Massacre at Bear River

—A Clash of Cultures —

End of a Way of Life

The delicate balance in which the Shoshone managed food resources for thousands of years was drastically altered by colonization. By the mid-1800s, the Oregon and California Trails brought thousands of pioneers and gold-seeking miners through the center of Shoshone ancestral lands. Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) were colonized north from the Salt Lake Valley and settled in the fertile Cache Valley on the Utah-Idaho border. In establishing their settlements, they plowed up the grasslands that provided precious seeds that were used as a food source by the Shoshone, and destroyed plants that fed buffalo, deer and other game animals. The lack of understanding between these two cultures and the shortage of resources caused conflict over land, water, food and other issues. As a contemporary Shoshone man remarked, "The Shoshone welcomed the settlers and tried to be hospitable, but didn't realize what they had in mind. They retaliated when injustices were done them, when their very survival was threatened, when their traditional way of life was made impossible." (Marker Number 3.)

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Show me all markers in:  Preston, ID  |  Franklin County  |  83263  |  Idaho  |  United States of America

Shoshone Bear River Winter Home
California Volunteers March to the Bear River
Attack at Bia Ogoi
A Battle Becomes a Massacre
The Earth Will Remember
The Shoshone
Utah & Northern Railway
The Battle of Bear River
Bear River Massacre Monument
Bear River Massacre

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