Battles and Massacres of the Indian Wars in the American West

Battles & Massacres of the Indian Wars

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Utah

Gunnison Massacre (1853) - At this site a band of Ute Indians massacred Captain John W. Gunnison's Pacific Railroad Survey party, one of several sponsored by the War Department's Corps of Topographical Engineers. Unaware that the Walker War had broken out between the Ute Indians of central Utah and the Mormons, Gunnison and seven men set out on October 21, 1853, from their camp at Cedar Springs, just west of Fillmore, Utah, to explore the Sevier Lake country, in the area of Indian hostilities. Four days later a band of Utes massacred the party. Searchers found the bodies and buried them at the site. The massacre halted surveying activities in Utah until the following year, when Ute hostilities ended. Lieutenant Edward G. Beckwith resumed the survey and completed it to the Pacific. A monument marks the massacre site, which is in Millard County, on an unimproved road, about nine miles southwest of Deseret.

Coo-che-to-pa Pass

Coo-che-to-pa Pass from the Gunnison-Beckwith Exploration Report, 1855, courtesy National Park Service.

Walker War (1853) - When the Mormons began to settle on the hunting grounds of the Ute Indians, the natives were at first friendly, working out accommodations with the immigrants and even inviting Brigham Young to send Mormon colonists to the Sanpitch (now Sanpete) Valley. Relations between the two groups were helpful and cooperative when they first began to settle in 1849. However, when the Mormons began to attempt to suppress New Mexican trade, tensions developed with the Ute, who had long depended on the trade, especially that of native slaves, to which the Mormons strongly objected. Though Young had negotiated a trading relationship with Chief Walkara in 1850, the colonists began to interfere in many of the Ute transactions. At the same time, the area was being traveled more and more with non-Mormon trading expeditions and settlers and in a few isolated instances, some Ute Indians were killed.

The tensions came to ahead on July 17, 1853 when several Utes were trading at James Ivie's home near Springville. During the transaction, a dispute erupted between a Ute man and his wife over her failure to strike a good bargain. When Ivie tried to intervene, the dispute turned violent and in the end, Ivie killed an Indian brave named Shower-Ocats, who was a relative of Walkara. The Utes were outraged.

In response, Captain Stephen C. Perry of the Springville Militia led a unit into Walkara's camp the next day to try to mollify the Indians; however, the Utes demanded the death of of a white settler in retribution. When their demands were not met, the Ute were even angrier and Perry’s militia fled. The Walker War had begun, which primarily consisted of Ute raids against the Mormon outposts and retaliations by the pioneers. As a result, Brigham Young directed settlers to move from outlying farms and ranches and establish centralized forts.

The Walker War ended through negotiations between Young and Walkara during the winter of 1853. Casualties during the war equaled about twelve white settlers and an estimated equal amount of Indians. The next summer, about 120 of Walkara's tribe were baptized as Mormons.

Wyoming

Connor Battlefield - On August 28, 1965, the U.S. Cavalry under the command of General Patrick Connor attacked Chief Black Bear's Arapahoes along the Tongue River outside present day Ranchester, Wyoming. The warriors made a stand while their families scattered. Connor's troopers destroyed the village, then were driven back by an Indian counterattack. Only the use of artillery saved the soldiers from disaster. This attack caused the Arapaho to join forces with the Sioux and Cheyenne. The battle site is located in the Ranchester City Park about five miles from Dayton, Wyoming..

Dull Knife Fight (1876) - At the Red Fork of the Powder River in the winter of 1876 the Army defeated Dull Knife and his Cheyennes, who had helped defeat Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn the previous summer. Beginning the retaliatory campaigns, General George Crook marched from Fort Fetterman in present day Wyoming back into the Powder River country. At dawn on November 25, 1876, Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie's 4th Cavalry surprised Dull Knife's winter camp. In the end, some 25 Indians were killed and the troops destroyed the bulk of the Indians' shelter, food, and clothing. Most of the survivors, recognizing the futility of holding out any longer, surrendered in the spring at Fort Robinson, Nebraska, along with Crazy Horse and his people.

Today, the battlefield is a picturesque setting among rugged hills on a privately owned ranch. It is is marked by a stone monument, on the side of a hill. It is located in Johnson County, just off an unimproved road, about 23 miles west of Kaycee.

