Fremont Hunter

Fremont 450 A.D. to 1250 A.D. Uintah County

I was drinking strong black coffee and talking with a Shoshone elder in Fort Washakie, Wyoming.  He looked at this photograph and told me that the title “Fremont Hunter” offended him.  I waited silently for further explanation.  “Fremont was a Caucasian explorer, seeking fame on the frontier.  Fremont Peak and Fremont Lake in the Wind Rivers and Fremont River in Central Utah bear his name.  He did not discover the Fremont Indians.  These ancient people who inhabited Utah for over a thousand years have nothing to do with John Fremont.”
He is right.

 Archeologists now recognize that the gap between the Fremont and Ute habitation in eastern Utah is less than one hundred years.  Rock art researcher David Sucec says that the Ute believe they are related to the Hopi.  Indeed the Ute share the same language base as the Hopi, Paiute, Shoshone, and the Aztecs of Mexico.    Further, the Hopi claim that the Fremont were their ancestors, the Hisatsenom (Anasazi) and became the Snake, Squash and Greasewood clans of the Hopi Tribal Nation.
Consequently, the Hopi people defend Fremont rock art threatened by the energy industry in Nine Mile Canyon. 

 Fremont rock art resembles Barrier Canyon Style in the San Rafael Swell, Basketmaker II Style in the Uintah Basin, Hisatsenom (Anasazi) Styles in southern Utah.  We do not know where these people originated or where they went whom we call Fremont.   My Shoshone acquaintance has a good point.   Why call these unknown people
“Fremont?”