Encyclopedia of North American Indians -

Encyclopedia of North American Indians

Washakie

(1804?-1900)

Shoshone chief

Chief Washakie of the Eastern Shoshones proved to be a forceful yet complex leader who managed the pressures of the nineteenth-century American West, defending his followers against an array of adversaries for nearly six decades. Sometimes criticized for his willingness to cooperate with whites, Washakie was an exceptional warrior, military strategist, and orator. His greatest legacy, however, was his political leadership, which produced both victories and defeats for his tribe—the Shoshones of Wyoming's Wind River Reservation.

The precise date of Washakie's birth is in dispute; some place it as early as 1798. His mother was Shoshone but his father was Flathead, and he was reared with a Northern Shoshone band that resided in the Lemhi Valley of modern-day Idaho. Washakie does not seem to have joined the Wyoming Shoshones until he was about thirty years old. Around six feet tall and strikingly handsome, the young man quickly established himself as a war leader. His reputation as a warrior grew rapidly among whites and opposing tribes. The fur trader Osborne Russell reported in 1840 that Washakie's name caused the Blackfeet to quake with fear. By 1843 Washakie had become the head of a Shoshone band and was perhaps even recognized as the principal chief of the Shoshone camps in modern-day southwestern Wyoming.

Through adroit political skill and effective war leadership, Washakie came to dominance by uniting the dispersed bands of Shoshones into a cohesive entity. Playing the role of a generous leader who distributed goods to his followers, Washakie used resources that came his way to consolidate his personal power. At the treaty conference held near Fort Laramie in 1851, for example, Washakie used the sponsorship of trapper Jim Bridger to gain entry to the gathering. Previously unrecognized by federal authorities, he became a participant, although not a signatory, in the negotiations.

Washakie's true leadership qualities were most evident in the delicate course he pursued in trying to maintain the support of his people while cooperating with the U.S. government, and in keeping enemy tribes at bay. In complex settings where doing anything or nothing at all carried great risk, Washakie was repeatedly able to turn circumstances to his favor. During the 1850s, for example, Washakie cultivated a reputation as a friend to the U.S. Army and the emigrants of the Oregon Trail. In 1859 Washakie's Shoshones received an especially strong commendation from Colonel Frederick Lander, who noted that a "paper bearing over nine thousand signatures" declared that the signatories had been most kindly treated by the Indians. Washakie capitalized on this perception of Shoshone amity by arranging compensation for his tribe's friendship in the form of government annuities and military support.

Not all Shoshones were satisfied with the course that Washakie pursued, and in 1862 some dissidents joined the neighboring Bannocks in raiding emigrant groups. Indeed, rumors quickly circulated that Washakie had been deposed by malcontents. In January 1863, Colonel Patrick Connor attacked a Shoshone village occupied by the raiders on Bear River. The ensuing conflict subdued the group and, incidentally, buttressed Washakie's claims to leadership. Washakie rebuked those who returned from the Bear River defeat, not for the error of their hostile ways but for losing the battle.

In the aftermath of the Civil War, discussions began concerning the establishment of a Shoshone reservation along Wyoming's Wind River. While government agents believed Washakie was willing to move onto a reservation, the chief used his record of cooperation to advantage by noting the dependence of his tribe on whites now that the life of the hunt had been eliminated. He argued that unless the government supplied provisions, the Shoshones could not afford to move to a new permanent home. While the agency superintendent reported that Washakie would accept a reservation in the Wind River Valley, he noted that the Shoshones would require extra protection against attack by both the Crows and the Sioux. The result was a delay in the establishment of a new Shoshone reservation. During these negotiations Washakie also agreed to encourage the Shoshones to farm and to send their children to government schools. Despite these promises, however, the chief is said to have dramatically repudiated the white man's sedentary life by declaring before his followers, "God damn a potato." Ambivalent or paradoxical, Washakie managed time and again to prevail in complex circumstances by convincing those who counted on him—whites and Indians alike—that their confidence in him was well placed.

In 1868, Washakie finally signed a treaty establishing the Shoshone Reservation. This treaty, negotiated at Fort Bridger, Wyoming, reduced the size of the territory originally assigned to the Shoshones in 1862 and stipulated in addition that Washakie and his followers would remain permanently within the preserve's borders. Washakie liked the location of the new agency, and he was optimistic about the future.

During the 1870s, the Shoshones continued to migrate northward to the Big Horn Basin every year to hunt for buffalo. They also joined U.S. Army troops in a battle against Arapahos who had camped near Fort Brown, and they scouted for General George Crook in his campaign against the Sioux. Despite these diversions, however, the Shoshones found reservation life dreary and oppressive. In 1878, in one of the more eloquent statements made by any native on the frustrations of reservation life, Washakie described the reservation as a culmination of tragedies inflicted upon his society. The reservation was a failure for Indians, Washakie argued, and a betrayal of white promises.

The circumstance that occasioned Washakie's lament was a government proposal to settle the Shoshones' ancient enemies, the Northern Arapahos, on the Shoshone Reservation. Washakie resisted the Arapahos' resettlement, not only on the grounds of the two tribes' long-standing enmity, but also because the sparse supplies provided to the Shoshones would have to be divided with the newcomers. Despite these protests, however, the government gave the Arapahos permission to reside indefinitely on the Shoshone Reservation. In the wake of this decision, Washakie again found it necessary to weigh the power of the federal government against the desires of his followers. The chief cooperated, and yet he was able to retain his influence until 1891, when, approaching the age of ninety, he was challenged by Black Coal, an Arapaho war leader whom he had faced on the battlefield in 1874. Black Coal protested his tribe's junior status on the reservation and successfully argued that the Arapahos should be equal partners on the preserve. (In 1937, the name of the reservation was changed to Wind River.) Despite this setback, Washakie remained the reservation's dominant leader until his death in 1900.





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