Chief Washakie was a renowned warrior first mentioned in 1840 in the written record of the American fur trapper

Mountain man

Mountain men were trappers and explorers who roamed the North American Rocky Mountains from about 1810 through the 1880s where they were instrumental in opening up the various Emigrant Trails allowing Americans in the east to settle the new territories of the far west by organized wagon trains...

, Osborne Russell

Osborne Russell

Osborne Russell was a mountain man and politician who helped form the government of the U.S. state of Oregon. He was born in Maine....

. In 1851, at the urging of trapper Jim Bridger

Jim Bridger

James Felix "Jim" Bridger was among the foremost mountain men, trappers, scouts and guides who explored and trapped the Western United States during the decades of 1820-1850, as well as mediating between native tribes and encroaching whites...

, Washakie led a band of Shoshone

Shoshone

The Shoshone or Shoshoni are a Native American tribe in the United States with three large divisions: the Northern, the Western and the Eastern....

s to the council meetings of the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1851)

Treaty of Fort Laramie (1851)

Although many European and European-American migrants to western North America had previously passed through the Great Plains on the Oregon and Santa Fe Trails, the California gold rush greatly increased traffic...

. Essentially from that time until his death, he was considered the head of the Eastern Shoshones by the representatives of the United States government.

Early life

Much about Washakie's early life remains unknown, although several family traditions suggest similar origins. Washakie was born in 1798 to his mother Lost Woman, who was a Tussawehee (White Knife) Shoshoni by birth, and his father, Crooked Leg (Paseego), an Umatilla rescued as a boy from slave traders at Wakemap and Celilo in 1786 by Weasel Lungs, a Tussawehee dog soldier (White Knife) Shoshoni medicine man. Washakie's father, Crooked Leg, was adopted into Weasel Lungs' clan. There, Crooked Leg, would become a Tussawehee dog soldier (White Knife) Shoshoni, as he would meet and marry Weasel Lungs' eldest daughter Lost Girl, later Lost Woman. Thus, Washakie's maternal grandfather was Weasel Lungs. His maternal grandmother, Chosro (Bluebird)), was also Tussawehee by birth. Lost Woman's younger sister, Washakie's aunt was Nanawu (Little Striped Squirrel), the mother of Chochoco (Has No Horse), who was therefore a first cousin to Washakie.

Crooked Leg and Lost Woman's child, Washakie's birth name was Pinaquanah ("Smells of Sugar") and he had other names before being called Washakie. When he was a teenager, he changed his name to Shoots the Buffalo Running. He was a high-stakes gambler, playing a game involving shaking small stones inside of a gourd rattle, rather like dice, so his friends renamed him Gourd Rattler.

Smells of Sugar met his first "white men," in 1811. Wilson Hunt's main party of Astorians with the Pacific Fur brigade

Pacific Fur Company

The Pacific Fur Company was founded June 23, 1810, in New York City. Half of the stock of the company was held by the American Fur Company, owned exclusively by John Jacob Astor, and Astor provided all of the capital for the enterprise. The other half of the stock was ascribed to working partners...

 were travelling down the Boise River

Boise River

The Boise River is a tributary of the Snake River in the northwestern United States. It drains a rugged portion of the Sawtooth Range in southwestern Idaho northeast of Boise, as well as part of the western Snake River Plain...

 from the mouth of the Bruneau River

Bruneau River

The Bruneau River is a tributary of the Snake River, in the U.S. states of Idaho and Nevada. It runs through a narrow canyon cut into ancient lava flows in southwestern Idaho...

, seven months late for their scheduled arrival at Fort Astoria

Fort Astoria

Fort Astoria was the Pacific Fur Company's primary fur trading post in the Northwest, and was the first American-owned settlement on the Pacific coast. After a short two-year term of US ownership, the British owned and operated it for 33 years. It was the first British port on the Pacific coast...

, when they happened into Crooked Leg's camp on the Boise. They needed horses, which Crooked Leg refused to sell to them; instead reluctantly selling them a few camas roots, dried fish, and four dogs.

Washakie's father was killed in 1824 by members of the Piegon Blackfoot when they raided a Shoshone hunting camp inside the Blackfoot hunting Boundary. Every able-bodied Shoshoni was following and hunting the migrating herds of game, as bison were now scarce in the Ochoco and the rest of the southern Blue Mountains

Blue Mountains (Oregon)

The Blue Mountains are a mountain range in the western United States, located largely in northeastern Oregon and stretching into southeastern Washington...

 and food was in short supply. There had been a weak truce in the summer of 1820, between Fires Black Gun (Tooite Coon)

Cameahwait

Cameahwait was the brother of Sacagawea, and a Shoshone chief. He was the head of the first group of inhabitants of modern-day Idaho that were encountered by Europeans....

