I. CAUSES OF THE EXTERMINATION.
The causes which led to the practical extinction (in a wild state, at
least) of the most economically valuable wild animal that ever inhabited
the American continent, are by no means obscure. It is well that we
should know precisely what they were, and by the sad fate of the buffalo
be warned in time against allowing similar causes to produce the same
results with our elk, antelope, deer, moose, caribou, mountain sheep,
mountain goat, walrus, and other animals. It will be doubly deplorable
if the remorseless slaughter we have witnessed during the last twenty
years carries with it no lessons for the future. A continuation of the
record we have lately made as wholesale game butchers will justify
posterity in dating us back with the mound-builders and cave-dwellers,
when man's only known function was to slay and eat.
The primary cause of the buffalo's extermination, and the one which
embraced all others, was the descent of civilization, with all its
elements of destructiveness, upon the whole of the country inhabited by
that animal. From the Great Slave Lake to the Rio Grande the home of the
buffalo was everywhere overrun by the man with a gun; and, as has ever
been the case, the wild creatures were gradually swept away, the largest
and most conspicuous forms being the first to go.
The secondary causes of the extermination of the buffalo may be
catalogued as follows:
(1) Man's reckless greed, his wanton destructiveness, and improvidence
in not husbanding such resources as come to him from the hand of nature
ready made.
(2) The total and utterly inexcusable absence of protective measures and
agencies on the part of the National Government and of the West States
and Territories.
(3) The fatal preference on the part of hunters generally, both white
and red, for the robe and flesh of the cow over that furnished by the
bull.
(4) The phenomenal stupidity of the animals themselves, and their
indifference to man.
(5) The perfection of modern breech-loading rifles and other sporting
fire-arms in general.
Each of these causes acted against the buffalo with its fall force, to
offset which there was _not even one_ restraining or preserving
influence, and it is not to be wondered at that the species went down
before them. Had any one of these conditions been eliminated the result
would have been reached far less quickly. Had the buffalo, for example,
possessed one-half the fighting qualities of the grizzly bear he would
have fared very differently, but his inoffensiveness and lack of courage
almost leads one to doubt the wisdom of the economy of nature so far as
it relates to him.
II. METHODS OF SLAUGHTER.
1. _The still-hunt._--Of all the deadly methods of buffalo slaughter,
the still-hunt was the deadliest. Of all the methods that were
unsportsmanlike, unfair, ignoble, and utterly reprehensible, this was in
every respect the lowest and the worst. Destitute of nearly every
element of the buoyant excitement and spice of danger that accompanied
genuine buffalo hunting on horseback, the still-hunt was mere butchery
of the tamest and yet most cruel kind. About it there was none of the
true excitement of the chase; but there was plenty of greedy eagerness
to "down" as many "head" as possible every day, just as there is in
every slaughter-house where the killers are paid so much per head.
Judging from all accounts, it was about as exciting and dangerous work
as it would be to go out now and shoot cattle on the Texas or Montana
ranges. The probabilities are, however, that shooting Texas cattle would
be the most dangerous; for, instead of running from a man on foot, as
the buffalo used to do, range cattle usually charge down upon him, from
motives of curiosity, perhaps, and not infrequently place his life in
considerable jeopardy.
The buffalo owes his extermination very largely to his own unparalleled
stupidity; for nothing else could by any possibility have enabled the
still-hunters to accomplish what they did in such an incredibly short
time. So long as the chase on horseback was the order of the day, it
ordinarily required the united efforts of from fifteen to twenty-five
hunters to kill a thousand buffalo in a single season; but a single
still-hunter, with a long-range breech-loader, who knew how to make a
"sneak" and get "a stand on a bunch," often succeeded in killing from
one to three thousand in one season by his own unaided efforts. Capt.
Jack Brydges, of Kansas, who was one of the first to begin the final
slaughter of the southern herd, killed, by contract, one thousand one
hundred and forty-two buffaloes in six weeks.
So long as the buffalo remained in large herds their numbers gave each
individual a feeling of dependence upon his fellows and of general
security from harm, even in the presence of strange phenomena which he
could not understand. When he heard a loud report and saw a little cloud
of white smoke rising from a gully, a clump of sage-brash, or the top of
a ridge, 200 yards away, he wondered what it meant, and held himself in
readiness to follow his leader in case she should run away. But when the
leader of the herd, usually the oldest cow, fell bleeding upon the
ground, and no other buffalo promptly assumed the leadership of the
herd, instead of acting independently and fleeing from the alarm, he
merely did as he saw the others do, and waited his turn to be shot.
Latterly, however, when the herds were totally broken up, when the few
survivors were scattered in every direction, and it became a case of
every buffalo for himself, they became wild and wary, ever ready to
start off at the slightest alarm, and run indefinitely. Had they shown
the same wariness seventeen years ago that the survivors have manifested
during the last three or four years, there would now be a hundred
thousand head alive instead of only about three hundred in a wild and
unprotected state.
Notwithstanding the merciless war that had been waged against the
buffalo for over a century by both whites and Indians, and the steady
decrease of its numbers, as well as its range, there were several
million head on foot, not only up to the completion of the Union Pacific
Railway, but as late as the year 1870. Up to that time the killing done
by white men had been chiefly for the sake of meat, the demand for robes
was moderate, and the Indians took annually less than one hundred
thousand for trading. Although half a million buffaloes were killed by
Indians, half-breeds, and whites, the natural increase was so very
considerable as to make it seem that the evil day of extermination was
yet far distant.
But by a coincidence which was fatal to the buffalo, with the building
of three lines of railway through the most populous buffalo country
there came a demand for robes and hides, backed up by an unlimited
supply of new and marvellously accurate breech-loading rifles and fixed
ammunition. And then followed a wild rush of hunters to the buffalo
country, eager to destroy as many head as possible in the shortest time.
