autobiography to the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation.
But he doesn't know how to check out the veracity of the account. He knows of no original journal, although one is mentioned in a separate biography written by his great-aunt.
"We don't really have any idea about it," he says. All Nelson has are two documents, a typed copy of Jasperson's 1911 autobiography -- written in the first person, but labeled a biography and witnessed by a grandson -- and a 1913 handwritten and signed letter in which Jasperson seeks compensation from the Utah Legislature for fighting Indians during the Indian Wars.
Both were left behind by his mother, a family-history buff, who received them from her mother, Jasperson's oldest daughter. In both, Jasperson writes that he saw 493 bodies.
The 11-page autobiography touches on the massacre in just two matter-of-fact paragraphs. The rest details other exploits, like helping pioneers make the long trek to Utah, marrying and raising a family on a farm in Goshen near Payson.
Jasperson, young but already experienced driving oxen teams, writes that he was hired to go to the Salmon River country (mining camps) and, as he was headed through northern Utah, came across Mormon frontiersman Lot Smith, who told him the Army was fighting the Indians up the river. Jasperson writes that he went with "him," implying Smith, to the battleground. His description of the battlefield - indeed most of the autobiography - rings true, said Christensen. The verbiage fits the era, and Jasperson does not seem to exaggerate. The topographical details he supplies are accurate.
Two aspects, however, trouble Christensen. Jasperson writes that Lot Smith told him the Indians had killed 60 soldiers and wounded 60 more, numbers far higher than the military casualties at Bear River. "It's fairly compelling as history, but I can't square that," Christensen says, Jasperson also does not mention Shoshone bodies piled eight and five deep, as the three pioneers who rode through the battlefield described, Christensen notes. Christensen says he has not researched whether Lot Smith was at the Bear River, but it's possible. Smith was a good friend of Porter Rockwell, according to a short biography in the University of Utah Marriott Library's Special Collections, and it was Rockwell who led the soldiers to the Shoshones' winter camp along the Bear River.
'Better understanding'Christensen, a historian for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, says he hopes the Jasperson autobiography will spur more research and analyis. "Hopefully we can keep piecing it together and get a better understanding," he says. Patty Timbimboo Madsen, the Northwestern Band's natural-resources manager, says the few Shoshone survivors of the massacre did not speak much about how many men, women and children died. Her aunt, Mae T. Parry, however, listened to the stories of survivors and argued in her essay, "Massacre at Boa Ogoi," that the military engaged in wholesale slaughter of her people. The tribe's written history estimates 350 died that day. If the casualties were in fact higher, says Madsen, it will affirm Parry's conclusion. "The only thing it does is tell me that the stories my Aunt Mae told were true stories, that it wasn't a battle. It was a massacre." Parry died last spring.
kmoulton@sltrib.com
Hard past, hopeful future
Published:
Wednesday, January 30, 2008 2:09 AM CST
PRESTON — “History can be prejudiced at times,” says Mark Dewey.
Dewey, along with 20 students from the U.S. history classes he teaches at InTech High School, were among the nearly 100 people who gathered Tuesday just off U.S. Highway 91 to commemorate the 145th anniversary of the Bear River Massacre. Those gathered braced against low temperatures and constant winds to remember an event often overlooked by historians and schools.
Though it is widely accepted as the worst Indian mass killing in U.S. history, the massacre — in which between 250 and 500 Shoshone men, women and children were killed by a U.S. volunteer militia — is largely unknown, Dewey said. That lack of attention comes partly because the massacre was overshadowed by the events of the Civil War, but also because the victims have long been an under-represented group.
“The victors write the history books,” he said.
Tribal leaders of the Northwest Band of Shoshone spoke to those gathered and expressed hope and a solemn memory of their ancestors’ suffering 145 years ago.
“To see your faces here today, I see a future for us,” said Patti Timbimboo-Madsen, the band’s cultural natural resources manager. She said her people have shown a great resilience over the years. Her own ancestors were among the few who survived the attack.
