The names of Chief Washakie, the Shoshone Indians, and the Wind River Reservation are inextricably linked in the modern perception of Wyoming history and the American West. This association, however, is a relatively recent development. The Eastern Shoshone band, for whom the Wind River Reservation was established by the Fort Bridger Treaty of 1868, represents a fascinating amalgamation of various Shoshone and Bannock groups. Intriguingly, the origins of these peoples lie primarily in the regions of Nevada, Utah, and Idaho, rather than Wyoming itself. The story of how these disparate groups coalesced under the leadership of Shoshone Chief Washakie (Whoshakik) is a complex and compelling narrative.
Washakie, the most prominent leader of the Eastern Shoshones during the latter half of the 19th century, remains a figure of some debate within the Shoshone community. Some consider him an outsider, a leader not of pure Shoshone lineage. This perspective stems from Washakie’s mixed tribal heritage. Family history suggests that he was born to an Agaidüka (Lemhi or Salmon-Eater) Shoshone mother from Idaho and a Flathead father from Montana, a combination that sets him apart from many of his contemporaries.
The Enigmatic Birth and Early Life of Shoshone Chief Washakie (Whoshakik)
The circumstances surrounding the birth and early life of Shoshone Chief Washakie (Whoshakik) are shrouded in a veil of compelling stories, though precise historical accuracy remains elusive. While his official date of birth is often cited as either 1798 or 1804, these dates are likely inaccurate. The Episcopal priest John Roberts, who served as a missionary to the Wind River Reservation from 1883 to 1948, recorded the 1798 date in official church records. However, Washakie’s gravestone bears the inscription of 1804, a date chosen at the insistence of James K. Moore, Sr., the reservation Indian trader who knew Washakie from the early 1870s until his death in 1900. Adding to the confusion, Captain Richard H. Wilson, the acting Indian Agent from 1895 to 1897, estimated that Washakie died at the age of 75, implying a birth year of 1815.
The uncertainty surrounding Washakie’s birthdate is only one piece of the puzzle. Another lingering question concerns the timing of his assimilation into the Shoshone culture. Grace Raymond Hebard, one of his biographers, offered an explanation in 1930, suggesting that Washakie was born in 1798 in his father’s Flathead village in Montana. Hebard, drawing primarily from information gathered in the 1910s and 1920s from several of Washakie’s sons, recounted a tale of a Blackfeet raid near the Three Forks area of Montana. This region, at the confluence of the Madison, Jefferson, and Gallatin rivers forming the Missouri, was a prime buffalo habitat and a well-known area for various Plateau and Northern Plains tribes. According to Hebard’s informants, Washakie’s father perished in the raid, prompting Washakie, his mother, and surviving siblings to seek refuge with their Lemhi relatives in Idaho. Subsequently, his mother returned to the Flatheads, while Washakie remained with the Lemhis. During his adolescence, he joined a passing Bannock band.
The Bannocks, linguistically related to the Shoshones, were trading and hunting partners. They frequently accompanied the Shoshones on large-scale buffalo hunts in Montana and Wyoming. From the family narratives collected by Hebard, she concluded that Washakie eventually joined a Shoshone band between 1826 and 1832. This particular band considered the Green River basin area of southwestern Wyoming as their ancestral homeland.
The Influence of Jim Bridger
While Hebard’s narrative and J.K. Moore’s birthdate determination were well-reasoned, they may not be entirely accurate. Based on Washakie’s own accounts, a more probable birthdate falls between 1808 and 1810. Washakie shared parts of his life story in an interview with Captain Patrick H. Ray, who served as the Indian Agent at the Wind River Reservation from 1893 to 1895.
Washakie revealed several key details to Ray. First, he considered the famed mountain man and explorer, Jim Bridger, a close friend, noting that Bridger was slightly older. Second, Washakie stated that he was sixteen years old when he joined the Shoshones. Third, he indicated that he joined the Shoshones around the same time he met Bridger. This information allows for a more accurate assessment of Washakie’s age, given Bridger’s well-documented life.
Bridger was born in 1804 and first entered Shoshone country (western Wyoming and eastern Idaho) in 1824. Washakie told Captain Ray that he and Bridger became good friends and spent several years trapping together. Thus, if Washakie’s age was accurate, his birth would have been no earlier than 1808 and no later than 1810. This timeframe aligns with Bridger’s employment with William Ashley’s Rocky Mountain Fur Trade Company and the first two fur trade rendezvous.
