Fort Bridger Treaty of 1868 (Eastern Shoshone and Bannock)

What happened

On July 3, 1868, at Fort Bridger, Utah Territory, U.S. commissioners signed a treaty with chiefs and headmen of the eastern band of the Shoshone and the Bannock. Article 2 set apart a district in the Wind River country, described from the mouth of Owl Creek to the Wind River Mountains, for the "absolute and undisturbed use and occupation" of the Shoshone. The Bannock were promised a reservation "in their present country," to include reasonable portions of the "PortNeuf" and "Kansas Prairie" countries, whenever they wanted one or the President thought it advisable. Both tribes relinquished claims to other U.S. territory.

The Supreme Court said in 1937 that in this treaty the Shoshone relinquished a reservation of 44,672,000 acres in Colorado, Utah, Idaho and Wyoming and accepted one of 3,054,182 acres in Wyoming. The Court said the Shoshone's loyalty had been "conspicuous and unfaltering." In that case it held that the United States had taken tribal land when it placed the Northern Arapaho on the Wind River Reservation in 1878, and that just compensation was owed.

The tribes kept the right to hunt on the unoccupied lands of the United States while game could be found and peace held. In Ward v. Race Horse (1896) the Court held that a Shoshone-Bannock hunting right ended when Wyoming became a state. In Herrera v. Wyoming (2019), it held that a Crow hunting right with the same language did not, and said Race Horse is repudiated to the extent it held that treaty rights can be impliedly extinguished at statehood.

Good to know. The treaty database prints ratification as February 26, 1869 and proclamation as February 24, 1869, which cannot both be right.

Summarized with AI assistance from 5 sources and checked against their words; not yet reviewed by historians or by the nations. Report an error