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

People of the Wind River, the first book-length history of the Eastern Shoshones, tells the tribe's story through eight tumultuous decades--from 1825, when they reached mutual accommodations with the first permanent white settlers in Wind River country, to 1900, when the death of Chief Washakie marked a final break with their traditional lives as nineteenth-century Plains Indians. 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 Arapahoes.