page_title: Fort Hall Indian Reservation
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Fort Hall Indian Reservation / History
caption_attribution_description: Scope and content: Records document the activites of George LaVatta as Organizational Field Agent in the 1930's. Included are records and photos conerning construction at various agencies, the reorganization of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and photos and reports of various Indian schools.
context_page_description: The Fort Hall Reservation is a Native American reservation of the federally recognized Shoshone-Bannock Tribes in the U.S. state of Idaho. This is one of five federally recognized tribes in the state. The reservation is located in southeastern Idaho on the Snake River Plain about 20 miles north and west of Pocatello. It comprises 814.874 sq mi of land area in four counties: Bingham, Power, Bannock, and Caribou. To the east is the 60-mile-long Portneuf Range; both Mount Putnam and South Putnam Mountain are located on the Fort Hall Reservation.
  Founded under an 1868 treaty, the reservation is named for Fort Hall, a trading post in the Portneuf Valley that was established by European Americans. It was an important stop along the Oregon and California trails in the middle 19th century.
  A monument on the reservation marks the former site of the fort. Interstate 15 serves the community of Fort Hall, the largest population center on the reservation. The total population of the reservation was 5,762 at the 2000 census. The Shoshone-Bannock Tribes has more than 5,300 enrolled members, and more than half reside on the Fort Hall Reservation. Others have moved to urban areas for work.
context_section_description: The Shoshone and Bannock had long occupied the territory of Idaho and nearby areas. They were not disrupted by settlers until the late 1840s and 1850s, when emigrant wagon trains increasingly crossed their territory which put strain on food and water resources, disrupting the way of life for the Shoshone and Bannock.
  In the 1850s the Shoshone, led by Chief Pocatello, attacked emigrant parties in an effort to drive them off, as the settlers encroached on their hunting grounds and game. After initial hostilities, the Mormons, led by Brigham Young, pursued a policy of reconciliation with the Shoshone.
  But other settlers complained, and the federal government ordered the U.S. Army into the Utah Territory in 1858, resulting in full-scale conflict between the U.S. and the Shoshone. There had been escalating conflicts, with the Shoshone and Bannock tribes pitted against the increasing tide of European-American settlers. The latter encroached on the Native Americans' traditional territory, competing for resources and damaging the habitat of game they depended on.
  In January 1863 Colonel Patrick Edward Connor led his troops from Fort Douglas in order to "chastise" the Shoshone.  In what is known as the Bear River Massacre (1863), his US Army forces killed more than 400 Shoshone, including women and children, in present-day southeastern Idaho.
  Warned of Connor's advance, Pocatello had led his people out of harm's way. Another chief and his band were attacked and largely destroyed.
  Seeing the power of US forces, Pocatello subsequently sued for peace and agreed to relocate his people in 1868 to a newly established reservation along the Snake River. Four bands of Shoshone and the Bannock band of the Northern Paiute relocated to the reservation, then consisting of 1.8 million acres (7,300 km²) of land.  As part of the Fort Bridger Treaty of 1868, the U.S. government agreed to supply the Shoshone-Bannock tribes annually with goods and supplies annuities worth 5,000 dollars.
  The U.S. government often failed to provide the annuity goods on time, and food supplies sometimes arrived spoiled. In addition, the lands of the reservation, located on the Snake River Plain, were not appropriate for the subsistence-type agriculture that the government wanted the Shoshone-Bannock to adopt. In the years following their removal to the reservation, the Shoshone-Bannock peoples suffered severely from hunger and disease, with high mortality. Hoping to relieve his people's suffering, Pocatello led a small group to a missionary farm in the Utah Territory to receive mass baptism and conversion to Mormonism. Although the Shoshone were baptized, the local settlers, primarily Mormon, agitated for removal of the Indians. The U.S. Army forced the Shoshone back onto the reservation.
  From 1868-1932, the federal government reduced the territory of the reservation by two thirds, taking some for such projects as railroads and roads, and allowing non-Native settlers to encroach on the grounds. Most importantly, under the Dawes Act of 1887, the government attempted to impose the model of private property and subsistence farming, thinking to encourage assimilation of the tribes to the majority type farm. It registered all members of the tribes and allotted individual 160-acre plots of land to each household. Given the arid local conditions, these allotments were generally too small to support subsistence agriculture. The government declared the remainder of the formerly communal land to be "surplus" and sold much of it to European-American settlers. Some members of the tribes later sold their plots because they were too small to be successfully farmed, leading to the tribes' losing control of more lands.
caption: Translator George LaVatta and Chief Tendoi at the Fort Hall Reservation circa 1923
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