Clash Of Cultures

Clash Of Cultures. Camp Connor Peace Treaty. Floods of emigrants, gold seekers, and Mormon settlers entering the homeland of the Shoshone and Bannock people from the mid-1840s to early 1860s gave rise to conflict and often violent encounters. Despite Mormon effort to supply them with food, starvation loomed. Livestock from new settlements and thousands of hungry oxen and horses pulling emigrant wagons and stage coaches annually depleted grasses driving away bison and other large game - food sources that were critical to Shoshone and Bannock survival. , To prevent starvation - and to drive out the intruders - the Indians began raiding cattle herds and homesteads, robbing and killing miners and emigrants on the trails, and attacking coaches and stage stations, disrupting vital mail service. These events naturally led to retaliations on both sides. , Colonel Patrick E. Connor, assigned in 1862 to protect the emigrant trails along the Bear River and the Overland mail, determined to put and end to the troubles by launching a surprise attack on Shoshone Chief Bear Hunter's winter village. The January 1863 attack near present-day Preston, Idaho resulted in the larges single massacre of Native Americans in the west - infamously known as the Bear River Massacre. , In October of 1863, U.S. officials and leaders of the Shoshone and Bannock, representing about 5,000 people, signed the Camp Conneor Treaty, officially ending the violence in the area. In return for government provisions, the tribes promised not to trouble travelers crossing their lands, and to permit more roads to be built. , The treaty brought peace along the emigrant trails and in settlements, and ultimately opened up prime agricultural lands and resources to more settlers. For the Shoshone and Bannock people, the treaty forever changed their lives.