page_title: Bannock War
section_title: Arrival of European Americans
hierarchical_section_title: Bannock War / Background / Arrival of European Americans
caption_attribution_description: English: Snake River Plain Across Southern Idaho
context_page_description: The Bannock War of 1878 was an armed conflict between the U.S. military, Bannock and Paiute warriors in Idaho and Northeastern Oregon from June to August 1878. The Bannock totaled about 600 to 800 in 1870 because of other Soshonean peoples being included with Bannock numbers; they were led by Chief Buffalo Horn, who was killed in action on June 8, 1878. After his death, Chief Egan led the Bannocks. He and some of his warriors were killed in July, by a Umatilla party that entered his camp in subterfuge.
  The U.S. military, consisting of the 21st Infantry Regiment and volunteers, was led by Brigadier General Oliver O. Howard. Nearby states also sent militias to the region. The conflict ended in August and September 1878, when the remaining scattered Bannock-Paiute forces surrendered; many returned to Fort Hall Reservation. The US Army forced some 543 Paiute from Nevada and Oregon and Bannock prisoners to be interned at Yakama Indian Reservation, in southeastern Washington Territory.
context_section_description: By the time the American Lewis and Clark Expedition arrived in this area of present-day southern Idaho in 1805, the Bannock-Shoshone had been trading for some time with representatives of the Hudson's Bay Company and North West Company from British Canada. They quickly opened trade with Americans for firearms and horses, as they had done with other European traders for years. The Shoshone-Bannock remained independent, despite their continued reliance on American trade. They participated in the Rocky Mountain fur trade, which ended about 1840. This era of positive cooperation with American trade declined in the 1850s, along with the fur trade, under pressure of increased migration of Euro-Americans to the Snake Valley plain. The discovery of gold in the Boise Basin and the Beaverhead country of Montana had attracted prospectors and traders, who moved through the Snake region, competing for game and water resources as they traveled. The American traders and migrants were an established presence in the Snake region by the mid-1860s, affecting a vast majority of the Shoshone-Bannock inhabitants.
  The Shoshone-Bannock were dramatically influenced by arrival of Euroamericans and the rapid expansion of the trade-based economy. On a cultural level, the Euroamericans' way of life challenged the values and seasonal traditions of the Shoshone-Bannock. New practices of agriculture, managing livestock, and production replaced the traditional resources on which the Shoshone-Bannocks had relied. They became more dependent on Euroamerican methods and products.
  American leaders were eager to acquire lands from the Shoshone-Bannock and in the 1860s, began to work to trade goods for titles to the Snake River Plains. The land trade attracted new waves of migrants to the Idaho territory, especially in the Boise region of the Snake Valley. In 1866, in order to protect the Shoshone-Bannock groups in the Boise Snake Valley from fearful and aggressive settlers, Governor Lyon created a refugee camp for a few hundred of the Bannock near Boise City. The camp's lack of sufficient resources forced the Shoshone-Bannock to depend on the local settlers for work and food. Many Shoshone-Bannock asked to be given the security of their own reservation land.
  The proposed relocation to eastern Idaho challenged the Shoshone-Bannock cosmology and their religious connection to the land, as their cultural practices were based in local seasonal changes in the Snake Valley. They believed their ancestors' spirits still resided in the land. Leadership among the Shoshone-Bannock was believed to be directly connected to the land which these ancestors inhabited, granting the chief his position. After complex and controversial deliberation, the Shoshone-Bannock leaders and American government officials formally agreed to relocate the Boise refugees to the Fort Hall Reservation. They completed relocation in 1869.
caption: Snake River Plain
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