The settlement of Washakie, south of Portage, Utah, has a fascinating history. Many people believe that Washakie was an Indian reservation. That is not the case. Washakie was a project of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to help the Shoshone Indians in a plan which came to be known as the Malad Indian farm. 

Most of the information for this story is taken from an article by Mae Timbimboo Parry entitled “The Northwestern Shoshone, Utah’s Native Americans”. The author was born and raised in Washakie. Her family, including her great-grandfather Sagwitch, grandfather Yeager Timbimboo, and father Moroni Timbimboo, held land at Washakie and homesteaded adjacent land to the farm. The description of the settlement and its history comes from family knowledge and the oral traditions of the community. Moroni Timbimboo was well known in the Malad community and he and his family was very well respected. However, before going into the story of Washakie, the stage needs to be set for why the settlement existed. 

The early Shoshone nation lived and traveled through parts of Idaho, Utah, Nevada and Wyoming. They were nomadic gatherers, hunters and fishermen. Chief Washakie was recognized as the head chief among most of the Shoshone bands when the Mormon pioneers came into the Salt Lake Valley. Under Chief Washakie’s leadership were several sub-chiefs, each of who had between 300 and 400 Indians in their bands. Chief Pocatello was the leader over the Fort Hall area Shoshones. Other Northwestern Shoshones traveled under the leadership of Chief Sagwitch Timbimboo, Chief Bear Hunter, Chief Sanpitch and Chief Lehi. They believed that a friendly relationship was possible with the pioneers. Brigham Young indicated a policy of feed rather than fight with the local tribes. 

Research published by several authorities indicated that the Northwestern Shoshone traveled with the changing seasons and believed all things came from Mother Earth. The Shoshone, Paiutes and Bannocks were all related under the term Neme (the People) and could understand each other’s language. The Neme groups formed small extended-family groupings that traveled extensively as semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers before the white men came to the area. However, after the arrival of the white man, disease, guns, horses and just contact with the whites destroyed this organization, and the Northwestern Shoshone bands broke off into a group that traveled largely on foot. Dogs and manpower to carry belongings were used prior to the arrival of the horse. 

The Shoshone were very frugal, using only what they needed to live. The Shoshone were also a social people. Many bands would gather together to compete in a variety of games. The Franklin, Idaho, area was centrally located and bands of the Northwestern Shoshone would gather along the banks of the Bear River to visit and play. One game the children loved to play was “Indians at war”. The children would dig foxholes along the banks of the river. Over the years the foxholes got larger and deeper which caused many to believe that the children’s play holes were defensive pits dug by the Shoshone against Colonel Patrick Connor’s soldiers at the site of the Bear River Massacre. Another activity that was very important to the Shoshone was storytelling. Wintertime was used for this purpose and it was more than just to entertain the children. Since the Indians kept no written record, stories of their history were told and passed down from generation to generation and were memorized by the young children. 

With a natural depression in the land which provided shelter from the wind and winter blizzards and natural hot springs to provide warm water, the Franklin, Idaho, campsite was an excellent place for the Shoshone to spend their winters. According to Mae Parry, in early January of 1863, the Eastern band of the Shoshone and the Northwestern band met to hold a Warm Dance. The object of the Warm Dance was to drive away the winter and bring in the warm spring weather. Following the celebration, the other visiting bands of Shoshone left, leaving the Northwestern group. At this time a few Shoshone troublemakers stole some horses and cattle the white settlers in the area. Three Shoshone were involved and started traveling north. Along the way they killed one of the cattle for food. At approximately the same time some miners and some members of Chief Pocatello’s band got into a fight and the miners were killed. Their horses and belongings were taken into Chief Pocatello’s part of the country. Finally, a third incident took place between some white youth and Shoshone youth. Two white boys and two Shoshone boys were killed. Again with this incident, the Indian boys involved were not from the Northwestern tribe. However, proof of the fact that the Northwestern tribe was not involved in incidents two and three was not had until much later. At that time, to white authorities, Indians were Indians and were not distinguished as to different tribes. 

Because of these incidents, both the white settlers and the Indians started becoming restless – the settlers because they felt the Indians were “stealing savages” and “beggars”, and the Indians because they were on the defensive because their territory was slowly being taken away. On the night of January 27, 1863, an older Indian man had a dream where he saw soldiers killing his people. He told others of the dream and urged them to leave. Many did, thus sparing their lives from the massacre that was to come. Meanwhile, a friend of the Indians’, the owner of a grocery store in Franklin, came to the Indian camp and told them that settlers had appealed to Colonel Connor from Fort Douglas in Salt Lake City to come and settle the Indian problem.  Because of this information, the Shoshone knew the soldiers were coming but innocently believed they would negotiate a peaceful settlement with the army. They made no preparation to defend their settlement. But Colonel Conner decided to move against the Northwestern Shoshone as a result of the settlers’ appeals, and Chief Justice John F. Kinney of Utah Territory issued a warrant for the arrest of Chiefs Bear Hunter, Sagwitch, and Sanpitch. 

Relating Mrs. Parry’s story, on the morning of January 29, 1863, Chief Sagwitch arose early and noticed that the bluff above the river seemed to be covered with a steaming mist. Suddenly he realized what was happening – the soldiers’ from Camp Douglas in Salt Lake City had arrived. Even though he planned to meet the soldiers and negotiate, he warned his tribe of the arrival of the soldiers who gathered their bows, arrows and tomahawks. A few men also had rifles with a very limited number of cartridges. The chief ordered his people to refrain from attacking the soldiers; however, many of the Indians went to the foxholes the children had dug by the river to be prepared for a conflict. 

