People of the Wind River: The Eastern Shoshones, 1825–1900 offers a detailed historical account of the Eastern Shoshone tribe during a transformative period in the American West. Spanning eight decades, the book begins in 1825, when the Eastern Shoshones established tentative accommodations with the first permanent Anglo-American settlers in what would become Wind River country, and concludes in 1900 with the death of Chief Washakie, signaling the end of a distinct era in Shoshone life as nineteenth-century Plains Indians.
Henry E. Stamm IV draws on extensive research, including primary documents, government records, and interviews with descendants of Shoshone leaders, to reconstruct the social, political, and economic transformations the tribe experienced. The book traces the Eastern Shoshones’ migration from the Great Basin to the High Plains of present-day Wyoming, the arrival of Arapahoes, and the shifting dynamics of intertribal relations and settler expansion.
The narrative highlights critical changes in the tribe’s economy, especially following 1885, when the decimation of buffalo herds and the rise of cattle ranching dramatically altered traditional subsistence patterns. Despite these challenges, Stamm emphasizes the resilience of Shoshone spiritual and cultural traditions, illustrating how the tribe maintained a sense of identity and continuity even as their political and economic power waned.
People of the Wind River provides a compelling portrait of a people negotiating change, preserving tradition, and adapting to the pressures of westward expansion. It is an essential resource for historians, anthropologists, students, and readers interested in Native American history, Plains Indian cultures, and the complex interactions between Indigenous peoples and settlers in the nineteenth-century American West.