The Bear River Massacre: America’s Forgotten Genocide Against the Shoshone

The largest mass murder of Native Americans by the US military.


January 1863: U.S. Colonel Patrick Connor led 200 California Volunteers to a Shoshone camp near present-day Preston, Idaho—and carried out one of the deadliest massacres of Native Americans in history. For four hours, soldiers raped women, bludgeoned children, and set lodges ablaze with families trapped inside. The official death toll? 250-400 Shoshone. The aftermath? A promotion for Connor, and the land opened for Mormon settlement.

Unlike Wounded Knee, this slaughter faded from history—until Shoshone descendants forced recognition in 2018. The lesson? America’s westward expansion wasn’t "manifest destiny." It was manifest brutality, rewarded with silence.

(Source: Washington Post - Bear River Massacre)

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