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Show THE SHOSHONES W E S H A L L R E M A I N : U TA H I N D I A N C U R R I C U L U M G U I D E 132 In 1876, after being displaced from farms in Corinne, Utah, many members of the North-western Band of the Shoshone applied for land under the Homestead Act, and they and several Mormon families created what was eventually known as the Malad Indian Farm. Though this farm was later abandoned, it was an important step in the formation of the Washakie settlement and also demonstrates the ingenuity of the North-western band in using the Homestead Act, a tool of white expansion, to gain advantages for their own people. The Washakie settlement, named for the great Shoshone leader, was founded on lands purchased by the Mormon Church in 1881. The Northwestern Shoshones later expanded the Washakie settlement by filing for land under the Homestead Act. While some Shoshones were able to use the tools of western expansion, to maintain a small amount of control over their original lands, ideas of assimilation continued to dominate federal Indian policy. On February 8, 1887, thirteen years before Washakie's death in 1900, Congress passed the General Allotment or Dawes Act requiring that land be removed from tribal control, portioned to individuals, and the remainder opened to white settlement. As a result of this act over 18,000 acres were stripped from Washakie's Wind River Reservation by 1935. In spite of these losses, as the name of the Washakie settlement attests, Washakie commanded respect among both Indians and non-Indians alike. Several locations and build-ings throughout the West have been named for him, including the dining hall at the University of Wyoming in Laramie and a county in Wyoming. In World War II, the United States launched a both a battleship and a tugboat named after the statesman. A bronze statue of Washakie, donated by the state of Wyoming, is part of the National Statuary Hall collection in Washington, D.C. |