User:Duff/Paviotso Confederacy

The Paviotso Confederacy, known to Americans as the Snake Confederacy, was a collaborative war effort among leaders of several bands of Shoshoni, Paiute, and Ute nations living in the Oregon, Nevada, and Utah Territories in the mid 1800's. The word Paviotso is Shoshoni and means Pine Nut Eater in English. Led by Chochoco (Has No Horse),...

Background

John Pollard Gaines arrived in Oregon on August 15, 1850 to succeed General Joseph Lane as Oregon's Territorial Governor. Gaines wanted to uproot all the tribes west of the Cascades and relocate them into eastern Oregon. On September 7, 1850 Congress passed the Donation Land Claim Act and the following day, authorized land bounties of 160 acres to veterans of the War of 1812, the Mexican War, and the Cayuse War. The Land Claim Act provided for a survey of the public lands of the Oregon Territory, a 320 acre grant to every resident white or half-breed over 18 years old who either was or would become a citizen, and final title to be issued after four years of residence on the land. Gaines used the Land Law as a pretext for extinguishing title to all lands west of the Cascade Summit. He planned to cancel their title and displace all the tribes of western Oregon into eastern Oregon, territory of the Shoshoni Snakes. Anson Dart, the Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Oregon Territory planned to insert such a clause into the treaties of 1851, but Congress thought it might be illegal, so they sent Elias Wampole instead to serve as Dart's Indian Agent, along with $20,000 appropriated to purchase Indian title. It took months for Dart and Wampole to deploy this strategy, and by the time they did, the land grab was already underway and the damage was done.

The Ochoco Council of 1851 gathered in June at Red Wolf's camp at Dividing of the Waters, now called Big Summit Prairie, in the summit of the southern Blue Mountains.

It had been preceded by a meeting between six tribal chiefs: Mohwoomkah (Deer Fly) of the Tussawehe (White Knives), Weahwewa (Wolf Dog) of the Hoonebooey (Hunipui)(Bear Killers), Potoptuah (Yellow Jacket) of the Juniper People (who later served as a double-agent between the U.S Army and the Paviotso Confederacy), Paiakoni (Lost Arrow) of the Tuziyammo (Big Lodge)s, Horn of the Robbers or Outlaws, No Ribs of the Pony Stealers, all bands of Shoshoni Snake people. At that first meeting, Yellow Jacket, returning from Celilo on the Columbia, brought news of a detachment of the U.S. Mounted Rifles having occupied a new fort at Quenett, The Dalles. He also had heard from the northern Snake River area that Gourd Rattler, head chief of the Eastern Shoshoni Nation, was trying to form an alliance with the Crows. Jimmy Rabbit the old Nez Perce Trapper, had heard of Gaines' proposal on good authority from Joseph Delore, during the winter of 1850-1851. He had just visited Yellow Serpent, chief of the Walla Walla, Beardy, Woman's Shirt and Rotten Belly of the Umatilla, ? of the Nez Perce, and Queapama, Chief of the Wasco. All these men were convinced that the Mounted Rifles were going to enforce Gaines' evacuation of the western Oregon tribes, so much so that the Walla Walla and Wasco Tribes were even uniting, under Kaskela, a fierce Wasco brave whose lineage was of the royal family of the Chinook nation. He hoped to persuade Red Wolf to unite his bands to join forces with other confederacies forming to stop foreign traffic on the Oregon Trail from the Deschutes to Fort Bridger. He also brought news to Red Wolf that the coastal tribes were forming alliances in anticipation of an invasion of the inland areas.