Shoshoni-Goship (or Kumumbar) at Tuilla Valley, Utah Territory (1863)
The 1863 Tuilla Valley treaty opened Goship Shoshone country to travel, mining and settlement in exchange for annuities.
- Signed
- October 12, 1863
- Senate
- Ratified
- Land set aside for the nations
- about 6.6 million acres
What happened
What happened
On October 12, 1863, at Tuilla Valley in Utah Territory, the United States and the Shoshone-Goship bands signed a treaty of peace and friendship. The bands agreed to end hostilities against emigrant trains, mail and telegraph lines and citizens, and to keep routes of travel "forever free and unobstructed."
Article 4 allowed the Goship country to be explored for gold, silver and other minerals, with mines worked and mining and farming settlements formed "wherever they may be required." Mills and timber use were also allowed. Article 5 records the boundaries as the bands defined them. Article 6 authorized the President to make reservations when he thought it "expedient" for the bands to give up their roaming life, and they agreed to move to whatever reservation he indicated.
In return the United States promised annuities, which the bands accepted as full compensation for lost game and the rights they conceded. The text contains no explicit cession of title. Article 8 adds that nothing in it admits any greater title than existed under Mexican law when the United States acquired the territory. The OSU treaty database lists ratification on March 7, 1864.
Good to know. The treaty text contains no express cession of land.
Summarized with AI assistance from 2 sources and checked against their words; not yet reviewed by historians or by the nations. Report an error
What the sources say, and how this was checked
Well supported by the sources below.
may be explored and prospected for gold and silver, or other minerals and metals
Tribal Treaties Database (Oklahoma State University): Treaty with the Shoshoni-Goship, 1863shall be forever free and unobstructed by them
Tribal Treaties Database (Oklahoma State University): Treaty with the Shoshoni-Goship, 1863
Research notes. Federal land-cession lists count this treaty as a cession, but the treaty text itself contains no express cession of land.
What the treaty did to the land
About 6.6 million acres recognized, kept or set aside for the nations. Each shape is a numbered area in the federal government’s 1899 record of land cessions.
recognized as Native landabout 6.6 million acres
Reservation of the Shoshone-Goship in Nevada and Utah (area 447)
Defined as Shoshone-Goship country by an 1863 treaty; the 1899 federal record says the United States took it over without formal purchase. Recognized territory, not a cession.
What happened next
Everything the record holds about this land and this treaty, in order: what earlier agreements said, what this one did, and what the United States, the courts and the nations did afterwards.
Who is doing the work today
The nations connected to this treaty come first, then groups returning land and defending treaty rights. Support goes directly to them.
Who is doing the work
This history belongs to living nations. Start with them:
- Eastern Shoshone Tribe of the Wind River Reservation, Wyoming
- Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation
- Shoshone-Bannock Tribes of the Fort Hall Reservation
- Te-Moak Tribe of Western Shoshone Indians of Nevada (Four constituent bands: Battle Mountain Band; Elko Band; South Fork Band; and Wells Band)
Native legal and land defense, nationally
- Native American Rights Fund (NARF) Native-led Litigation and legal advocacy for tribal sovereignty, treaty rights, land and resources Give on their site Website
- NDN Collective (LANDBACK Campaign) Native-led LANDBACK campaign (launched 2020; Mount Rushmore closure and return of Black Hills public lands), Indigenous… Give on their site Website
- Indian Land Tenure Foundation (ILTF) Native-led Land recovery and control by tribes and individual Indian landowners Website
- Decolonizing Wealth Project (Indigenous Earth Fund; California Tribal Land Return) Native-led Reparative philanthropy Give on their site Website
Gifts go straight to each organization; this atlas takes nothing. Listing is not endorsement: how organizations are listed.
Sources
Sources
- treaties.okstate.edu/treaties/treaty-with-the-shoshoni-goship-1863-0859reference work
Treaty with the Shoshoni-Goship, 1863 Oct. 12, 1863. | 13 Stats., 681.
Shapes are approximate and are not legal descriptions of land, title or jurisdiction.