Talk:Bear Hunter

Murder vs. War Casualty

I removed the category Murdered Native Americans from the article. From what is here, it appears Bear Hunter was engaged in warfare against the Mormons. His death in a raid is thus not a murder.

The article notes:

Bear Hunter (died January 27, 1863) was a Shoshone chief of the Great Basin who strongly resisted white colonization of the area in the 1860s. He and his war parties attacked Mormon colonists, telegraph workers, and wagon trains heading west while federal troops were preoccupied with the American Civil War. In 1862, a Californian volunteer infantry lead by Patrick Edward Connor established a fort on the Wasatch Range near Salt Lake City. In January 1863, they attacked Bear Hunter's village in an action known as the Bear River Massacre today. Bear Hunter was among those killed. ban Seems like a tragic act of war but not a murder. LarryQ (talk) 03:52, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

This is a matter of perspective and, admittedly, point of view. From the perspective of other Shoshoni, it did seem like murder.

BTW, it wasn't warfare against Mormons, but rather general population pressures from two very different cultures, misunderstandings of property rights between both cultures, and other similar kinds of problems that affected relations between the native tribes of North America and those who came from a more European culural background. Far more problems happened between immigrant trains traveling on the Oregon Trail and Bear Hunter's band than was the case with the Mormon settlers of Cache Valley.

This said, Bear Hunter died in the only significant military action that took place in the Department of the Pacific during the U.S. Civil War. A much smaller action involving Confederate soliders and Union soldiers in New Mexico did take place, but it didn't involve the numbers involved in the Bear River Expedition.

I'm not completely sure of the political organization, if any, the Shoshoni had in relationship to each other. Certainly Bear Hunter was a "leading elder" and assumed an aire of leadership among his people, and as such is noted as the leading chief of all of the bands encamped on the Bear River when the attack took place. There were about three different bands that were gathered together at the same place to share a natural hot springs area for the winter.

Again, from the point of view of native Americans, I can certainly understand why this is called a murder. I really don't know how in this situation to maintain NPOV principles, but removing the link from the murder category may not be entirely NPOV either. There were some military actions where clearly it was organized native American tribal groups in battle formation against U.S. military units, but I don't think it qualifies as such in this case, unless you consider defending yourself in your own home and village and dying to protect your own kinsmen to be a military action. I could think of several "murders" classifed as such and are prosecuted as such in many criminal courts that do much of the same thing. Again, this is a matter of POV. --Robert Horning (talk) 21:20, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. This is not a big issue for me but the category just seemed wrong. Note this sentence in the article, "He and his war parties attacked Mormon colonists, telegraph workers, and wagon trains heading west while federal troops were preoccupied with the American Civil War." If he was an active combatent in the war, his death in the war is not a murder. If he was an innocent bystander and not a combatant in the war, then murder seems right.

If you disagree with my edit, revert it. I will not challenge it. I have shared what I think on this. Thanks. LarryQ (talk) 02:14, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm feeling inspired to significantly expand this article. Bear River Massacre (which I wrote most of that article) has more about Bear Hunter at the moment than this rather poor stub. He certainly is a very interesting figure in Shoshoni history, and tried to lead his people during a period of massive change where their way of life was significantly altered. I certainly think something more NPOV can be written about this historically significant person, and there are some excellent source of material by some very through historians who have tackled writing about this person in the past. Unfortunately, most of them are in dead-tree form and are located at university libraries. I have seen a photograph of Bear Hunter as well, and I'll see if I can track down that image to put it into this article. --Robert Horning (talk) 00:44, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Bear Hunter was not involved in the attacks on settlers.

Are any of you actually Shoshone? Anyway, I've edited the article accordingly, with references from Bear Hunter's own tribe. The tribe admits that select Shoshone bands did attack settlers, but asserts that it was not Bear Hunter's band (NWB). It's because non-Natives fail to understand the division lines between Shoshone bands (they're not a single, unified tribe!) that misinformation keeps being spread about this event. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.190.159.148 (talk) 22:01, 16 August 2014 (UTC)