More than any other Shoshone group in Idaho, the Bannock Creek people developed in the immediate post-contact period all the characteristics of the "predatory band," familiar to us from the Oregon Paiute and the Nevada Shoshone. The "predatory band" as illustrated among the latter population and among certain Ute and Nevada Shoshone groups, was a response to contact with the whites. The aborigines saw the sources of their subsistence threatened and were forced to defend themselves against the whites. Through trade and hostilities they acquired horses and thereby achieved the increased mobility and ease of communication necessary to a centrally led band organization. Plunder from wagon trains and ranches opened up new sources of wealth to them and made warfare attractive, over and above the needs of self defense. But always the nucleating force behind the bands was warfare and the prestige of certain war leaders. The war leader of the Bannock Creek Shoshone was Pocatello, a name given him by the whites. Pocatello's band was listed among the "Western Snakes" by Lander in 1860: "Po-ca-ta-ra's band. Goose Creek Mountains, head of Humboldt, Raft Creek, and Mormon settlements horses few" (Lander, 1860, p. 137). Pocatello was also one of the signers of a treaty with Governor Doty at Box Elder on July 30, 1863; this treaty was an aftermath of General Connor's slaughter of the Shoshone on Bear River in January of the same year (Doty, 1865, p. 319). There was very little difficulty with the band after the Bear River battle. Superintendent Irish wrote in 1865 (1866, p. 311): There are three bands of Indians known as the northwestern bands of the Shoshonees, commanded by three chiefs, Pocatello, Black Beard, and San Pitch, not under the control of Wash-a-kee; they are very poor and number about fifteen hundred; they range through the Bear River lake, Cache and Malade valleys, and Goose Creek mountains, Idaho Territory. Superintendent Head's report of 1866, however, indicates a continuing relation between the Indians of southern Idaho and northern Utah and those of Wyoming (Head, 1867, p. 123). A considerable number of these Indians [those of northern Utah and southern Idaho known as Northwestern Shoshone after the treaty of 1863], including the two chiefs Pokatello and Black Beard, have this season accompanied Washakee to the Wind River valley on his annual buffalo hunt. In the following year, Head summarized the distribution of mixed groups of Shoshone and Bannock in the region (1868, p. 176).