Shoshone people of the Great Basin, a bowl like depression that was once a great inland sea that sat on the borders of California, Nevada, Oregon and Idaho, migrated southeast and became the Comanche of Texas.
The 1860s were a terrible time for America. The Civil War in the south and wars with the Sioux war Dakota Minnesota on the northeast plains and the Snake war in the northwest plains around the Great Basin.
They say history is written by the victors. Actually - history is written by the historians. And they write from what evidence they have. In the case of America’s wars with Indians - those accounts are drawn primarily from military field reports and the oral history of warriors. Written by officers who were not above making up encounters wholesale or twisting them beyond recognition for self-interest and to cover-up crimes. Warriors and soldiers. All too often that leaves out the perspectives of women and men who were not inclined to fight.
This is the story of the Snake War - the deadliest forgotten Indian war Americans fought.
Gregory Michno. The Deadliest Indian War in the West. Caxton Press, 2007.
