By Kristen Moulten
The Salt Lake Tribune
3-25-2003
PRESTON, Idaho -- The Northwestern Shoshones have been invisible among Utah's Indian tribes, almost an afterthought on any list.
But that era is over, according to Forrest Cuch, Utah's head of American Indian affairs and one of a dozen speakers at a ceremony Monday celebrating a new chapter for the tribe.
The Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation at last took ownership of land in southern Idaho along the Bear River where hundreds of their ancestors were slaughtered by U.S. soldiers in 1863.
"All my life I've watched the Shoshone suffer in this area," Cuch told the 75 Shoshones and 125 of their friends gathered at the massacre site Monday two miles west of Preston. "It's your turn to be first now. You've been last for so long."
Tribal Chairwoman Gwen Davis of Brigham City agreed. "We've waited many years for this day to happen," she said. "Our dreams have become reality today."
The tribe plans a small interpretive center to tell the story of the massacre.
A larger interpretive center is planned farther south near Logan. The American West Heritage Center at Wellsville is raising $30 million for a center that will have a multimedia re-creation of the massacre and tell the tribe's story in full. The tribe's library and cultural artifacts also will be kept at the heritage center, said Bruce Parry, executive director of the tribe.
Back on Jan. 29, 1863, the Shoshones were in their winter camp at the northern end of Cache Valley in Idaho when soldiers under the command of Col. Patrick Connor attacked.
The first hour was a battle between the soldiers and Shoshone braves, but it soon turned into a massacre. Men, women and children were shot and clubbed to death; tepees and food supplies were torched. Between 250 and 380 Shoshones were killed, while a few dozen hid in brush and under the riverbanks.
Mormon pioneers had asked the soldiers to intercede because Shoshones -- who had lost their game and other food sources to pioneer and wagon train encroachment -- had become an irritant, depending on the pioneers for food. Shoshone braves also were suspected of raiding supply wagons en route to Montana gold-mining camps.
In a benedictory prayer at the end of Monday's ceremony, Elder Monte Brough of the LDS Church's First Quorum of the Seventy alluded to the role played by early Mormons in inciting the massacre.
"There is a history of persecution and discrimination here, and we ask that this can be a token gesture to remedy that . . . a token of those things that are solidly in the past."
Brough prayed that all who visit the site will consider it sacred ground.
Paul Campbell, chairman of the Franklin (Idaho) County Commission, said he learned just recently that his great-great grandfather had watched the massacre from a bluff above the river.
Many Preston area residents are ignorant of the massacre, he said. Early historic markers labeled the Shoshone women and children "combatants."
The 26 acres turned over to the tribe Monday have been grazed for decades and have a crumbling homestead in one corner.
Campbell said the shift to tribal ownership should get the Idaho congressional delegation's attention and help win the place designation as a national historic site.
The land was purchased this past weekend by the Trust for Public Land, a national land-conservation organization. The $55,000 purchase price for two parcels comprising the 26 acres was raised from the Flamekeeper Foundation (formerly the William F. and Anna Smith Foundation) of Salt Lake City; Katherine and Zeke Dumke Jr.; historian Brigham Madsen and several anonymous donors. The American West Heritage Center helped with fund raising.
"This is a story that must be heard, not just locally, but regionally and nationally," said Alina Bokde, a New Mexico-based project manager for the trust. The organization has a program to help tribes regain ancestral lands.
Allie Hansen of Preston was jubilant Monday. The history buff has shown the massacre site and told the story to thousands of visitors for two decades and successfully lobbied the National Park Service to get it listed on the National Historic Register in 1990.
When one gets immersed in a historical subject, it starts to seem like a fairy tale, she said. "This makes reality out of it.