Thunder over the Ochoco Author:Andrew Gale Ontko Thunder Over the Ochoco is literally the work of a lifetime. Its author spent 40 years combing historical records and interviewing dozens of descendants of pioneer settlers and Native Americans who shared oral traditions that have been passed down through generations. What emerges is history as it has never been told before. A history of... more » conquistadors and fur trappers, of merchants and missionaries. The history of an Indian war that was one of the longest and bloodiest conflicts ever fought on American soil, but which for political and economic reasons was covered up for decades. Above all, the history of “those first settlers of the Ochoco—men, woman, and children—who were left to wander and starve in a land they thought belonged to them through eternity, a people who in their final agony cried out: `Nimma ne-umpu!'—`We too are human!’ Gale Ontko tells this story with compassion and grace, in a style that combines the precision of the scholar with the vigor and drama of the novelist. The five volumes comprise nearly 2500 printed book pages and have been described by some as the most factual writing by any author on the history of the Shoshoni People. Volume I of Gale Ontko's epic five volume series covers hundreds of years from pre-Columbian times to the collapse of the world fur trade in 1840. Volume I meets the Shoshoni Indians before the arrival of the Europeans and tracks their rise from peaceful eastern Oregon agriculturists to the aggressive Snake war tribes, rulers of the Pacific Northwest. By 1812, they had clashed with every major world power in their jealous guardianship of a land they called Oyerungun. Their undisputed hunting grounds beyond the setting sun would soon become coveted by white foreigners searching first for precious metals and later for valuable fur-bearing animals. The gathering storms of hatred would hover ominously on the distant horizons. Volume I chronicles the events which inevitably would lead to war.« less