, (also known to white men as Cameahwait and Comeah Wait, brother to Sacajawea), and Piegon Blackfoot chief Ugly Head, but the Shoshoni were hunting high in the Montana Rockies, well north of the southern boundary of the Blackfoot hunting grounds, for any game they could find. A Piegon war party, led by Large Kidney and Four Horns, burst into one of their encampments on the Boulder River

Boulder River

Boulder River may refer to:*The Boulder River, a tributary of the Jefferson River in Jefferson County in southwestern Montana in the United States....

, to find Shoshoni head chief Owitze (Twisted Hand), his war chief Red Wolf, and the popular young chief of the Tussawehee White Knife dog soldiers, Po'have (The Horse). Fighting ensued. Washakie, by now in his late teens and riding with the dog soldiers, led by Weahwewa (Wolf Dog), was moving north out of Wyoming country with a weapons shipment of Mexican guns from Comanche

Comanche

The Comanche are a Native American ethnic group whose historic range consisted of present-day eastern New Mexico, southern Colorado, northeastern Arizona, southern Kansas, all of Oklahoma, and most of northwest Texas. Historically, the Comanches were hunter-gatherers, with a typical Plains Indian...

 chief Shaved Head, and overheard the disturbance. His father, Crooked Leg, was camped a few miles away and Washakie got word to him immediately of the attack, whereupon Crooked Leg arrived on the scene, only to be killed.
The hunting ceased and the dog soldiers went on the war trail, backed by Comanche war chief Red Sleeves and his reinforcements. They combed the Boulder

Boulder River

Boulder River may refer to:*The Boulder River, a tributary of the Jefferson River in Jefferson County in southwestern Montana in the United States....

, the Yellowstone

Yellowstone River

The Yellowstone River is a tributary of the Missouri River, approximately long, in the western United States. Considered the principal tributary of the upper Missouri, the river and its tributaries drain a wide area stretching from the Rocky Mountains in the vicinity of the Yellowstone National...

, and the Musselshell

Musselshell River

The Musselshell River is a tributary of the Missouri River, long from its origins at the confluence of its North and South Forks near Martinsdale, Montana to its mouth on the Missouri River. It is located east of the Continental divide entirely within Montana in the United States...

 for Blackfoot to kill, and they did kill many. This victory by the Shoshoni led to a council with the Blackfeet tribes, with the Shoshoni once again a proud warrior society. At the council, it was agreed that the Blackfeet tribes would join forces with the Shoshoni to restrict the trappers expanding encroachment into both tribes' hunting grounds.

By the late 19th century Washakie would become head chief of the Eastern Snakes. He was the only Snake warrior to be honored by the United States Government, for leading General Crook's army to defeat the Sioux

Sioux

The Sioux are Native American and First Nations people in North America. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many language dialects...

, after the Custer defeat.

There are differing opinions about the year of his birth. A missionary in 1883 recorded the year of his birth as 1798, and later his tombstone was inscribed with the date 1804. Late in his life he told an agent at the Shoshone Agency that he had met Jim Bridger

Jim Bridger

James Felix "Jim" Bridger was among the foremost mountain men, trappers, scouts and guides who explored and trapped the Western United States during the decades of 1820-1850, as well as mediating between native tribes and encroaching whites...

 when he was 16. Interpolating from the age of Bridger when he first went into the wilderness, researchers have determined that Washakie was likely born between 1808 and 1810. During his early childhood, the Blackfeet

Blackfeet

The Piegan Blackfeet are a tribe of Native Americans of the Algonquian language family based in Montana, having lived in this area since around 6,500 BC. Many members of the tribe live as part of the Blackfeet Nation in northwestern Montana, with population centered in Browning...

 Indians attacked a combined camp of Flathead and Lemhi people while the latter were on a buffalo hunt near the Three Forks area of Montana (where the Gallatin, Madison, and Jefferson rivers form the headwaters of the Missouri River

Missouri River

The Missouri River flows through the central United States, and is a tributary of the Mississippi River. It is the longest river in North America and drains the third largest area, though only the thirteenth largest by discharge. The Missouri's watershed encompasses most of the American Great...

). Washakie's father was killed; his mother and at least one sister were able to make their way back to the Lemhis on the Salmon River in Idaho. In the melee of the attack, Washakie was lost and possibly wounded. According to some family traditions, he was found by either a band of Bannock Indians who had also come to hunt in the region, or by a combined Shoshone and Bannock band. He may have become the adopted son of the band leader, but for the next two-and-one-half decades (c. 1815-1840) he learned the traditions and the ways of a warrior that were typical of any Shoshone youth of that period.

