It is estimated that people first came to the rivers of Idaho between 10,000-12,000 years ago. We know little of the life they led in these early times, but there are two events that have strongly shaped more recent history; the introduction of the horse and the westward movement of white settlers. By the time white trappers and miners came to Idaho, the entire mosaic of Native Americans had changed as settlement in the east pushed various tribes west. As these tribes moved west, they in turn pushed other tribes into the mountains. The Shoshone were originally a Plains Indian, but due to this migratory pressure, some moved into the rugged Rocky Mountains surrounding the Middle Fork of the Salmon. They then became known as the Mountain Shoshone.
Prior to the introduction of the horse, the Mountain Shoshoni lived in loosely organized family bands that moved with the season following game and fish. Sometimes these bands would group together into villages, but maintained the loose organization and did not have chiefs nor engage in large festivals or ceremonies. This group of Native Americans came to be called the ‘Sheepeaters’ by white settlers moving into the area in the 1800’s because the big horn sheep were an important part of their diet. However, they would eat the game available for a given season. The Mountain Shoshoni were well known hunters who focused on big game such as deer, elk, moose, and occasionally antelope. They were so isolated that when the horse was introduced into Idaho in the 1730’s they did not fully adopt the use of the animal. This could also have been due to the landscape they favored. In the steep rocky canyons and passes they moved in horses would offer little advantage. This also lead them to be less dependent on buffalo which were more easily hunted from horseback, and so the Mountain Shoshoni were little affected with the eastward movement and downfall in population of the buffalo. The largest thing the introduction of horses did to the Shoshoni of this area was to distance them more in culture from the other groups living in Idaho.
Miners began to explore and stake claims in the 1860’s, but because of their isolation the Mountain Shoshoni did not have contact until later in the decade when mining towns began to be established. The first armed conflict between Mountain Shoshoni and white settlers came in the summer of 1878. The story goes that on these first occasions it was whites that were killed by the natives, who were never apprehended. In 1879 unknown persons killed a group of Chinese miners and the white settlers blamed this on the natives and were able to get the U.S Army involved to remove the “threat” of the native population in the area.
The resulting campaign became known as the “Sheepeater War” and it tells a similar story to almost all of the campaigns against the natives of the mountain west. This tale begins with a well-armed army initially set back by the rough unfamiliar terrain, but eventually outlasting the natives because of the wealth of resources at their disposal. If you visit this wilderness today you will see the absurdity in this campaign, which was really just an excuse to rid the area of the native peoples who were perceived as a threat to the newly-established gold mines in the area. Their target was a very small and scattered population of Indians. After more than four months of pursuit a handful of Shoshone were captured and taken to the Fort Hall reservation. About half of the Mountain Shoshoni escaped capture and death and lived in small groups in isolated valleys. They became more sedentary, establishing homesteads and were semi-assimilated into white settler culture for a time. However, as the settler population grew pressure for the natives to move to the Lemhi reservation also mounted, and most of them moved peacefully by 1907, and were then moved to Fort Hall in eastern Idaho. Their descendants live there still.
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