The Shoshone Tribe is a group of characters from the stories of Phantom Manor and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad in Disneyland Paris.
Description[]
Background[]
Origins[]
The shoshone are a real-world indigenous American tribe native to the Western Great Basin. In 1750, warring and pressures from competing tribes such as the Blackfoot, Crow, Lakota, Arapaho and Cheyenne resulted in Eastern Shoshone peoples being pushed further southward and westward. In the 19th century they were known to be in ongoing competition with white colonists as said white settlers moved further westward to rob the Shoshone of their lands and territories. The westward expansion also resulted in mass starvation amongst many shoshone settlements due to white exploitation of the land.
In 1863, an estimated 410 Northwestern Shoshone men, women and children were slaughtered by American forces in the Bear River Massacre in present-day Idaho so that the Americans could claim their land. Throughout the latter end of the 19th century, the shoshone were known to frequently attack colonist endeavours and establishments due to increased survival pressures.
Thunder Mesa[]
The shoshone tribe inhabited the Big Thunder Mountain region which would come to be known as Thunder Mesa where they considered Big Thunder to be a sacred site, inhabited by a powerful spirit. According to riverboat sailor Sam Clemens (1835-1910) in the late-1850s/early-1860s, the indigenous of the Big Thunder region gave it the name of Big Thunder Mountain due to the sound of the waterfalls which came from the mountain sounding like thunder during rain season.
In 1840, Big Thunder Mountain was, "Discovered" by colonist Henry Ravenswood. After finding gold in the mountain, Ravenswood established the mining town of Thunder Mesa and the Big Thunder Mining Company to take the gold for themselves. Thunder Mesa would go on to establish Fort Comstock to further defend themselves against the original inhabitants of the region and chase them onto the outskirts of their settlement. For obvious reasons this angered the spirits of Big Thunder who took vengeance against the white men, going so far as to create an earthquake in 1860 which killed Henry Ravenswood, his wife Martha and the town mayor to name a few.
Trivia[]
- The stolen indigenous land and sacred indigenous spirits motif is one which is repeated in Haunted Mansion stories and attractions.
- Marc Davis once designed an stereotyped indigenous chieftain to have been one of the graveyard spirits in the Haunted Mansion.
- In Walt Disney World's Haunted Mansion, a backstory suggested by Sam Clemens says that the mansion might have been built on indigenous burial-grounds.
- In Disney Kingdoms' Big Thunder Mountain Railroad comics, there is an indigenous woman named Onawa whose tribe was killed and chased off the land of Big Thunder leaving her to serve as Barnabas T. Bullion's maid and secretly an outlaw. It is possible that she is a shoshone woman.