Bear River Massacre

The Bear River Massacre was an attack by around 200 US soldiers that killed an estimated 250 to 400 children, women, and men at a Shoshone winter encampment on January 29, 1863. Some sources describe it as the largest mass murder of Native Americans by the US military, and largest single episode of genocide in US history. It took place in present-day Franklin County, Idaho near the present-day city of Preston on January 29, 1863. After years of skirmishes and food raids on farms and ranches, and colonial settlers displacing Shoshone from their ancestral lands, the United States Army attacked a large Shoshone community at the confluence of the Bear River and Battle Creek in what was then southeastern Washington Territory.

Colonel Patrick Edward Connor led a detachment of California Volunteers as part of the Bear River Expedition against Shoshone chief Bear Hunter. Around 250 to 400 Northern Shoshone children and adults were killed near their homes, and 21 US soldiers died. The event is also known as the Engagement on the Bear River, the Battle of Bear River, and Massacre at Boa Ogoi.