Bridger’s first winter camp, 1824-1825, was likely in the Cache Valley of Utah. He followed the Bear River to its outlet at the Great Salt Lake, becoming the first known white person to see the lake. The following summer, he and his fellow trappers attended the first fur trade rendezvous near Henry’s Fork of the Green River (Wyoming). The next year, the event moved to the mouth of Blacksmith’s Fork Canyon in Utah. The subsequent two rendezvous (1827 and 1828) took place near Bear Lake (on the Utah and Idaho border). Therefore, Washakie likely met Bridger and joined the Shoshones sometime between 1824 and 1826.
While Hebard’s biography is inaccurate regarding the timing of Washakie’s immersion into Shoshone culture, the story of the Blackfeet raid on his father’s village and his subsequent travels with the Lemhi, Bannocks, and Green River-based Shoshones aligns with his recollections of his friendship with Jim Bridger.
It’s important to approach historical documents with caution. Captain Ray’s interview with Washakie occurred in the 1890s, long after the establishment of the Wind River Reservation and even longer after Washakie’s childhood. There is a possibility that Washakie’s memory was inaccurate. It’s unknown if Ray asked specific questions about Washakie’s life or if he recorded what the chief related to him. Despite his advocacy for Indian rights, Ray was also a stickler for rules. Thus, the interview likely involved a give-and-take, with Ray focusing on matters that interested him.
Nevertheless, it’s reasonable to prioritize information that Washakie emphasized and to corroborate his story with other accounts and the region’s general history to fill in the gaps.
Trapping, Trading, and Raiding
Shoshone Chief Washakie (Whoshakik) briefly mentioned his hunting and trapping friendship with Bridger, emphasizing their close bond. His participation in the rendezvous system can only be assumed. This friendship proved to be long-lasting and significantly influenced Washakie’s development as a young Shoshone man. Bridger eventually became part of Washakie’s “family.” However, Washakie’s prominence wasn’t solely due to Bridger’s influence.
According to Washakie’s sons and Captain Ray’s interview, Washakie aligned himself with a band of Shoshones who claimed the Green River and Bear River regions as their territories. This meant living near fur trappers and traders, learning their customs and language (French), trading with them, and earning a reputation as a friend to the whites.
While trapping and trading were valuable, they weren’t enough to achieve prominence in Shoshone culture. Young men had to prove themselves in battle. During the same period that Washakie immersed himself in the fur trade, he also waged war on the Blackfeet, the people who had destroyed his childhood. His accounts of raids on the Blackfeet always begin with a journey from the Green or Bear rivers. He mentioned seven episodes to Ray, initially as a young follower and later as a leader. The remarkable aspect of these journeys is that Washakie and his fellow Shoshones generally started on foot, without horses, from their Idaho or Wyoming base and attacked the Blackfeet near the Three Forks area or further east. The primary goal was horse stealing, with Blackfeet scalps as a secondary objective.
Marriage and Family
By the early 1830s, Washakie had matured and achieved enough recognition to marry his first wife, likely in 1833 or 1834. This timeframe supports his suggested birthdate of 1808-1810, as Shoshone men typically married in their early to mid-20s. Shoshone women, however, typically married younger, around 15 or 16. One of his daughters, Mary Washakie, became Jim Bridger’s third wife in 1850 and was still a teenager at the time.
Washakie continued his hunting, trapping, trading, and warring activities from his home in the Green River, Bear River, and Cache Valley corridor throughout the 1830s and into the 1840s. During this era, several powerful headmen led the Shoshone bands that would eventually become known as the Eastern Shoshones.
Fur trapper William A Ferris identified four leaders in 1831: Horn Chief, Iron Wristband, Little Chief, and Cut Nose. Ferris later reported that Horn Chief was killed by the Blackfeet in 1832 and that Cut Nose led the Shoshones who intermarried and lived in a mixed Indian-white community in the Green River region.
Another trapper, Osborne Russell, met Iron Wristband in 1834, also known as Pahdahewakunda, and identified Little Chief as his brother, Mohwoomha or Mowama. Painter Alfred Jacob Miller depicted Mohwoomha/Little Chief twice in 1837.
Making clear distinctions about Shoshone leaders proved impossible for white observers. Leaders like Pahdewakunda or Mohwoomha seemed to control thousands, but they were generally leaders of specific events, not overarching rulers. Shoshones organized themselves into loose-knit family bands with designated leaders.
Leadership Emergence
In addition to the leaders mentioned above, fur trappers noted other important figures. Russell called three young warriors "the pillars of the nation and [men] at whose names the Blackfeet quaked with fear." These were Inkatoshapop, Fibebountowatsee, and Whoshakik. Russell’s mention of Whoshakik, or Shoshone Chief Washakie (Whoshakik), in 1840 is the first documentation of his importance.
