A tribe of
North American Indians, sometimes called the “Robber
Indians.”
It was divided into two distinct branches: the first inhabited the region between lat. 42° and 45° and reaching from long.
113° to the
Rocky Mountains; the second claimed all of the southwestern part of
Montana.
The first branch was the more numerous.
In 1869 the Bannocks of the
Salmon River numbered only 350, having been reduced by small-pox and invasions of the Blackfeet.
In that year about 600 of the
Southern tribe were settled on the
Wind River reservation, and in the same year 600 more were sent to the
Fort Hall reservation.
Most of the latter afterwards left the reservation, but returned with the Shoshones and the scattered
Bannocks of the southern part of
Idaho in 1874.
In 1900 the Bannocks were reduced to 430 at the
Fort Hall agency, and eighty-five at the Lemhi agency, both in
Idaho.