The Aftermath of the Massacre

Aftermath of the Massacre and National Context

After the massacre, Superintendent Doty of Indian Affairs brokered five treaties and distributed gifts to the tribes which resulted in peace in the area. The final treaty was ratified in March of 1864 by the various Shoshone and Bannock bands in the area and provided annual gifts and funds, outlined tribal boundaries, and ruled that tribes could claim no more land, other than any they may have owned under Mexican rule. When the Fort Hall reservation opened in 1869, most of the surrounding tribes were moved to the reservation.

Figure 1

The Bear River Massacre was virtually ignored across the nation, except in the West. The rest of the country was caught up in the Civil War and spared no further time and thought on yet another Indian massacre. Yet white westerners, and incidents like the Bear River Massacre, played an important part in racial attitudes during and after the Civil War. As Elliott West explains, “the Civil War… destroyed the illusion that whites somehow would never have to answer how they planned to live with free people of color.” Violence against Native Americans reaffirmed white superiority and victory helped expand national land.

The Sand Creek Massacre took place about a year after the Bear River Massacre in neighboring Colorado. Spurred by similar feelings of discontent to Connor’s troops at being left out of the main Civil War action, General John Chivington led his men in an attack against a village of Cheyenne and Arapahoe who were under Army protection and orders. Chivington and his men killed over 100 men, women and children. Although the two incidents were similar, the men in charge were treated very differently. Connor was not punished for his actions because the Shoshone were considered hostile. Chivington, on the other hand, attacked “friendly” Indians and was called to military trial. He was not sentenced as the Civil War ended and military trials were usurped by civil trials and Chivington’s case fell through the cracks. After the Civil War ended, “it became increasingly clear… that army officers could be held accountable for the actions against Indians in the West… by army regulations,” although few were.

1. U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Annual Report, 1864, p. 319-20.

2. Elliott West, “Reconstructing Race,” Western Historical Quarterly 34, no. 1 (Spring 2003): 13.

3. Gary Clayton Anderson, “The Native Peoples of the American West: Genocide or Ethnic Cleansing?,” Western Historical Quarterly 47, no. 4 (Winter 2016): 427. See article for a more complete discussion of the changing legal nature of Indian violence before and after the Civil War.

Figure 1. Franklin Campbell, U.S. Indian Agent, Map of Shoshone Indian Territory, and the Division of Shoshone Boundaries in Nevada, 1866, Digitized by J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6448gx2.