People of the Wind River: The Eastern Shoshones, 1825-1900 (Hardcover)

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Henry E. Stamm, IV, draws on extensive research in primary documents, including Indian agency records, letters, newspapers, church archives, and tax accounts, and on interviews with descendants of early Shoshone leaders. He describes the creation of the Eastern political division of the tribe and its migration from the Great Basin to the High Plains of present-day Wyoming, the gift of the Sun Dance and its place in Shoshone life, and the coming of the Arapahos.

Without losing the Shoshone perspective, Stamm also considers the development and implementation of the federal Peace Policy. Generally friendly to whites, the Shoshones accepted the arrival of Mormons, miners, trappers, traders, and settlers and tried for years to maintain a buffalo-hunting culture while living on the Wind River Reservation. Stamm shows how the tribe endured poor reservation management and describes whites' attempts to "civilize" them.

After 1885, with the buffalo gone and cattle herds growing, the Eastern Shoshones struggled with starvation, disease, and governmental neglect, entering the 20th century with only a shadow of the economic power they once possessed, but still secure in their spiritual traditions.