Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 September 1895 — The Bannocks Hate the Shoshones. [ARTICLE]

The Bannocks Hate the Shoshones.

“I sec that the newspapers are giving considerable space to the uprising of the Bannock Indians, and perhaps you would like to know something about them.” Thia remark was made by a muscular

I looking fellow at Holland House the other J d»y. as he ran bis eyes over the column of a morning paper. “The Bannocks,” be i continued, “occupy the Fort Hill reservation in southeastern Idaho, with the Bbo- ' shones. The Shoshones are more numer- : ousthan the Bannpcks, who, in 1894, were j 772, all told, 132 being males over eigli- ' t*en years of age, while of 1743 Shoshones, I there were 286 males over eighteen years iof age. The only purpose for which the | Bannocks appear to be preserved, accord- ! to the account given me while on a visit I to the Fort Hall reservation a few years ago, was to vex and annoy the Shoshones, ; who take more kindly to labor schools, and the use of other clothiug than blankj ets than do the Bannocks, who have apj peared to be incurably opposed to civiliza- ] tion for themselves and Indians. The two j tribes have been thrown together for many | years on the same reservation, and while the Shoshones have manifested a willingness to accept the benefits of schools and instruction in the use of implements of agriculture, the Bannocks have assumed a superiority beeanse of their refusal to be civilized, and have taunted the Shoshones as -squaws’ because they embrace the opportunities for improvement held out by the Government. The Shoshones are peaceful and industrious. There were raised and sold for the reservation during 1893 more than $15,000 worth of agricultural products, of which it is safe to assume that the Shoshones produced a very considerable share. The reports of the Indian agent show that of all the Shoshones and Bannocks on the reservation, only 140 can speak enough English to be understood in ordinary conversation. “The United States had a Bannock war in 1878. It was hot and short, and it cost $556,636.19. Twenty-four soldiers, thirty citizens and seventy-four Indians were killed before it stopped.”