Although the name by which he would be widely known has been translated in various ways, it apparently dealt with his tactics in battle. One story describes how Washakie devised a large rattle by placing stones in an inflated and dried balloon of buffalo hide, which he tied on a stick. He carried the device into battle to frighten enemy horses, earning the name "The Rattle" or "Gourd Rattler". Another translation of "Washakie" is "Shoots-on-the-Run."

Fur trade

Washakie's band evidently participated in the fur trade rendezvous (1825–1840), since those rendezvous took place within the Green River

Green River (Utah)

The Green River, located in the western United States, is the chief tributary of the Colorado River. The watershed of the river, known as the Green River Basin, covers parts of Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado. The Green River is long, beginning in the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming and flowing...

, Wind River

Wind River

Wind River may refer to:One of several rivers in the United States:*Wind River *Wind River , a designated National Wild and Scenic River*Wind River , called in Inuit Gui-guok-lok*Wind River...

, and Snake River

Snake River

The Snake is a major river of the greater Pacific Northwest in the United States. At long, it is the largest tributary of the Columbia River, the largest North American river that empties into the Pacific Ocean...

 regions claimed by the horse-owning and buffalo-hunting Shoshone and Bannock

Bannock

Bannock has more than one meaning:* Bannock , a kind of bread, usually prepared by pan-frying* Bannock , a Native American people of what is now southeastern Oregon and western Idaho* Bannock County, Idaho* Bannock, Ohio...

 bands of eastern Idaho

Idaho

Idaho is a state in the Rocky Mountain area of the United States. The state's largest city and capital is Boise. Residents are called "Idahoans". Idaho was admitted to the Union on July 3, 1890, as the 43rd state....

. Late in life, Washakie reported that he and Jim Bridger

Jim Bridger

James Felix "Jim" Bridger was among the foremost mountain men, trappers, scouts and guides who explored and trapped the Western United States during the decades of 1820-1850, as well as mediating between native tribes and encroaching whites...

 became fast friends, and indeed, Bridger became Washakie's son-in-law in 1850 when he took her as his third wife. Bridger, born March 17, 1804 entered Shoshone country in 1824 (Washakie said Bridger was the older of the two). Washakie learned French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 and some English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 from trappers and traders. Washakie's close association with the trappers developed into a similar relationship with U.S. officials.

Fort Bridger Treaties

In 1863 and again in 1868, he signed treaties with the U.S. at Fort Bridger

Fort Bridger

Fort Bridger was originally a 19th century fur trading outpost established in 1842 on Blacks Fork of the Green River and later a vital resupply point for wagon trains on the Oregon Trail, California Trail and Mormon Trail. The Army established a military post here in 1858 during the Utah War until...

. The Fort Bridger Treaty of 1863 established a generic Shoshone country, whose borders extended eastward to the crest of the Wind River Mountains, south to the Uintah Mountains of Utah, and on the northern side, to the crest of the Bitterroots

Bitterroot Mountains

The Northern and Central Bitterroot Range, collectively the Bitterroot Mountains, is the largest portion of the Bitterroot Range, part of the Rocky Mountains, located in the panhandle of Idaho and westernmost Montana in the Western United States...

. The western border was left undefined, but was understood to include most of the Snake River

Snake River

The Snake is a major river of the greater Pacific Northwest in the United States. At long, it is the largest tributary of the Columbia River, the largest North American river that empties into the Pacific Ocean...

 as far as the Oregon border. This treaty included a number of Shoshone and Bannock Indian bands besides that of Washakie. The Fort Bridger Treaty of 1868 was established at the Fort Bridger Treaty Council of 1868

Fort Bridger Treaty Council of 1868

This Fort Bridger Treaty Council of 1868, was also known as the Great Treaty Council, was a council that developed the Fort Bridger Treaty of 1868 . The Shoshone, also referred to as the Shoshoni or Snake, were the main American Indian group affected by this treaty...

 and it proved more significant, for it established the Shoshone and Bannock Indian Agency located in west-central Wyoming. Moreover, this was land selected by Washakie and his headmen of the Eastern Shoshones. The initial reservation included about three million acres (12,000 km) in Wyoming

Wyoming

Wyoming is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High...