Several young children were on hand, taken out of school for the day so they could learn about their people’s history. Nothing can be done about what happened, but the story needs to be told, Timbimboo-Madsen said.
Skirmishes between Indians and white settlers came to a head on Jan. 29, 1863, when a militia led by U.S. Army Col. Patrick Connor attacked a large group of Shoshone gathered near the Bear River. The military reported 250 Indians were killed, but Mormon settlers in the area said 390, said Bruce Parry, chairman of the tribe. Other accounts say up to 500 were killed.
Bryon Hardin, a tribe member who lives in Provo, described some of the gruesome details of the attack. Women were raped, pregnant women were cut open and many people drowned as they tried to escape in the freezing river, Hardin said. The tribe’s leader, Chief Bear Hunter, was brutally tortured, he said. Hardin said he believes the ultimate reason for the massacre was that the settlers wanted more land.
Different perspectives on the massacre can be seen on different signs at the site. A metal plaque on a monument erected in 1953 by the Daughters of Utah Pioneers says the massacre was provoked by an “attack by the Indians on the peaceful inhabitants” in the area and that the Indians were “guilty of hostile attacks on emigrants and settlers.” Nearby, another sign reads: “When Connor struck at daybreak on January 29, the Shoshone suffered a massacre unrivaled in western history.”
Parry said the tribe is “not especially happy” with the 1953 monument and is buying the land where the massacre occurred piece by piece in hopes of building their own monument. Trees near the monument are adorned with beads, dream-catchers and other ornaments hung by passersby in memory of those who died.
As the crowd dispersed at the end of the presentation, a single bald eagle soared overhead into the wind.
“That’s a good sign. That’s a good sign,” a member of the crowd said.
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Massacre site returned to Northwestern Shoshone
(Ricky Hasuse of Blackfoot, Idaho blesses the site)
PRESTON (AP) — For the first time in 140 years, the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation owns its saddest graveyard.
The Trust for Public Lands, a national nonprofit organization, this week turned over to the American Indian tribe 26 acres of sacred land in Idaho’s southeast corner that was the location of the Bear River Massacre.
Some 250 members of the tribe gathered Monday at their newly owned site two miles northwest of Preston to bless the land where at least 250 members of the Shoshone were slaughtered by U.S. soldiers in 1863.
Waving a brown feather, Ricky Hasuse blessed the land first in the tribe’s native language as many wiped away tears. He later asked in English for the ``Great Creator’’ to bless the massacre victims.
Patty Timbimboo-Madsen, who visits the site several times a year to comfort the spirits, said now she is “able to freely stand on Indian land and tell them that we won’t forget and we’re sorry that they suffered but we’re grateful to them.’’
The Bear River Massacre was the bloodiest in western U.S. history, historian Brigham Madsen said. Estimates of the dead are nearly double those of Wounded Knee, S.D., and Sand Creek, Colo.
The tribe, based in Brigham City, Utah, worked with the Trust for Public Lands and the America West Heritage Center of Wellsville, Utah, to raise money to buy the pasture land and adjacent hillside from farmers.
Some historians say that what began as a battle between the Shoshone and U.S. soldiers who had been summoned by Mormon settlers in Jan. 29, 1863, turned into a massacre when the Indians’ ammunition ran out.
“There was no contest because the Indians had no weapons and the soldiers had these pistols,’’ Madsen said.
Col. Patrick Edward Connor and his soldiers killed elderly men, women and small children among the snow banks that morning. Historians have put casualty estimates at between 250 and 350.
Yet there is little mention of the Bear River Massacre in the history books. Madsen blames the Civil War for that.
“Who was going to pay attention to this little Indian massacre in Washington territory?’’ Madsen said.
Now that the massacre site is blessed, tribal members said they feel they can finally put their ancestors to rest.
“When your spirit goes, it should be sent off properly or you wander. Sometimes when people go up there, they hear cries of children, of women. So they’re still suffering. They need to be let go,’’ said Timbimboo-Madsen, who is the cultural and natural resource manager for the tribe.
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