Shoshone Mike: New theories emerge 100 years after 'last massacre'

Publication date: Feb. 19, 2011

On this day 100 years ago, eight American Indians — men, women and children — and a member of a volunteer posse lay dead of bullet wounds on blood-soaked snow in the frozen desert near Winnemucca.

Their deaths followed the murder of four stockmen in a remote canyon 135 miles north of Reno in January 1911 and the pursuit of an Indian band across the northern part of Nevada. Those facts are certain.

Over the past century, nearly everything else about the "Shoshone Mike" case has been questioned, revised and exaggerated, according to researchers who studied the case.

The stockmen were murdered in Little High Rock Canyon, 135 miles north of Reno, in January, but their bodies weren't discovered until Feb. 10. Lawmen and cowboys followed the suspects' trail more than 200 miles.

A posse caught up with a 12-member Indian band on Feb. 26. In a dry wash north of Golconda, the pursuers began shooting. When the smoke cleared, posse member Ed Hogle was dead and the bodies of four Indian men, two women and two children lay bleeding in the snow.

Four Indian children -- ages estimated at 16, 7, 4 and 10 months -- were captured and brought to the Reno jail. They were kept there for several months.

Traditionally, the story has been told as a victory of justice over savagery: a tale of noble cowboys and renegade Indians.

It happened 21 years after the massacre of Indians at Wounded Knee, S.D., where 146 Sioux Indians -- men, women and children -- were slain by the U.S. 7th Cavalry and 25 troopers died. The Shoshone Mike massacre occurred at a time when automobiles, airplanes and movies were in their infancy.

"The traditional attitude in Nevada has been that Shoshone Mike and his band got what they deserved," said Guy Rocha, former Nevada state archivist. "Justice was done. Shut the book, close the case ... It makes us uncomfortable.

"But nothing is sacrosanct."

And now, 100 years after what Nevada author Effie Mona Mack called the nation's last Indian battle and the "last chapter of the Old West," history is not at rest. Researchers who have examined the evidence closely say that truth also was a casualty of what has been called the nation's "last Indian massacre."

Family on the run

No one called Mike Daggett (birth name, Ondongarte) "Shoshone Mike" until after he was dead among the sagebrush and bunch grass of central Nevada.

Sources record that Daggett and his family left the Fort Hall Indian Reservation in southeastern Idaho about 1890 after losing their farm to settlers. His small band became nomads and sometimes worked at ranches. In the basins and ranges, they lived in the manner of their ancestors.

Bureau of Indian Affairs documents and published interviews with ranchers in the area show the Daggetts were liked by the white residents.

In 1910, according to most accounts, Daggett and his sons killed alleged rustler Frank Dopp in retaliation for the murder of another of Daggett's sons. That winter, the Daggett family was camped in Little High Rock Canyon.

The family butchered cattle for food. Four stockmen, three in the sheep business and one in the cattle business, went into the canyon to investigate.

On Feb. 10, the bodies of John Laxague, Peter Erramouspe, Bertrand Indiano and Harry Cambron were found shot to death in the canyon. The nearby Indian camp was deserted. California and Nevada lawmen organized posses and tracked the suspects.

Nevada newspapers ran stories about the "Indian uprising." Breathless reports about the hunt for the "renegades" and the danger of more killings dominated the news. On Feb. 25, the Elko Gazette reported that a posse was closing in on the "barbarous Shoshones" and that "capture is certain."

Affray in a dry wash

Near Rabbit Creek north of Golconda, the posse found the Indian's campsite. Posse members began shooting, and men in the camp returned fire.

The original accounts say the battle continued for three hours along a creek bed amid the frozen grass. Ed Hogle, a posse member, was shot through the heart. Mike Daggett, the band's leader, was killed, as were two women, Mike's three adult sons and two children.

The posse members were hailed as heros, according to newspaper accounts of the time. A Humboldt County inquest ruled the killings of the Indians were justified and "unavoidable."

"It was a tough deal," said John Laxague of Gardnerville, grandson of one of the murdered stockmen. "My grandmother was pregnant with my dad when my grandfather was killed. She never wanted to talk about it."

Laxague said he's read about the killings, the chase and the battle. He said he knows some authors have argued that the Indians, particularly the women and children, should have been captured rather than killed and that the band should have been given a better chance to surrender.

He said hindsight isn't practical.

"If they were shooting back (at the posse) I can understand how those people got killed," he said. "(The Indians) were scared and cornered. I think it was kind of like Vietnam. Women and children could kill you, too."

He said so many accounts of the battle have been written that unless you were there, it isn't possible to sort truth from lies. The trail is too cold.

"I'm thinking that even everybody who was there probably gave a different account," Laxague said.

Justice or vengeance

Les Sweeney of Payette, Idaho, has been studying the Shoshone Mike case for 20 years and is at work on a book entitled "Only One Survived." His book is about Mary Jo Estep, the baby who was taken from a cradle board on her dead mother's back in 1911.

Sweeney said the contemporary newspaper accounts and 100 years of stories about the case are riddled with errors, myth and racism. He said the tales of "renegades" on a rampage and many of the anecdotes about the three-hour battle aren't true.

"Even the words used (in newspapers) to describe the Indians, like squaws and bucks, make them look as animalistic as possible," Sweeney said.

Contemporary accounts mention the stockmen's possessions being found at the Indians' camps. Posse members recall Pete Erramouspe's upper lip and mustache, reportedly cut from his body in the canyon, being worn by Mike as a trophy.

"Yet, in the (post-battle) coroner's inquest, under oath, posse members don't mention that bit of evidence," Sweeney said. "Here were guys looking to justify the killing of unarmed women and children, trying to show how bad these Indians were, and they don't mention that."

He said the "confession" of the teenage girl, taken by an interpreter who may or may not have spoken her language, has her admitting to nine murders. He said the account doesn't make sense.

Other than Dopp and the four stockmen, he said, there's no real evidence of other victims.

The posse members' accounts of the battle, at the time or decades afterwards, grew with the telling. A Reno Evening Gazette story on March 2, 1911, reported the posse fired 500 rounds at the camp and the Indians shot 150 rounds of ammunition and "300 arrows" at the posse, a barrage of firepower not supported by evidence.

Although accounts of how well the Indians were armed differ, the inquest record lists their weapons as a repeating rifle, a shotgun, another rifle that may not have been accessible during the fight, an automatic pistol (owned by one of the murdered stockmen), crude bows and arrows, and a spear.

"So it became a story of black hats and white hats," Sweeney said. "Word of mouth became the evidence ... Not one Indian was wounded (and survived). It wasn't the last Indian battle. It was the last Indian slaughter."

Neither Sweeney nor the four other authors who researched and wrote about the case concluded Shoshone Mike and his band were innocent.

"There's no doubt in my mind the Indians killed Frank Dopp and the four stockmen," Sweeney said. "But these weren't people on a criminal rampage. They were a family at the end of their wits."

Over the past century, the words "Indian massacre" has been used to describe both the murders of the four stockmen and the fight between Indians and the posse near Rabbit Creek. Facts differ depending on the account.

He said the information used by authorities after the battle was based on hearsay and news accounts.

"No one ever investigated on the ground," he said.

"The more you research, the more things don't add up," Sweeney said. "Each time it's told, people embellish it. I've been trying to get at the truth for 20 years. I think I have ...

"In the case of the Indian women and children, I'd go as far as to say it also was murder."



