Washakie, A Shoshone Chief, the Friend of the White Man

    The Shoshone Indians lived long ago in the Rocky Mountains, but they have gradually moved westward until now they live on the western side, where there are two wonderful springs which send water eastward and westward to flow into our two great oceans. The water from one flows through the Yellowstone Park to the Missouri River, the cascades, flows smoothly for one hundred and fifty miles till it reaches the Pacific Ocean.

     Because these Indians live long the banks of the winding Snake River, they are sometimes called "Snakes," but Shoshone is their Indian name.

     As long ago as 1636 Washington Irving tells us that Captain Bonneville met Shoshone Indians on his way to the Pacific Coast. Even then the chiefs came together, smoked the peace pipe, burying their tomahawks and made up their minds to be good, peaceable Indians.

     A tribe of Indians usually takes its character from the head chief. If he is a man who cares for his people, thinks for them, and leads them, then they follow and do what he says.

     Washakie was such a chief, and his people loved and followed him. He had a large country, four hundred miles square, called the wind River Reservation, and here he grouped his Indians in small villages about a beautiful spring of hot water which always took off this outer fur coat, which he did not need except in the open air.

     The country where these Indians lived was very cold indeed. One of the stage-drivers, John Hanson, always tied shawls around his legs before he started on a trip, and he told me once that Bill Snooks, who drove the stage before he took it, froze both his legs when it was thirty degrees below zero, and that was nothing unusual; so the Indians were glad to wear furs to keep them warm.

Now there was a great deal of gold in the mountains where these Indians lived, and Sioux, Shoshones, Cheyennes, Crows, and others all agreed to sell their land, which was valuable for mining, to our government, and go where there was no gold, but good water and plenty of game.

"Washington" agreed to pay the Indians for their land, and they moved away as they had promised, but the money did not come. The Indians all around Washakie had been sometimes friends to the white men and sometimes not, but when the money did not come they were ready to fight. They said: "You white men do not keep your promises." Washakie was the only one who seemed to understand that Washington was far away, and that the money must be voted by Congress before it could be paid. He would not fight, so the other Indians were angry with him, and a band of Crows attacked Washakie and his Indians. -Now Washakie was a friend to white men, but he met the Crows in battle, drove them northward, and they were glad to run away as fast as they could, leaving their lodge poles behind them; so you see he could fight when he had to.

I often met this good Chief and we were fast friends. Once when I went through the Yellowstone Park he told me of his latest battle. The Sioux Indians had been determined to break the power of the Shoshones, to defeat them in battle, and carry them off captive. Led by young Red Cloud, the son of the famous war chief, a band of Sioux came upon Washakie, but he had so drilled his men that they held every pass through the mountains, and fought so hard that the Sioux were obliged to give up, particularly as their young chief, Red Cloud, fell in the last attack. Washakie received praise from the Indian department for the ability with which he kept his Indians together, and the help he gave our officers and soldiers.

     He was always glad to see me, and in the Yellowstone Park sent Shoshone Jack with a band of Indians to ride just out of sight on all sides of us as a guard. We were as safe in that wild country with them around us as we would have been anywhere else in America. 

When Washakie was old, and his hair was very white, his eldest son, Washakie, was killed, not in battle but in a drinking-place.  Some one gave him whisky, and when he was drunk he had a fight with a white man and was killed. Then the old Chief Washakie covered his head and refused to be comforted. He said: "My Indians have always been good. They are not lazy like the Arapahoe who drink whisky. [The Shoshones have a great contempt for the Arapahoe.] And my son is dead. For him to die in battle would have made me sad, but for him to die like an Arapahoe Indian breaks my heart." For a long time he grieved, and ever afterward kept his head covered to remind himself and his friends of his deep sorrow, not because his son was gone, but because he had passed away in disgrace, as no Shoshone Indian should, to the Spirit Land.

Famous Indian Chiefs

Source: Famous Indian Chiefs I have Known, by Major-General O.O. Howard, US Army, 1908

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