's Wind River

Wind River (Wyoming)

The Wind River is the name applied to the upper reaches of the Bighorn River in Wyoming in the United States. The Wind River is long. The two rivers are sometimes referred to as the Wind/Bighorn.-Course:...

 country for his people. Although an 1872 land cession reduced the size by 800000 acres (3,237.5 km²), this valley remains the home of the Eastern Shoshones today. He was also determined that Native Americans should be educated, and he gave land to Welsh

Welsh people

The Welsh people are an ethnic group and nation associated with Wales and the Welsh language.John Davies argues that the origin of the "Welsh nation" can be traced to the late 4th and early 5th centuries, following the Roman departure from Britain, although Brythonic Celtic languages seem to have...

 clergyman John Roberts

John Roberts (Tremeirchion clergyman)

John Roberts was a Welsh Anglican priest and writer.-Life:Roberts was born in 1775 in Denbighshire, north Wales, and educated at Jesus College, Oxford between 1792 and 1796, where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree...

 to establish a boarding school where Shoshone girls learned traditional crafts and language.

Washakie and Mormonism

Washakie was a friend of Brigham Young

Brigham Young

Brigham Young was an American leader in the Latter Day Saint movement and a settler of the Western United States. He was the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1847 until his death in 1877, he founded Salt Lake City, and he served as the first governor of the Utah...

 and expressed sadness at the fighting his people had often done with the Utes

Ute Tribe

The Ute are an American Indian people now living primarily in Utah and Colorado. There are three Ute tribal reservations: Uintah-Ouray in northeastern Utah ; Southern Ute in Colorado ; and Ute Mountain which primarily lies in Colorado, but extends to Utah and New Mexico . The name of the state of...

. It was not until after 1880, after Young's death, that Washakie became a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was baptized on 25 September 1880 by Amos R. Wright. About 300 other Shoshone joined the church at this point.

Washakie and Episcopalism

In 1883, John Roberts, an Episcopalian

Episcopal Church (United States)

The Episcopal Church is a mainline Anglican Christian church found mainly in the United States , but also in Honduras, Taiwan, Colombia, Ecuador, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, the British Virgin Islands and parts of Europe...

, was assigned to minister to the Shoshone and Arapahos on the Wind River Reservation. Earning the friendship of Washakie by learning the Shoshone customs, beliefs and language, he was given land to establish a boarding school where Shoshone girls learned traditional crafts and language. Chief Washakie chose Episcopalism as his faith and was baptized again as an Episcopalian in 1897.

Recognition

His prowess in battle, his efforts for peace, and his commitment to his people's welfare made him one of the most respected leaders in Native American history. In 1878 a U.S. army outpost located on the reservation was renamed Fort Washakie

Fort Washakie

Fort Washakie was a U.S Army fort in what is now the U.S. state of Wyoming. The fort was established in 1869 and named Camp Augur afterGeneral Christopher C. Augur, commander of the Department of the Platte. In 1870 the camp was renamed Camp Brown in honor of Captain Frederick H. Brown who was...

, which was the only U.S military outpost to be named after a Native American. Upon his death in 1900, he became the only known Native American to be given a full military funeral.
Washakie County, Wyoming was named for him. In 2000, the state of Wyoming donated a bronze statue of Washakie to the National Statuary Hall Collection

National Statuary Hall Collection

The National Statuary Hall Collection in the United States Capitol comprises statues donated by individual states to honor persons notable in their history...

. The dining hall at the University of Wyoming

University of Wyoming

The University of Wyoming is a land-grant university located in Laramie, Wyoming, situated on Wyoming's high Laramie Plains, at an elevation of 7,200 feet , between the Laramie and Snowy Range mountains. It is known as UW to people close to the university...

 is also named after him.

During World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, a 422 feet (128.6 m) Liberty Ship

Liberty ship

Liberty ships were cargo ships built in the United States during World War II. Though British in conception, they were adapted by the U.S. as they were cheap and quick to build, and came to symbolize U.S. wartime industrial output. Based on vessels ordered by Britain to replace ships torpedoed by...

 built in Portland

Portland, Oregon

Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

, Oregon

Oregon

Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...

, in 1942, SS Chief Washakie, was named in his honor. USS Washakie

USS Washakie (YTB-386)

USS Washakie , laid down as YT-386, later YTM-386, was a United States Navy tug in commission from 1944 to 1946 and from 1953 to probably 1975....

, a United States Navy

United States Navy

The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

 harbor

Harbor

A harbor or harbour , or haven, is a place where ships, boats, and barges can seek shelter from stormy weather, or else are stored for future use. Harbors can be natural or artificial...

 tug

Tugboat

A tugboat is a boat that maneuvers vessels by pushing or towing them. Tugs move vessels that either should not move themselves, such as ships in a crowded harbor or a narrow canal,or those that cannot move by themselves, such as barges, disabled ships, or oil platforms. Tugboats are powerful for...

in service from 1944 to 1946 and from 1953 to 1975, also was named for him.

External links