Winter 2010

Road Reconsidered
Around the State
left: Bannock Indians photographed in the 1870’s by
William H. Jackson on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation.
On horseback at the extreme left is Buffalo Horn. Buffalo
Jim is next to him. BElow: Dead sheep that were
shot in the Sheepshooter War. The largest sheep massacre
was near Benjamin Lake in 1903 when 2,400 animals
were killed.
Photo credit Smithsonian
The Bannock-Paiute Indian War of 1878 in Oregon
The Bannock War, also called Egan’s War, started in 1878 after settlers on Camas Prairie
in Idaho allowed their hogs to root up and destroy camas fields that were the basis for the
Bannock Tribe’s sustenance. It was the last in a growing body of transgressions against the
Bannock Tribes. After leading a revolt against the whites on Camas Prairie, Buffalo Horn
led the Bannocks from the Fort Hall Reservation to eastern Oregon to join with the Paiute
tribes. A battle between soldiers and Indians, now led by Paiute Chief Egan, occurred at
Silver Creek, not far from the present town of Riley, 24 miles west of Burns. Colonel Reuben
F. Bernard found the Indians encamped at Silver Creek on a rocky flat near the abandoned
site of the U.S. Army Camp Curry. The Paiutes and Bannocks numbered nearly 2,000. Of
this group, 700 were warriors. The soldiers were outnumbered, but Bernard led a surprise
attack on the morning of June 23, 1878. One soldier and an estimated ten to fifty Indians
were killed, before the Indians fled to the north through Grant County.
The Sheep Wars
Between the years of 1896 and 1906, Central
Oregon was the site of armed conflict
between sheepherders and cattlemen that
eventually led to the killing of more than
10,000 sheep and a number of people.
These range wars included the burning of
numerous ranches, sheep sheds, haystacks,
and the killing of cattle. It began with the
formation of several associations, whose
leaders and members remain unknown to
this day. This led to the largest slaughter of
sheep that took place in the American West.
Rabbit Drives
The Paiute Indians were a resourceful
people. They utilized everything in their
environment that could possibly benefit
them. One strategy for getting meat and
fur pelts involved driving rabbits into a
rope fence and clubbing them. The early
homesteaders copied Paiute methods to
reduce the hordes of rabbits that would eat
gardens and crops.
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