Fetterman Massacre (1866) - The Fetterman battle was fought near Fort Phil Kearny, Wyoming Territory on December 21, 1866. Angered at white interlopers traveling through their country, Sioux and Cheyenne forces continually harassed the soldiers at Fort Phil Kearny, constructed to provide emigrant protection along the newly opened Bozeman Trail. On the morning of December 21, Sioux and Cheyenne warriors were able to decoy Captain William J. Fetterman and 80 men out of the fort and over Lodge Trail Ridge, four miles away. The carefully planned ambush worked to perfection. Fetterman and every man in his detachment died. The State of Wyoming operates the site.

The Fetterman Massacre by Harold von Schmidt,

courtesy Vonsworks.com

Contact Information:

Fort Fetterman State Historic Site
752 Hwy. 93
Douglas, Wyoming 82633
307-684-7629

Sawyer Fight - On August 31, 1865, a expedition was surveying the route of the Bozeman Trail. The group, led by Colonel James Sawyer, was attacked by Arapaho Indians in retaliation for the attack on Black Bear's village (Connor Battle.) The party was besieged for thirteen days until the surveyors were rescued by General Conner's Powder River Expedition Force. The battlefield monument is alongside U.S. Hwy 14 about three miles from Dayton where the Bozeman trail crosses the present highway.

Fort Phil Kearny today, photo by Gilles Coudert,

July, 2007, courtesy Wikipedia

Wagon Box Fight - On August 2, 1867, Captain James Powell with a force of 31 men survived repeated attacks by more than 1,500 Lakota Sioux warriors under the leadership of Chiefs Red Cloud and Crazy Horse. The soldiers, who were guarding woodcutters near Fort Phil Kearny, Wyoming, took refuge in a corral formed by laying 14 wagons end-to-end in an oval configuration. The Sioux began their attack in the early morning by sending a wave of about 500 braves rushing toward the wagon box circle. Powell ordered his men to await firing until the warriors were very close. After several successive waves of warriors were sent in for attack, the Sioux re-gathered for a massive attack. However, just then reinforcements from Fort Phil Kearny arrived with a howitzer in tow. The Lakota fled. The battle lasted five hours with Powell's losses including five men killed and two wounded. Powell reported killing 60 Indians and wounding 120.

The battle lasted five hours with five of Powell's men killed and two wounded. Powell reported killing 60 Indians and wounding 120. The disproportionate casualties, and the soldiers' survival, was primarily due to the recent addition of breech-loading weapons, that had been supplied as a direct result of the Fetterman Massacre.

The site is operated by the Wyoming State Parks.

Contact Information:

Fort Phil Kearny State Historic Site
528 Wagon Box Road
Banner, Wyoming 82832
307-684-7629

Washington

The Yakima War

Between the years of 1855 and 1858 the Yakama Indians (spelled Yakima at the time) were living along the Columbia and Yakima Rivers on the plateau in central Washington Territory. Living in an area that was “in the way” of white settlers, most particularly, miners looking for their fortunes, the first governor of the newly formed Washington Territory, Isaac Stevens, along with the Superintendent of Oregon Territory, Joel Palmer, sought to move the Yakama, as well as the Walla Walla, Umatilla, and Cayuse tribes onto reservations in 1855. Ceding in excess of six million acres to the U.S. government in exchange for $200,000, the Indians were promised that white miners and settlers would not be allowed to trespass upon their lands.

However, when gold was discovered in the Colville area and in the Fraser River area of British Columbia, the miners ignored the rules and trespassed anyway, sometimes stealing the Indian's horses and mistreating them. When some of the Yakama warriors retaliated by killing miners in isolated incidents, Andrew J. Bolon, the Indian sub-agent at The Dalles was sent in to investigate. When, he too was killed, troops were sent into the Yakima Valley, starting the Yakima Indian War in October, 1855.

As the troops continued to flood the region, the Yakama united with the Walla Walla and Cayuse tribes and a number of raids and battles took place. The last phase of the Yakima War, referred to as the Coeur d'Alene War or Palouse War came in 1858 when a force under the command of Colonel George Wright was sent in to deal with the Indians. In September, 1858, Wright’s troops defeated the Yakama and their allies in the Battle of Four Lakes near Spokane, Washington. Though the main Indian leader, Yakama Chief Kamiakin fled to Canada, 24 other chiefs were captured, and then hanged or shot. The remainder of the tribes were then permanently placed on reservations.

Updated March, 2008

Primary Source: National Park Service

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ALSO SEE:

Frontier Skirmishes between the Pioneers & the Indians

Indian Campaigns

Indian Fighters

Indian Wars of the Frontier West

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