The Shoshone now believe that negotiation was never in the mind of Colonel Connor. He gave his orders early, and as the soldiers came down the bluff and charged across the river, they started firing their rifles. Several Indians were successful in escaping, one a nephew of Chief Sagwitch, Ray Diamond. He swam across the river and found shelter in the hills to the west. He lived to be more than 100 years old and told and retold the story of the Bear River massacre to his people. Some women jumped into the river with their babies, but most of them died. A quote from Mrs. Parry states that “One Shoshone woman named Anzee-chee jumped into the river and took shelter under an overhanging bank. By keeping her head above water under the riverbank, she was saved. When it became safe for her to do so, she watched the massacre from her hiding place while trying to tend the wounds she had received to her shoulder and breast. Anzee-chee carried the scars from her wounds for the rest of her life and would often show them to the young Shoshone children as she related the account of the massacre to them. She also told of losing her own small baby to the river during her escape. The child drowned and floated down the river among other dead bodies and blood-red ice. One man swam with his buffalo robe upon his back. Soldiers shot at him, but the bullets appeared not to penetrate the buffalo robe.” 

The few Shoshone left alive called to their Chief to escape with them. Most of their people had been killed. Sagwitch did escape by riding a horse across the river. It was reported that a very cruel, inhumane killing was that of Chief Bear Hunter. As the soldiers knew he was a Shoshone leader, the soldiers whipped him, kicked him, tortured him in other ways and finally short him. Through all this, the old chief did not utter a word. Because he would not die easily or cry out for mercy, the solders became very angry and one of the soldiers heated his bayonet in a campfire and ran the bayonet through the old chief’s head from ear to ear. He left children behind and a wife who witnessed the event from a hiding place in the willows.  

Mrs. Parry related that, “Yeager Timbimboo was a son of Chief Sagwitch. He was about fifteen years old at the time of the massacre. He remembered the event well and lived to tell about it. He retold the story several times a year and relived the scene in his memory. Over the years, the history of this event became imprinted upon the minds of friends, relatives, and grandchildren. The grandchildren memorized the story and could repeat it without deviation.” Mrs. Parry goes on, “At the end of the fighting, the soldiers moved among the Indians in search of the wounded, to ‘put them out of their misery’.” Yeager was instructed by his grandmother to lie in the field and pretend he was dead but being curious he wanted to see what was happening. Continues Mrs. Parry, “A soldier came upon him and saw that he was alive and looking around. The soldier stood over Yeager, his rifle pointing at the young boy’s head. The soldier stared at the boy and the boy at the soldier. A second time, the soldier raised his rifle and the young boy felt certain it was his time to die. The soldier lowered his rifle but a moment later raised it for the third time pointed at the boy’s head. For some reason, the soldier could not bring himself to pull the trigger. He lowered his rifle and walked away. What went through this soldier’s mind will never be known. Perhaps a power beyond our comprehension stopped this soldier from killing young Yeager so that the true story of this massacre could be written. Yeager Timbimboo got the scolding of his young life. His grandmother reminded him that he was supposed to remain motionless with his eyes closed and pretend to be dead. He had disobeyed and it had nearly cost him his life.” 

A few days after the massacre, Chief Sagwitch arranged that the horses stolen from the white settlers be returned to them. The stolen cattle had been killed and eaten and thus could not be returned.  

Thirteen survivors of the massacre lived out their lives at Washakie, Utah and were a living historical source of this tragic event. They were Chief Sagwitch Timbimboo, Soquitch Timbimboo, Yeager (Daboo-ze) Timbimboo, Ray Diamond, Peter Ottogary, Hyrum Wo-go-saw, Frank Timbimboo Warner, Tin-dup and family, Chief Bear Hunter’s widow (Bia-Wu-Utsee), Towenge Timbimboo (wife of Soquitch, married after the massacre), Anzee-chee, Techa-mo-da-key, and Mo-jo-guitch. There also were other survivors who lived at places other than Washakie. 

In the years following the massacre of their people at the Bear River the nomadic and traditional ways of living of the Shoshone people gradually began to decline. Contact between the Shoshone and the white settlers increased and some of the male tribal members began working for settlers on their farms. As quoted by Mrs. Parry, “In 1874 Chief Sagwitch and John Moemberg were camped in Cache Valley along with a group of Indians. It became apparent to them that if they were to survive as a people their only recourse was to take up some land and begin farming like the white settlers. After discussing how to proceed, they decided to send a message to Brigham Young and ask him for help in this endeavor. Sagwitch and Moemberg traveled to Wellsville in Cache County to seek the help of Frank Gunnell, a true friend to the Indians.” Gunnell wrote to Brigham Young and in response Brigham Young sent George W. Hill to visit the Indians and see what he could do for them. From Hill’s journal comes the following extract: “On Tuesday, May 26, 1874, I went to Franklin, Idaho, to organize the Indians and set them to work under Bishop Hatch. In May 1874, we commenced to gather the Indians to Franklin, Oneida County, Idaho, thinking a settlement there would be a good place to gather them. But, things not working satisfactory, it was abandoned in the fall, after spending a good deal of time and money.”