The Shoshone had some difficulty with hostile tribes during their hunts in the Wind River Valley. The battle of Crowheart Butte (near Crowheart, Wyoming) has become a legend on the Wind River Reservation, and the facts of the event have become well embellished. More reliable informants claim that the Crow were encamped at the present site of Kinnear, Wyoming, on the north side of Big Wind River and were driven out after a strong attack by the Shoshone. The Crow detachment was evidently not merely a war party, for the men were accompanied by their women and children. Hebard, using documentary material unavailable to the writers, places the date of this battle as March, 1866 (Hebard, 1930, p. 151). There is no further mention in the sources of Crow occupation of the Wind River Valley.
This was not the end of the Shoshones' troubles, however, for in the following year (1867), Indian Agent Mann noted (1868, p. 182):
Immediately after the distribution of their annuity goods last year, they left this agency for their hunting grounds in the Popeaugie [Popo Agie River, near Lander, Wyo.] and Wind River valleys, the only portion of the country claimed by them where they can obtain buffalo.
Early last spring the near approach of hostile Sioux and Cheyennes compelled them to leave before they could prepare their usual supply of dried meat for summer use.
Mann further reported that, after being paid the annuity on June 8, 1867, "they have since gone to the valley of the Great Salt Lake, as is usual with them, preparatory to their return to their hunting grounds in autumn" (p. 183). These accounts further document the manner in which the Utah and Wyoming populations merged.
The Sioux were apparently especially active east of the Wind River Range in these years and many other attacks were reported. The Shoshone went to Wind River in 1868 and were again attacked by the Sioux. Agent Mann reported that year that a few small bands of Shoshone had not hunted buffalo in two years for fear of attack (Mann, 1869, pp. 616-618).
The government had a good deal of difficulty in persuading the Shoshone to remain on the reservation established by the treaty of 1868. Captain J. H. Patterson, the new agent, wrote in 1869 (1870, p. 717): "So powerful are the Sioux, it is only after winter is far advanced, and from that time until early in the spring, that the Shoshones can remain on the reservation." They passed the winter of 1868-69 at Wind River, but the Sioux attacked on April 26, 1869, before they broke winter camp (J. A. Campbell, 1870, p. 173). On September 14, 1869, Siouan warriors attempted another foray into Wind River Valley but were repulsed by troops. Fearful of another early attack and wary of their new reservation co-residents, the Northern Arapaho and Washakie left Wind River at the end of April of the following year (1870). The Shoshone departed with little stored meat, since they were unable to pursue the buffalo far out on the prairie (G. W. Fleming, 1871, p. 643).
In the following years, we hear little of the hunting activities of the Shoshone. They were moved permanently to the Wind River Reservation, where, according to Agent James Irwin in 1873, they showed a strong desire to abandon their nomadic ways and to learn agriculture (Irwin, 1874, p. 612). Irwin claimed that, although the Bannock population of the "Shoshone and Bannock Agency" at Wind River was transferred in 1872 to Fort Hall, 216 still unsettled Shoshone had expressed intent in the following year to move to Wind River. The Shoshone experienced little success in their early attempts at farming, and the government food allotments were seldom adequate to last through the year. This, combined with the traditional value placed on the buffalo hunt, perpetuated the nomadic pattern for a number of years. As late as 1877, Agent Patten wrote (1878, p. 605):
During the month of October last [1876], while the Shoshones were on one of their annual hunts, the village became divided; Washakie, with the greater portion, struck across the country from the base of the Sierra Shoshone Mountains to the mouth of Owl Creek on Big Wind River; the smallest party, under two braves named Na-akie and Ta-goon-dum, started for the river above the mouth of Grey Bull, where having arrived the prospect of a successful hunt was propitious. Large herds of buffalo were everywhere in sight; but the next morning after their arrival this little band, comprising men, women, and children, were suddenly attacked by Dull Knife's band of hostile Cheyenne warriors.
The Plains were evidently still unsafe, and hunting parties traveled in strength. But the end of the buffalo period was not far off, for hide-hunters and settlers had already made massive inroads on the herds, and the open-range cattle-raising industry had begun. It is interesting to note, however, that the itinerary followed in 1876 was much the same as that related by Shimkin's informants and by ours. Except for that given in the one account by Hamilton, it has no antecedents in the historical literature.