Chanel+S

=Social History  =  The Shoshone way of life came under attack when non-indian emigrants traveled on to their lands in the early 1840s. When the members of the LDS church arrived in 1847, there were a lot of added pressures to the Shoshone lifestyle. The Mormons were initially in Salt Lake but soon wandered into Weber and Cache Valley, entering Shoshone lands and competing for vital resources; mostly bison. In the late 1850s to the early 1860s, conflict between the Shoshones and the white emigrants became a serious problem. The destruction of game and grass cover, along with the unprovoked murder of indians, heated Shoshone chiefs. Chief Pocatello retaliated with raids in response to these problems. These problems became even more difficult to overcome when gold was discovered in Montana and more white emigrants traveled through Shoshone lands. After the **Bear River Massacre** erupted on January 29, 1863, white settlers moved unopposed into traditional Northwestern Shoshone lands. As American settlements began to arise, the very few Northwestern Shoshones lost their land and could no longer sustain their tradition of a nomadic lifestyle. Years of struggle and starvation came as a direct result of the Bear River Massacre and in 1875, many Northwestern Shoshones gave in and converted to Mormonism. Along with this, they settled on a church-sponsored farm close to Corrine, Utah, (this is a place where the Shoshone traditionally wintered). The farms didn't last very long, however, due to rumors that the Shoshone were planning an attack on Corrine. They were expelled from the farm and the whites attempted to force them onto the newly founded Fort Hall Reservation in Idaho. In 1876 the Northwestern Shoshone acquired and settled land between Malad and Bear rivers using the rights guaranteed under the Homestead Act. In 1960, the representatives of the LDS Church supposedly thought that Washakie had been abandoned, so they burnt all of the Shoshone houses on it to the ground in preparation for the sale of the church farm. Later, they church gave the band of Shoshone 184 acres as compensation for the mistake. The government finally recognized the tribe as independent in 1987, and the Northwestern Shoshones adopted the constitution and tribal council. CULTURE VIDEOS 