Talk:Bear River Massacre

message: User:Grant65 revised this article to remove some (but not all) categories related to the American Civil War as it pertains to this article.  I have restored those categories, and am making note of it here on this talk page for those who are following the discussion here.
As far as I can tell, neither here between Wikipedia editors nor among historians is there a clear consensus as to "which war" this battle was a part of.  It could be argued both ways that it was a campaign of the Indian Wars or the American Civil War.  Indeed it seems to fit both of them in a great many ways.
I don't want to engage in an edit war here, and I've taken my time including trying to write to the above user to justify his actions on this issue.  As several sources use the terms "Union victory" and have this event listed in events of the Civil War, together with the fact that Connor was under the wartime command of the Department of the Pacific, I believe this to be irresponsible to dismiss this event as completely unrelated to the Civil War.  Yes, I'll acknowledge that the Shoshone weren't necessarily allies of the Confederacy (who likely would have done the same thing under the same circumstances), but the Shoshone were considered to be a hostile enemy of the USA at the time, which did happen during the period of the Civil War.  
If such a drastic editorial change is to be made to this article, I'd rather discuss it first and try to come to some sort of consensus that also includes 3rd party discussions about this topic.  Citations from noted historians would be useful, and I also fail to see how removing categories about this topic makes it any easier to reference this event.  The proliferation of categories on this article is something to argue about, but that doesn't appear to be the topic at hand.  --Robert Horning (talk) 23:04, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: If this massacre doesn't exactly fall neatly into the American civil war or the American Indian wars, then perhaps the massacre may be best labelled as part of the western expansion of the United States territory instead of erroneously labelling the massacre; would such a label satisfy both sides of the editorial/historian debate? Nnoell (talk) 06:14, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Civil War Battle (again) 

message: This template was added to the article:
Rather than throwing up a template that is all too easy to add and walk away, I thought it would be useful to start a discussion on the lead paragraph in terms of improving its quality.  My question to anybody paying attention to this talk page is this:  What would be useful to add to the lead paragraph and what should be different.  I agree it should be a summary of the article, but it isn't going to be easy to decide what else to throw into this summary.  Any thoughts?  --Robert Horning (talk) 00:39, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lead Paragraph 

message: A recent change tried to change the "force strength" of the number of Shoshoni warriors who participated in this military action, and the number was arbitrarily changed from about 300 to about 400 in this edit.  The problem is that exact figures really weren't available for the Shoshoni people of the era, and the numbers were rough estimates based upon military reports.
One possible reason for discrepancy of the number killed & wounded and the number of warriors involved in the action is in part because women and children were also killed in the act.  In a traditional military context these would have been listed as civilian deaths, but in almost all of the reports and even body counts made by the Cache County Clerk's office made later that year in the summer did not distinguish between male and female deaths or even the age of those who died.  This is about people who literally died in their own homes with their families, sort of the reason why it is called a massacre.
I'm open to changing these figures with a reliable source, but I am suggesting that you shouldn't arbitrarily be changing the numbers because it doesn't look right.  There is a story to be told even with this numeric discrepancy where more "soldiers" were killed & wounded  than existed in that "military force".  --Robert Horning (talk) 02:04, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Force Strength in Infobox 

message: I removed the following sentence from the article lead paragraph:
: The event resulted in the massacre of hundreds of Shoshone, mainly non-combatants, and was characterized by the rape of survivors.
While I appreciate the sentiment, it just seems to be a little bit of a strong point of view statement that violates at least the spirit of WP:UNDUE and WP:NPOV.  Yes, hundreds of Shoshone were massacred and it is a deplorable part of American history.  That still doesn't justify writing a strongly worded point of view supporting statement in the opening paragraph.  That rape happened and can be documented or certainly was chronicled by both descendants of the survivors and official accounts is true, I'm just wondering if there is a better way to word this?  --Robert Horning (talk) 21:20, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article Lead Paragraph 

