Wind River Indian Reservation

The Wind River Indian Reservation, in the west-central portion of the U.S. state of Wyoming, is shared by two Native American tribes, the Eastern Shoshone (Shoshoni: Gweechoon Deka, lit. 'Buffalo Eaters') and the Northern Arapaho (Arapaho: Hoteiniiciiheheʼ). Roughly 60 mi (97 km) east to west by 50 mi (80 km) north to south, the Indian reservation is located in the Wind River Basin, and includes portions of the Wind River Range, Owl Creek Mountains, and Absaroka Range.

The Wind River Indian Reservation is the seventh-largest American Indian reservation in the United States by area and the fifth-largest by population. The land area is approximately 2.2 million acres (3,438 sq mi; 8,903 km²), and the total area (land and water) is 3,532.01 square miles (9,147.9 km²). The reservation constitutes just over one-third of Fremont County and over one-fifth of Hot Springs County.

The 2000 census reported the population of Fremont County as 40,237. According to the 2010 census, only 26,490 people now live on the reservation, with about 15,000 of the residents being non-Indians on ceded lands and the town of Riverton. Tribal headquarters are located at Fort Washakie. The Shoshone Rose Casino (Eastern Shoshone) and the Wind River Hotel and Casino, Little Wind Casino, and 789 Smoke Shop and Casino (all Northern Arapaho) are the only casinos in Wyoming.

The Shoshone has the longest precontact presence in the area. Archaeologists have found evidence that unique aspects of the Tukudika Mountain Shoshone or Sheepeater material culture such as soapstone bowls were in use in this region from the early 19th century going back 1,000 to 3,000 years or more. People descended from the Mountain Shoshone band continue to live on the Wind River Indian Reservation.

The Dinwoody petroglyph style is indigenous to central Wyoming including the Wind River Basin and Bighorn Basin. Scholars believe that the Dinwoody petroglyphs most likely represent the work of ancestral Tukudika or Mountain Shoshone Sheepeaters, because some of the figures at Torrey Lake Petroglyph District and Legend Rock correspond to characters in Shoshone folklore, such as Pa waip, a water spirit woman.

The Wind River Indian Reservation is located at the historical boundary region between the Great Basin culture of the Shoshone and the Great Plains tribal cultures. In recent centuries, the area was used by many tribes for hunting grounds and for raiding.

After 1800, the historical record notes the presence of the Shoshone, as well as the Crow, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Blackfeet, and Lakota in the Wind River Basin. These latter tribes came to the area due to geopolitical forces, as well as for food resources; trapper records after 1800 describe huge herds of tens of thousands of stampeding bison in the Wind River Basin, raising massive clouds of dust on the horizon.

The Shoshone largely controlled much of what is now western Wyoming in the 1700s, because they were the first of the northern tribes to secure horses from the Spanish and traders in the Southwest. (The Arapaho played a similar role of introducing the horse to the Great Plains, through trade between the Spanish settlements along the Rio Grande and the agricultural tribes along the Missouri River.) The Shoshones' dominance in what is now western Wyoming declined as other tribes such as the Blackfeet acquired horses and staged counter-raids. In the 1820s, the Shoshone started to regain power by trading for firearms in the Rocky Mountain Rendezvous fur trade in the Green River Basin, just over the Wind River Range from today's Wind River Indian Reservation.