LAS VEGAS ( KLAS ) — U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto on Monday introduced legislation to create a new national monument in eastern Nevada at a sacred Native American site of three massacres in the 19th century, sometimes called “Swamp Cedars.”
The Bahsahwahbee National Monument would protect a valley between Ely and Great Basin National Park, about 265 miles north of Las Vegas. The area is about 25,000 acres. Bahsahwabee translates in the Shoshoni language as “sacred water valley.”
The Newe people gathered at the site for religious ceremonies when one of the largest recorded massacres of Native Americans in U.S. history occurred, resulting in the death of 525 to 700 men, women and children, according to a news release announcing the legislation.
The Spring Valley Massacre of 1859, the Swamp Cedars Massacre of 1863 and the Swamp Cedars Massacre of 1897 are personal for tribal members. The attacks followed for alleged raids on settlers and their property. The history was told in a January article by The Associated Press that interviewed Delaine Spilsbury, an Ely Shoshone elder who has worked for federal recognition of the sacred site: