For seven years
previous to the treaty of 1869, the Bannock Indians had
given no trouble. In the late fifties and early sixties
they committed a number of depredations, and in 1862,
General Conner, with a body of troops from California,
administered a defeat to them at Battle Creek, near the
present town of Oxford that effectually ended their
misbehavior for several years. The bones of Indians
killed in this fight are still found in the vicinity.
It was told in a previous chapter how a confusion of the
terms Camas and Kansas occurred in the Bannock Indian
treaty of 1869. The document stated that the Indians
should have a portion of the Kansas prairie, instead of
Camas. The two words were synonymous to the Indians, but
wise men among the whites foresaw that the mistake would
cause future trouble. Accordingly, in the spring of
1873, Mr. John Hailey called on the secretary of the
interior and the commissioner of Indian affairs in
Washington and urged that the mistake be corrected. As a
result a commission of three was appointed to settle all
disputed points with the Nez Perce and Bannock Indians,
but nothing was accomplished by the embassy. The treaty
still read "Kansas" and the Bannocks still believed that
they were entitled to a portion of the Camas prairie,
where there were no white settlers at that time, and
where the Indians roamed at will.
The trouble came in 1878. In May of that year some hogs
were herded on Camas prairie and William Silvey, George
Nesbet and Lou Kensler drove a band of cattle and horses
there to graze. The men camped about ten miles south of
Corral Creek crossing. On the twenty-seventh of May, two
English-speaking Indians, called Charley and Jim,
visited the campers and appeared in every way friendly.
They came again early the next morning, ate breakfast
with the white men and continued their show of
friendliness until Silvey, Nesbet and Kensler had
scattered to their several camp duties. Then Indian
Charlie, without warning, shot Nesbet through the jaws
with a pistol as he was gathering up some dishes from
the ground, while Indian Jim fired a shot at Kensler,
who was saddling a horse, and grazed the side of his
head. Nesbet and Kensler made a dash for their tent,
where they seized guns and opened fire on the Indians,
who were now shooting at Silvey. They fled before the
bullets and Silvey escaped unharmed.
Nesbet was badly wounded. His companions tended his
injuries as well as they could, saddled a couple of
horses, and started with him for Boise. When they had
gone a few miles they looked back and saw a large body
of Indians devastating their camp. They gave the alarm
as they traveled along toward Boise, which Nesbet was a
week in reaching. Upon examination, his mouth was found
to be alive with vermin, caused by fly-blows, but Dr.
Treadwell cleansed it and sewed his tongue together, and
after much suffering Nesbet recovered.
The Indians spent a day in the raided camp on Camas
prairie, killing cattle and drying beef, gathering
horses and preparing generally for war. Two white men,
Mabes and Dempsey, were with them. The latter had lived
with the Bannocks for several years and had an Indian
wife. The Indians made Dempsey write a letter to
Governor Braymen at Boise, threatening to kill settlers
and destroy property all over the state, if troops were
sent to fight them. They then sent Mabes to deliver the
letter, and killed Dempsey.
It was learned later that there was a division among the
Indians at this time, some favoring war, and others
counseling against it. Buffalo Horn, who was bent on
mischief, finally secured a following of some two
hundred warriors and a few young Indian women, while the
remainder of the Indians returned to the Fort Hall
reservation.
Buffalo Horn and his followers next appeared at King
Hill station on the Overland stage road. They robbed
this place and then raided Glenn's Ferry, five miles
below, on the Snake river, where they destroyed several
wagon-loads of merchandise consigned to Boise merchants,
and held a big spree on some whiskey they found there.
The next day they went on down the river to Bruneau,
killing John Bascom and two other men on the way, and
two others, Jack Sweeney and a Mr. Hays, whom they found
at, or near, Bruneau. The murders would have reached a
much higher number had it not been for the alarm spread
by Kensler, Nesbet and Silvey, which gave the settlers
an opportunity to escape.
In the meantime, W. C. Tatro, who had met the fleeing
campers and learned of the outbreak from them, carried
the news to Rocky Bar, where a company of volunteers was
at once raised by Hon. G. M. Parsons. At the same time,
Colonel Bernard, accompanied by Colonel R. Robbins who
had rendered valuable services in the Nez Perce war of
the previous year, led a body of troops from Boise. Both
parties took up the trail of the Indians at Camas
Prairie and followed in their tracks.
The people of Silver City in Owyhee County, hearing that
a band of hostile Indians was encamped in the mountains
to the north, sent a company of twenty-six men, under
Captain Harper, to give them battle. The white men were
greatly outnumbered and the Indians had the advantage of
position. A long and fierce fight ensued, during which
Captain Harper lost two men. The result was indecisive,
the white men returning to Silver City, and the Indians
withdrawing the following day.
When he heard of the Silver City engagement. Col.
Bernard hurried thither, and sent Col. Bobbins out with
a detachment of men to see why the mail stage, due the
day before, had not arrived. They found the stage
destroyed by the Indians, and the driver killed. The
only passenger had escaped on one of the lead horses of
the stage.
The Bannock Indians soon persuaded others to join them.
They gained recruits from the Duck Valley Indians, the
Lemhis, Winnemuccas, Malheurs and Snakes, and with their
allies numbered about two thousand warriors, women and
boys. As they traveled they killed or stole all the
cattle and horses they met and destroyed a large amount
of property.
From Silver City, Col. Bernard moved on to Fort Harney.
Col. Robbins, who was scouting' ahead, succeeded in
locating the camp of the Indians by night. He followed
their trail for some distance and then climbed a steep
hillside to a level plateau, along which he crawled
until opposite the red men's camp. In the clear
starlight, he could see all the Indian camps and
calculated that they contained at least a thousand
warriors. The white men had less than three hundred
soldiers.
After a conference, Colonels Robbins and Bernard decided
to attack the hostile camp. Col. Robbins, with
thirty-five men, charged and surprised the enemy in the
early morning, while Col. Bernard, with the main force,
proceeded up Silver Creek to the canyon where the
Indians were encamped.
Although completely surprised, the red men betook
themselves to some fortifications they had made among
the rocks, while the soldiers shielded themselves as
best they could. The two parties kept up a fusilade
throughout the day, and during the following night, June
23rd; the Indians decamped, leaving a hundred dead
behind. Five soldiers were killed and a few slightly
wounded.
Before beginning the battle, Col. Bernard had sent word
to General Howard, who was at Malheur, saying that he
was about to enter an engagement with a large force of?
Indians and might need reinforcements. The general
arrived the following morning and took command in
person.
Colonel Bobbins and his scouts followed the Indians, who
headed in a northwesterly direction, while the troops
came on behind.
Within a few miles of John Day River, Bobbins came to a
sheep corral in which a large fire had been built by the
Indians. The brutes had then bound together the hind
legs of the lambs found on the place and thrown them
into the corral to burn to death. They had killed the
old sheep and left them to rot. In another place the
scouts found a herd of Merino bucks, whose forelegs the
Indians had cut off at the knee, leaving the poor
animals in agony. Such exploits were typical of the
Indian on the warpath.
On another occasion the scouts saw a white man on foot
running for his life from a party of pursuing Indians,
who overtook and killed their victim before the rescuers
could arrive. The man was found, scalped and mutilated,
and although still breathing, too far gone to give even
his name.
Scalping was quite an art among the Indians, and one in
which, sad to say, some white men became very
proficient. The Indians did not remove the whole head of
their victim's hair, but only a circular portion, about
the size of a silver dollar, from the crown of the head.
Sometimes in an attempt to win false glory, a man would
cut two or three scalps from one head, taking the extra
ones from the sides, but a judge of scalps could always
detect the fraud, and unerringly select that which had
been taken from the crown. Some white scouts scalped the
Indians they killed, and sold the trophies, properly
cured, for good sums, the price among eastern curio
seekers ranging from fifty to seventy-five dollars. The
wound inflicted by scalping was by no means fatal,
although most people who went through the ordeal died,
because they had been badly wounded first. But instances
are on record of men who afterward recovered and were
none the worse for their experience.
On July 8th, Colonel Robbins located and surprised the
Indians in a canyon leading up to the Blue Mountains in
Oregon. He was supported by Colonel Bernard with his
troops, and succeeded in driving the red men from their
position. But the Indians took to the hills and got
away, leaving several dead behind them.
The Bannocks had crossed into Oregon in the hope of
persuading the Umatilla and Yakima Indians to join them.
In this they were disappointed, which, added to the
close pursuit of the soldiers and the, now, well
picketed condition of the country, disheartened the
marauders, and they began to sneak back in small bands
to the reservations from which they had come. On their
way they committed many depredations.
In Umatilla County, Oregon, Mr. Charles Jewell, hearing
of the Indian outbreak, secured an equipment of guns and
carried them to his herders, who were tending his sheep
about thirty-five miles from Pendleton. He stopped at a
rancher's door for a friendly chat, and had barely
alighted from his horse when a volley of shots from some
ambushed Indians laid him on the ground. The other man
was killed and Mr. Jewell was left for dead. When the
Indians had gone, he crawled into the house and secured
a pair of blankets and a shingle. On the shingle he
wrote: "Charles Jewell shot by Indians is in the brush
near by call me if you see this." The wounded man then
dragged himself to the road, posted his sign (here, and
crawled into the brush, where he wrapped himself in the
blankets. For three days and nights he lay without food
or water, and when finally some passing men found his
sign and were led to him by his feeble answer to their
call it was too late. He died a few days afterward in
Pendleton.
The three leading war chiefs of the fighting Indians
were Buffalo Horn, Bear Skin and Egan. The two former
had been killed since hostilities began in May. About
the middle of July, Chief Homily of the Umatillas, with
ninety followers, went up into the hills to recover some
horses that Chief Egan's men had stolen. He arranged for
a conference with Chief Egan and thirty of his men, and
in the midst of it, at a given signal, fell upon Chief
Egan, killing him and his thirty companions. He then
affixed the dead chief's scalp to a long pole, with the
hair flying in the breeze and carried it triumphantly
back to the reservation. General Howard had doubted the
loyalty of the Umatillas up to this time and Chief
Homily killed Chief Egan as an evidence of his good
faith toward the whites. Colonel Robbins was sent to the
scene of the massacre to determine whether Chief Egan
were really dead. Everything was found just as Chief
Homily had described it.
Chief Egan's death completely demoralized the Indians.
They had now lost their three greatest fighting chiefs,
and wherever they went they found the white men ready
for them. Volunteer companies had been formed all
through that section of the country, even as far south
as Nevada, and the triumphant advance of the red men had
turned into a search for safety. They broke into small
parties, traveling along out-of-the-way trails and
largely by night, killing and plundering when the
opportunity came, but always heading for the reservation
and safety. It is now more than thirty-five years since
this war ended, during which time the Bannock Indians
have given no further trouble. The large increase in
population makes another outbreak practically
impossible.
Idaho has seen one other Indian war, known as the
Sheep-Eater Indian war. This was fought with the
Tookarikkas, in 1879. These people were a mixture of the
Shoshones and Bannocks, apparently inheriting the bad
qualities of both without their good qualities. They
were outcasts, even among the Indians, and won their
soubriquet of "Sheep-Eaters" by stealing sheep from the
ranges. They were cowardly and treacherous, and
subsisted largely by theft. In May 1879, they killed
some settlers and burned some property on Hugh Johnson's
ranch on the south fork of the Salmon River, near
Warrens, and as a result were rounded up by government
and state troops and sent to Vancouver, Wash.
We give this war only passing notice because it belongs
to the history of Bannock County, only through the
relationship of the Tookarikka and Bannock Indians.
The History of Bannock County
Idaho, By Arthur C. Saunders, Pocatello, Idaho. U. S.
A., The Tribune Company. Limited, 1915
History of
Bannock County, Idaho
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