Chapter 1: Original Residents, Explorers and the Fur Trade
Some of the earliest “residents” of Wyoming were dinosaurs, but they disappeared millions of years before man appeared on earth. Dinosaur remains are found throughout Wyoming and several sites have international importance. One such site, near Como Bluff on the Albany-Carbon county line, was one of the earliest dinosaur digs in the world. Specimens from that site are found in the finest natural history museums in the world. Except for the stories of the paleontologists who found them, dinosaurs will not be addressed in this course. No human being ever encountered a live dinosaur--in Wyoming or anywhere else. Dinosaurs had become extinct 65 or so million years ago.
Anthropologists believe that humans occupied parts of what is now Wyoming perhaps as early as 14,000 years ago. Evidence of human habitation may be found at archaeological sites throughout the state. Mammoth remains were found in 1907 at the Colby site in present Washakie County, but not fully investigated until a University of Wyoming team excavated the site in 1974-75. Evidence of human habitation as long ago as 11,000 years was discovered as well as 463 mammoth bones. Two couples (Dave and Jamie Egolf and Mr. and Mrs. Roderick Laird) discovered a site on the west edge of Casper where people utilized a bison tap for killing and butchering some 10,000 years ago. Known as the Casper site, it was excavated by a UW team in the early 1970s. The Frederick-Hell Gap site in Platte County was excavated by Harvard archaeologists who dated human use to 12,000 years ago. The location is now a state archaeological site. Many other sites throughout the state demonstrate early habitation by humans. These include Spanish Diggings (Platte-Goshen-Niobrara), Medicine Lodge Creek (Big Horn County), Mummy Cave (Park County), and Vore Buffalo Jump (Crook County) where. 3,500 years ago, prehistoric people stampeded some 20,000 bison into a trap.
The Medicine Wheel, some 25 miles west of Burgess Junction in the Big Horn Mountains, is a circle of stones some 75 feet in diameter, connected with 28 “spokes” of stones. Numerous theories have been offered about the function and builders of the unusual site located on a mountain. It likely is the remnant of a prehistoric native ceremonial site.
Prehistoric people disappeared from Wyoming about 4,500 years ago, according to some anthropologists. Likely, climate changes forced many inhabitants to abandon the region in search of game. Lengthy periods of drought contributed to the disappearance. For the next 2,000 years, the region was uninhabited. Gradually, the climate improved and people began to return to the area. The Native Americans from the historical period, however, did not enter Wyoming until the century prior to Columbus’ landing in the New World.
The Shoshone (sometimes spelled Shoshoni) tribe arrived in what is now Wyoming about 1400. They came into the area from the southwest and, by the early 18th century, they had horses—earlier than any other Wyoming area tribe—obtained through trade networks from the southwest following the Pueblo revolt. These Eastern Shoshones are a relatively small branch of a much larger tribe which occupied much of the Great Basin, ranging as far north as Montana. The Shoshone population in Wyoming in 1800 was estimated at 2,000. For much of the 19th century, Chief Washakie was Shoshone leader. His significance to Wyoming history was memorialized in 2000 when his statue, one of the two authorized by Congress for placement in Statuary Hall, was installed in the United States Capitol.
The “sheepeaters” were main occupiers in the historic period of what is now Yellowstone National Park. They had a population of no more than 400 by the end of the 18th century. Actually, they were a small Shoshone branch, so called by other Shoshones because of their diet of big horn sheep. Togwotee, who guided General Sheridan’s expedition in 1882, was a sheepeater.
At the time of the first White exploration into Wyoming, the Crow dominated the northeast and central portions of what is now the state. They had come to the region about 1500 from the northeast. Known as the Absarokas (“bird people”), they were famous for their flamboyant horsemanship and distinctive clothing designs using porcupine quills. Prior to white contact, the Crows battled the Sioux and the enmity continued into the 19th century. Many served as U. S. Army scouts during the U. S.--Sioux wars of the late 19th century. Population in 1800 was estimated at 4,000.
Some historians believe that Kiowas occupied the Black Hills on the Wyoming-South Dakota border at the time of first White explorations in the 18th century. Some date Kiowa presence to the early 1600s, but they were no longer in the area after the 1760s.
The Lakota (Sioux) were formerly woodlands people who occupied lands in what is now northern Minnesota until they began migrating southwest in the 18th century. By 1765 they had displaced the Kiowa and Cheyenne in the Black Hills. In 1822 they joined with the Cheyenne in driving the Crow from what is now northeastern Wyoming. The Lakota consisted of seven major divisions---three residing in Wyoming. The Oglala were the most numerous in Wyoming. Crazy Horse and Red Cloud were principal leaders of the sub-tribe. Spotted Tail led the Brule, the second largest sub-group. Sitting Bull was a Hunkpapa from the third largest sub-group. In 1800, the Lakota numbered about 25,000 in the seven divisions. Those in Wyoming numbered close to 10,000—Oglala, 3,600; Brule, 3,000; and Hunkpapa, 2,900.