At least five different men headed Shoshone groups during this time, with Cut Nose and Washakie known for friendly relationships with trappers and traders. The deaths of Mohwoomha and Pahdahewakunda in 1843 may have contributed to a perceived leadership vacuum. Men like Jim Bridger used their trade relationships to foster the careers of their friends, including Washakie.
In his 1849 report, Agent John Wilson noted that Washakie, Mono, Wiskin, and Oapich (Big Man) were the main leaders, based on reports from Bridger. However, Washakie contradicted this, stating that Gahnacumah was the leader of his band and that Washakie was the war chief.
Whether Washakie was "chief" or not to his fellow Shoshones, he quickly moved into that position in the eyes of white officials, starting with Wilson’s report in 1849. That same year, he was asked to help resolve an intertribal crisis. This marked the first official recognition of Washakie as an important leader.
In 1851, the government called the Fort Laramie Treaty meeting to establish peace on the Plains. Jacob Holeman, the Indian Agent for the newly created Utah Superintendency, sent Bridger to gather the Shoshones. Bridger found Washakie’s band along the Sweetwater River, but the leader, Gahnacumah, was hunting buffalo and didn’t want to attend. After a Cheyenne raid, Bridger asked Washakie to take charge. Washakie gathered his warriors and declared his intention to stay with the white men.
Washakie Elected "Chief"
This event marked the beginning of Washakie’s chieftainship in the eyes of the whites. He led 60 to 80 warriors to the Fort Laramie/Horse Creek council, where they made a triumphant entry.
For the next decade, Washakie was the leader that white officials sought council from. While other Shoshone headmen led various bands, Washakie was the primary leader for the buffalo-hunting Shoshones. He used his skills to obtain goods, supplies, and food for his followers and reined in his younger warriors from attacking white immigrants.
The immigrants had a tremendous impact on Washakie’s Shoshones. By the mid-1850s, the continuous flow of white settlers disrupted life and hunting, so Washakie sought out areas where whites hadn’t settled. In the late fall, his Shoshones headed north to the Three Forks area of Montana for buffalo hunts.
In 1856, a violent battle erupted between Washakie’s band and a large Crow group. This fight may be the legendary Battle of Crowheart Butte. Regardless, it signaled a period of increasing conflict with the Crows.
As a result, Washakie began to lose some of his followers, especially younger warriors who chafed at his continued friendship toward the newcomers.
As early as 1858, Washakie began to make overtures to white officials to set aside land specifically for the Shoshones.
Treaty of Fort Bridger
By 1862, U.S. officials sought to set aside lands for the Shoshones and Bannocks and protect the overland immigrant routes.
The Treaty of Fort Bridger in 1863 set aside over 44,000,000 acres of "Shoshone country." Washakie was one of the two principal signers. The agreement achieved peace between Shoshones and whites but was fraught with problems.
White prospectors re-discovered gold near South Pass, and mining towns rapidly sprang up along the southern borders of the Wind River drainage between 1866 and 1868.
Treaty of Fort Bridger
These events sparked a new round of peace negotiations with Indian peoples.
Washakie signed a new Fort Bridger Treaty in 1868 that created the Shoshone and Bannock Indian Agency in the Wind River Valley.
By 1871, the first of the agency buildings had been erected, and Shoshone Chief Washakie (Whoshakik) and his Shoshones began the slow process of learning a new way of life.
Shoshone Reservation Life
For the next 30 years, Washakie tried to balance new demands with traditional ways. He allowed his children to attend agency schools but still took them on buffalo hunts. He moved from a teepee to a log house but still led warriors into battle.
Washakie insisted that white officialdom abide by Shoshone council decisions and refused to allow an Indian police force. He farmed a small plot of land and ensured that white farmers paid for using reservation lands.
Changes to the countryside limited Washakie’s and the Shoshones’ choices. The Brunot cession of 1872 led to the founding of Lander, Wyoming, and more settlement.
In the mid-1880s, Washakie’s influence waned. The Arapahos were moved to the reservation in 1878, and the elimination of buffalo hunting forced the Shoshones to pay more attention to farming, ranching, and wage labor.
These changes eroded Washakie’s power, but he still named men to police positions and nominated Shoshone employees for agency positions.
His last major act took place in the 1896 Hot Springs land cessions, when he insisted that the springs remain open to all people.
Final Years
Washakie agreed to baptism in 1897 at the hands of the reservation’s Episcopal missionary, John Roberts. He died on February 20, 1900.
Buried with full military honors, Washakie’s death symbolized the effort to bring peace, adapt to new technologies, and honor traditions. No other leader ever emerged who achieved his stature.
After Washakie’s death, the Eastern Shoshones are now governed by a democratically elected Joint Business Council.