The Wind River Reservation serves as the contemporary home of the
Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes. The reservation covers
more than 2.2 million acres in central Wyoming's beautiful Wind River
Basin. The Wind River Basin, the traditional home of the Shoshones for
centuries, is called "The Warm Valley of the Wind River" by its native
inhabitants. The reservation is the third largest in the United
States.
Under their leader, Chief Washakie, the Eastern Shoshone people were
established on the reservation under the Fort Bridger Treaty of 1868.
The Northern Arapaho, under their leaders Black Coal, Sharp Nose,
Little Wolf, and White Horse, settled on the reservation beginning in
1877. Their Southern Arapaho relatives were moved with the Southern
Cheyenne to a reservation in western Oklahoma, where their descendants
remain today.
While the Eastern Shoshone and the Northern Arapaho tribes shared the
buffalo-hunting tradition of the Great Plains, they did not share the
same culture. The history of the Wind River Reservation, then, has
been a story of struggle and cooperation. The Eastern Shoshone Indians
have settlements at Fort Washakie, Wind River, and Crowheart in the
northern and western parts of the reservation. The Northern Arapaho
Indians have settlements at Ethete, Arapahoe, and St. Stephens in the
southeastern part.
The Wind River Reservation is significant among Indian reservations in
the United States because it is the only reservation in the U.S. that
occupies lands chosen by the tribe compelled to live there. Chief
Washakie, famed chief of the Shoshone, signed the treaty which
established the reservation in 1868. Though a courageous leader in
battle, renowned for his legendary victory over a rival Crow chief
atop Crow Heart Butte (pictured), Washakie was also a wise peacemaker
who negotiated successfully for a reservation on the tribe's historic
lands. He understood that to save his people and preserve the legacy
of the Shoshone it was wiser to negotiate from a position of relative
strength than to fight against the encroaching settlers and risk
ceding the tribe's birthplace to the white man.
For the Northern Arapaho, the Wind River Country was also favorable,
much more so than the harsh Oklahoma landscape that their southern
brothers would be required to settle. Black Coal, one of the Arapaho
chiefs when the Northern Arapaho began moving to Wind River in 1877,
told the government in that year:
Our tribe held three councils before I came away and we all agreed
that if you would give us good land - we are a small tribe - we will
be happy. We would like to join the Snakes (Shoshone).
The Wind River Reservation is the resting place for two famous members
of the Shoshone tribe: Chief Washakie and Sacajewea, the young woman
who helped guide the Lewis and Clark expedition through Shoshone lands
in 1804. (Sacajewea's grave is pictured right.) While Sacajewea has
been honored recently on the new dollar coin being minted in Denver
and Philadelphia, Chief Washakie will be honored this year with a
statue in the U.S. Capitol. It will represent the state of Wyoming in
National Statuary Hall.
The Wind River Indian Reservation is one of Wyoming's great
historical, cultural, and natural treasures. Visitors to the
reservation can tour the graves of Washakie and Sacajawea and see
other historical sites like Crow Heart Butte in the northern part of
the reservation. They can visit cultural centers, fish 1,100 miles of
world-renowned streams and 265 lakes, or tour the reservation and
visit with the locals. Several Native American powwows held on the
reservation during the spring and summer months draw visitors and
members of tribes from across the country.
http://thomas.senate.gov/html/body_windriver.html