The Blackfeet lived in northwestern Wyoming around 1800. Thousands died in epidemics in 1781, 1837, and 1869. The worst occurred in 1837 when two-thirds of the population of 9,000 died of disease. After the early 19th century, the surviving Blackfeet in Wyoming migrated north to join fellow tribesmen in what is now Montana.
The Cheyenne lived in northern Wyoming until about 1832 when a large part of the tribe moved south to the Arkansas River area of Colorado. The remaining group, known as the Northern Cheyennes, were captured by the Army after the Little Bighorn battle in 1876 and forced to move south to share a reservation with their southern cousins. The conditions there were so deplorable that two years later, Little Wolf and Dull Knife led 300 Cheyennes north some 1,500 miles to their original homes. They eluded some 10,000 soldiers, but eventually were recaptured and sent to Fort Robinson, Neb., for “processing” back to Oklahoma. Dull Knife led an escape and the group took refuge with the Lakota. On their recapture, they were sent to their own reservation in the Rosebud Valley of Montana.
Arapahoes probably subsisted on farming in the Red River Valley of present-day Minnesota, according to some historians, until the Lakota forced them southwest across the Missouri River. They formed a long-time alliance with the Cheyenne who also were moved west by pressures from the Lakota. Later, the Arapaho divided into two groups. The Southern Arapaho moved south while the Northern Arapaho stayed in what is now northeastern Colorado and southeastern Wyoming where they were living at the time of first White contact in the area. Their name derives from what the Cheyenne called them—“blue cloud men.” They called themselves “our people.” In 1800 the estimated population of the northern group was 3,700 and the southern group, somewhat smaller.
Early European Explorers
Legends persist that Spanish conquistadors might have explored Wyoming, but no evidence of such explorations exist. The legends stem from discoveries of swords, metal pieces, and supposed evidence of Spanish mining techniques in various locations around the state. A Toledo-made sword was found in a field in Sheridan County. Like the other implements of Spanish origin, it probably came there from New Mexico through the Native American trade network. Evidence fails to confirm the legends of “skeletons wearing Spanish armor” supposedly found in Wyoming caves over the years.
The identify of the first European explorer to set foot in Wyoming is also disputed. Journal entries from the diary kept by the Verendrye brothers in 1742 mention “the shining mountains” that some historians believe were the Big Horn Mountains. The entries, according to some historians, imply the two French-Canadian trappers may have entered northeastern Wyoming. Other historians, however, have discounted that possibility, noting that the entry probably referred to the Black Hills of western South Dakota, placing the two men several hundred miles east of present Wyoming.
No 18th century record exists of European travelers stepping foot into what is now Wyoming, but it is possible that unnamed, non-record-keeping French-Canadian trappers may have come into the area. It was during a time of extensive exploration for furs as well as for better routes across the continent. Precursors to Lewis and Clark include American John Ledyard who attempted to cross Siberia in 1788. The Connecticut native planned to travel across the Bering Strait and into western North America, but he was turned back by Russian authorities. Scots-Canadian Alexander Mackenzie traversed Canada to the Pacific in 1793. Like Lewis and Clark a dozen years later, the route was far north of what is now Wyoming.
The journal accounts of French-Canadian trapper Francois-Antoine Larocque prove that he explored parts of northern Wyoming in 1805. He led a group of Canadian trappers up the Powder River and Clear Creek, near present Buffalo, prior to returning to Canada. Almost certainly, unknown trappers explored the area, but no written accounts were kept.
The first American exploration of the West was the celebrated expedition led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. From 1804-06, the two “captains” traversed the American West, recording for President Thomas Jefferson all manner of details about the territory the President had obtained through the Louisiana Purchase. Even though the expedition never entered Wyoming, two individuals associated with the expedition figure into Wyoming history. One of these is the well-known Native American woman, Sacajawea, who joined the expedition in Mandan country (present North Dakota) and, with her young child strapped into a cradle board on her back, went West with the expedition. While she did not serve as a guide for the party, as the myth popularized by such historians as Dr. Grace Raymond Hebard asserted, Sacajawea nonetheless was important to Lewis and Clark’s success. At critical points, her knowledge of the flora and fauna saved the party from hunger and her fluency in native languages were crucial at a time when Native warriors posed the biggest threat to the expedition.
Sacajawea’s Wyoming connection remains controversial. Most historians believe she died as a young woman in what is now South Dakota, leaving the responsibility of educating her young son to Captain Clark, then governor of Missouri Territory. Fremont County residents, however, point to Sacajawea’s grave in a cemetery on the Wind River Reservation, arguing that the woman buried there was Sacajawea. They argue that she had lived to old age, dying in the 1880s under the later-adopted name of “Porivo.” Dr. Hebard endorsed that account, basing much of her evidence on the oral testimony of the Rev. John Roberts, Episcopal priest on the reservation, who had arrived just a couple of years after the woman’s death. Wyoming historian Dr. T. A. Larson took issue with Hebard’s conclusion, pointing out that evidence for the Dakota death seems to preclude the hearsay accounts Hebard believed.
The second member of the Lewis and Clark expedition, John Colter, became the first white American to step foot in what is now Wyoming. Unlike his former employers, Colter came to Wyoming, not as an explorer, but in search of trade with Native people for and for furs. His story is told in the following reading.