message: For section Pugweenee: The pangwi (: pangwinna) is "fish" in Tumpisa (Panamint) Shoshone Dictionary by Jon Philip Dayley (1989).  And, the nominalizer (-nna) is attested in all of the Numic languages, except for Kawaiisu (< Maziar Toosarvandani, Patterns of nominalization in Numic, IJAL, vol. 76, no. 1, January 2010, pp. 71–100, The University of Chicago)--Kmoksy (talk) 18:21, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pugweenee 

message: If you wish to "red link" Sanpitch, then you have to use a distinct name for this Sanpitch, as the use of plain old "Sanpitch" (as in this article) throws up a disambiguation flag, and it will continue being loaded into DAB-Solver; and will continually pop up to be DABbed by DAB volunteers, of which I am one. I just happened to have recognized this guy's name after disambiguating it sometime prior to today.  The current DAB may be in error now, as un-linking was not considered an option due to the prior reversal of the disambiguation of the term.  Thanks.  GenQuest "Talk to Me" 02:16, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: That was quite a bit of Wikipedia-ese that you gave above. To be clear, is the current state, with the Sanpitch link going to a disambiguation page acceptable?  If not, what is the problem? Sanpitch (talk) 01:16, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  The problem is that it shows up on somebody's "list of problems on Wikipedia".  If GenQuest or somebody else wants to write this article, they would be encouraged.  I suppose some sort of disambiguation should take place in terms of what this future article should be called, but that seems like it may cause more problems than it solves.  I certainly don't understand why redlinks are seen as so evil.  --Robert Horning (talk) 22:14, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  If we created the page Sanpitch (Shoshone Chief) which redirected to Sanpitch, and linked to the Sanpitch (Shoshone Chief) page from the Bear River Massacre, would that solve problems with the DAB solver? Sanpitch (talk) 22:43, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Sanpitch

message: Isn't the military conflict infobox inappropriate for what was (seems to me) largely a massacre? --213.89.94.101 (talk) 20:35, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Military conflict infobox? 

message: The "massacre" section is really short compared to the background/causes and describes what seems like a battle, with no mention of atrocities. The following section mentions captured women and children, who have been not killed and instead they were left some food. While the article's categories are almost all "massacre", "ethnic cleansing", "genocide". 
Also the numbers for the unsourced Indian casualties from the infobox dont appear anywhere in the article. --5.173.123.100 (talk) 09:42, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: It was a massacre.  Just because some of the village inhabitants fought back once they were under attack doesn't make it a "battle".  "Battle" is the language of 19th and early 20th-century white racism.  All modern reliable sources call it a massacre.  --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 10:49, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

text: Your demand for "atrocities" is baloney.  It was a massacre because it involved women, children, and a majority of the encampment was killed.  All modern reliable sources call it a "massacre".  The definitive academic history of the event is called "The Shoshoni Frontier and the Bear River Massacre" (and it was written BEFORE Wikipedia even existed).  That's the end of the story.  Your personal definition and your personal opinion are meaningless.  The most reliable source calls it a "massacre".  --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 02:37, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

text: Not 100% sure what the point of this discussion is. As for the semantics, the terms "battle" and "massacre" are not mutually exclusive. The Shoshone put up a defensive fight in what can be correctly called a battle, but the end result was a massacre. Reliable sources refer to the entire event as a massacre. Additionally, when the site was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1990 it was done so under the title "Bear River Massacre Site," and massacre is the term used on all but the oldest of monuments and markers at the site. (For example, see BearRiverMassacreSign.png on Wikimedia Commons.) Beneathtimp (talk) 00:40, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is the "massacre, not battle" really the only narrative? 

message: The diary account of James Henry Martineau, who was present at this massacre, is published and available. On pages 131-132 of "An Uncommon Common Pioneer, the Journals of James Henry Martineau" there is an account which puts the death toll of Shoshones at around 400, to include 90 "squaws" and children "in cold blood". It also describes the soldiers as raping the women at Bear Creek among the dead and dying, and the murder of a survivng infant. This diary entry was contemporary to the events, and not written years later. 2600:8807:A791:5400:B364:74AD:845A:57BD (talk) 02:05, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Firsr-hand diary source available