Keywords

Rocky Mountain Fur Trade, fur trade, rendezvous, mountain men

Abstract

The Eastern Shoshones represent one of the most influential Indian groups in the histories of Wyoming and the Rocky Mountain fur trade. Before European contact their ancestral lands covered most of western Wyoming. After acquiring horses in the early eighteenth century, the eastern bands adopted the nomadic lifestyle and culture of the buffalo hunting Plains’ tribes. Leaving their lands between the Great Basin and Wind River Mountains, Shoshones ventured eastward via South Pass onto the plains to hunt bison. Th is expansion eastward brought contact with European traders offering horses, guns, and other manufactured goods that altered Shoshone life-ways and economic patterns. Contact also introduced horrific epidemics that decimated the Shoshones’ population, the worst being the smallpox epidemics of 1780 and 1805. Th ese diseases, along with mounting pressure from other tribes pushing westward onto the Northern and Central Plains, drove the Shoshones back across the Continental Divide.

Original Publication Citation

Buckley, Jay H. “Indian Participation in the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade.” In The Fur Trade & Rendezvous of the Green River Valley. Edited by Fred R. Gowans and Brenda D. Francis, 82-95. Pinedale, WY: Museum of the Mountain Man; Sublette County Historical Society, 2005. ISBN: 0976811316

Document Type

Peer-Reviewed Article

Publication Date

2005

Publisher

Museum of the Mountain Man

Language

English

College

Family, Home, and Social Sciences

Department

History

University Standing at Time of Publication

Assistant Professor

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