Fort Bridger Treaty

The 1863 Fort Bridger Treaty with the Eastern Shoshones represented part of a process to clear a corridor for safe travel for  whites emigrating to the west and for railway and communication routes. This Treaty come on the heels of two important events: first the Homestead Act of 1862 created a mechanism to encourage white settlement in the Western territories of the United States.Second,and more important to the Shoshones,the Bear River  Massacre in early 1863 made it quite clear that the Untited States was prepared to go to great lengths to compel Shoshones west of Wyoming to comply with demands for passage.Above all political documents, this one is the most important for the Eastern Shoshones. The Treaty of Fort Bridger , 1868, established the boundaries of the Wind River reservation and guaranteed to the tribe a lasting relationship with the United States. Unlike the earlier Treaty of Fort Bridger , 1863, which merely described the outline of Shoshone Country, a territory that lay west of the Wind River Mountains, the 1868 Treaty gave the tribe the right to occupy what had been their hunting grounds. 


Information found at :Windriverhistory.org