The subsequent historical references to the native population of this region cover the outbreak of hostilities against the white emigrants on the Oregon Trail and the subsequent attempts to establish peace with the Indians and place them on reservations. In 1862 Special Indian Agent Kirkpatrick surveyed the southwestern Idaho Indians and reported: "The Winnas band of Snakes inhabit the country north of Snake river, and are found principally on the Bayette, Boise and Sickley Rivers" (Kirkpatrick, 1863, p. 412). He reported them as warlike and numbering some 700 to 800 people. Kirkpatrick's "Winnas band" probably corresponds to the designation of the "Wihinasht" in the Handbook of American Indians; these are said to be "a division of Shoshoni, formerly in western Idaho, north of Snake River and in the vicinity of Boise City" (Hodge, 1910, 2:951). During our field work, we found that the term "Wihinait" was often applied generically to the Shoshone population of Fort Hall Reservation.
In later years, other bands are reported in southwestern Idaho. Governor Caleb Lyon made a treaty with "San-to-me-co and the headmen of the Boise Shoshonees" on October 10, 1864 (Lyon, 1866, p. 418) and in the following year placed some 115 "Boise Shoshone" at Fort Boise (Lyon, 1867, p. 187). Special Indian Agent Hough mentioned Boise, Bruneau, and Kammas bands of Shoshone in 1866 and commented: "The Bruneau and Boise are so intermarried that they are in fact all one people and are closely connected by blood, visiting each other as frequently as they dare pass over the country" (Hough, 1867, p. 189). Governor Ballard, in the same year, reported that the "Boise Shoshones" numbered 200; insecurity due to Indian-white hostilities kept them from camas-root digging during the summer (Ballard, 1867, p. 190). In 1867 many Shoshone of the Boise and Bruneau rivers and a group of Bannock were placed temporarily on the Boise River, some thirty miles upstream from Boise (Powell, 1868, p. 252). The Bannock were said to have been under the leadership of a chief named "Bannock John"; the report, dated July 31, 1867, also mentioned that these Bannock engaged in salmon fishing in the Boise River and camas collection on Camas Prairie during the summer, but intended to go east for the buffalo hunt in the fall. That the above Bannock were mounted buffalo hunters rather than Oregon Paiute seems manifest from this statement. This was not the only Bannock band, however, for on July 15, 1867, Agent Mann of Fort Bridger, Wyoming, reported a conversation with "Tahjee, the chief of the Bannacks" in which he learned that "there does exist a very large band of Bannacks, numbering more than 100 lodges" (Mann, 1868, p. 189). Mann stated that 50 lodges of these Indians were present that year. This and other references to the diverse, but simultaneous, locations of the Bannock suggest that they were not a unitary political entity.