On January 29, 1863 the U.S. Army Cavalry attacked the Northwestern Band of Shoshone, killing over 400 people and instigating the largest mass murder of Native Americans in the history of the United States. . Even so, it had been a signal victory, winning Connor the fulsome praise of the War Department and prompt promotion to brigadier general.[1]. Despite settlers' attempts to appease the Native Americans, the Indians killed nearly the entire migrant party and drove off their livestock. The Bear River Massacre was an event that changed the landscape of northern Utah and the fate of the Shoshone people. Their bodies were discovered by a company of U.S. soldiers led by Captain Frederick T. Dent. Id.] And the death count was nearly double the roughly 150 Sioux killed at Wounded Knee in South Dakota, four days after Christmas in 1890. William Beach left home in 1849 at the age of seventeen, joining thousands of young men who headed west to the California gold fields, hoping to find their fortune. [citation needed]. A judge issued a warrant for some of the Shoshone men who were accused of killing him with orders for U.S. Army Col. Patrick E. Connor to effect the arrest of the guilty Indians, according to records from the National Park Service. They had come within 2mi (3km) of the central Shoshone winter encampment north of Franklin. He saw steam from the mountains and realized as they got closer it was the horses breath in the cold air. By the time of the battle, confrontations between the once-friendly Indians and the settlers and emigrants were common. [3][pageneeded] He reported capturing 175 horses and some arms, and destroying 70 lodges and a large quantity of stored wheat in winter supplies. They wholesale massacred the tribe, Darren Parry said. According to some later reports, some Shoshone were seen trying to cast lead ammunition during the middle of the battle and died with the molds in their hands. Experts trace the origin of the massacre to the murder of Malcolm Clarke, a prominent fur trader, who, according to Carol, raped a Blackfeet woman related to his wife. It almost annihilated us as a people, said Darren B. Parry, former chairman of the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation. Our lossfourteen killed and forty two wounded Indian Loss two hundred and eighty Kiled. This was the worst slaughter of Native Americans in U.S. history. See Brig. In his memoir, William F. Drannan who was an Army scout said when they started to fire it frightened the Indians so that they came running out like jack rabbits and were shot down like sheep.. [60], Initially, Connor tried a direct frontal offensive against the Shoshone positions but was soon overwhelmed with return gunfire from the Shoshone. Around 300 Lakota people, including . But when a spiritual leader told of a dream where Indians were killed by soldiers on horseback, about 50 left and went to another site. Sagwitch thought the colonel would ask for the guilty men, and he would hand them over, wrote Mae Parry, who was an activist and a tribal historian.
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