For those greedy ones the chase on horseback was "too slow" and too
unfruitful. That was a retail method of killing, whereas they wanted to
kill by wholesale. From their point of view, the still-hunt or "sneak"
hunt was the method _par excellence_. If they could have obtained
Gatling guns with which to mow down a whole herd at a time, beyond a
doubt they would have gladly used them.
The still-hunt was seen at its very worst in the years 1871, 1872, and
1873, on the southern buffalo range, and ten years later at its best in
Montana, on the northern. Let us first consider it at its best, which in
principle was bad enough.
The great rise in the price of robes which followed the blotting out of
the great southern herd at once put buffalo-hunting on a much more
comfortable and respectable business basis in the North than it had ever
occupied in the South, where prices had all along been phenomenally low.
In Montana it was no uncommon thing for a hunter to invest from $1,000
to $2,000 in his "outfit" of horses, wagons, weapons, ammunition,
provisions, and sundries.
One of the men who accompanied the Smithsonian Expedition for Buffalo,
Mr. James McNaney, of Miles City, Montana, was an ex-buffalo banter, who
had spent three seasons on the northern range, killing buffalo for their
robes, and his standing as a hunter was of the best. A brief description
of his outfit and its work during its last season on the range
(1882-'83) may fairly be taken as a typical illustration of the life and
work of the still-hunter at its best. The only thing against it was the
extermination of the buffalo.
During the winters of 1880 and 1881 Mr. McNaney had served in Maxwell's
outfit as a hunter, working by the month, but his success in killing was
such that he decided to work the third year on his own account. Although
at that time only seventeen years of age, he took an elder brother as a
partner, and purchased an outfit in Miles City, of which the following
were the principal items: Two wagons, 2 four-horse teams, 2
saddle-horses, 2 wall-tents, 1 cook-stove with pipe, 1 40-90 Sharp's
rifle (breech-loading), 1 45-70 Sharps rifle (breech-loading), 1 45-120
Sharps rifle (breech-loading), 50 pounds gunpowder, 550 pounds lead,
4,500 primers, 600 brass shells, 4 sheets patch-paper, 60 Wilson
skinning knives, 3 butcher's steels, 1 portable grindstone, flour,
bacon, baking-powder, coffee, sugar, molasses, dried apples, canned
vegetables, beans, etc., in quantity.
The entire cost of the outfit was about $1,400. Two men were hired for
the season at $50 per month, and the party started from Miles City on
November 10, which was considered a very late start. The usual time of
setting out for the range was about October 1.
The outfit went by rail northeastward to Terry, and from thence across
country south and east about 100 miles, around the head of O'Fallon
Creek to the head of Beaver Creek, a tributary of the Little Missouri. A
good range was selected, without encroachment upon the domains of the
hunters already in the field, and the camp was made near the bank of the
creek, close to a supply of wood and water, and screened from distant
observation by a circle of hills and ridges. The two rectangular
wall-tents were set up end to end, with the cook-stove in the middle,
where the ends came together. In one tent the cooking and eating was
done, and the other contained the beds.
It was planned that the various members of the party should cook turn
about, a week at a time, but one of them soon developed such a rare and
conspicuous talent for bread-making and general cookery that he was
elected by acclamation to cook during the entire season. To the other
three members fell the hunting. Each man hunted separately from the
others, and skinned all the animals that his rifle brought down.
There were buffalo on the range when the hunters arrived, and the
killing began at once. At daylight the still-hunter sallied forth on
foot, carrying in his hand his huge Sharps rifle, weighing from 16 to 19
pounds, with from seventy-five to one hundred loaded cartridges in his
two belts or his pockets. At his side, depending from his belt, hung his
"hunter's companion," a flat leather scabbard, containing a ripping
knife, a skinning knife, and a butcher's steel upon which to sharpen
them. The total weight carried was very considerable, seldom less than
36 pounds, and often more.
Inasmuch as it was highly important to move camp as seldom as possible
in the course of a season's work, the hunter exercised the greatest
precaution in killing his game, and had ever before his mind the
necessity of doing his killing without frightening away the survivors.
With ten thousand buffaloes on their range, it was considered the height
of good luck to find a "bunch" of fifty head in a secluded "draw" or
hollow, where it was possible to "make a kill" without disturbing the
big herd.
The still-hunter usually went on foot, for when buffaloes became so
scarce as to make it necessary for him to ride his occupation was
practically gone. At the time I speak of, the hunter seldom had to walk
more than 3 miles from camp to find buffalo, in case there were any at
all on his range, and it was usually an advantage to be without a horse.
From the top of a ridge or high butte the country was carefully scanned,
and if several small herds were in sight the one easiest to approach was
selected as the one to attack. It was far better to find a herd lying
down or quietly grazing, or sheltering from a cold wind, than to find it
traveling, for while a hard run of a mile or two often enabled the
hunter to "head off" a moving herd and kill a certain number of animals
out of it, the net results were never half so satisfactory as with herds
absolutely at rest.
Having decided upon an attack, the hunter gets to leeward of his game,
and approaches it according to the nature of the ground. If it is in a
hollow, he secures a position at the top of the nearest ridge, as close
as he can get. If it is in a level "flat," he looks for a gully up which
he can skulk until within good rifle-shot. If there is no gully, he may
be obliged to crawl half a mile on his hands and knees, often through
snow or amongst beds of prickly pear, taking advantage of even such
scanty cover as sage-brush affords. Some Montana still-hunters adopted
the method of drawing a gunny-sack over the entire upper half of the
body, with holes cut for the eyes and arms, which simple but
unpicturesque arrangement often enabled the hunter to approach his
game much more easily and more closely than would otherwise have been
possible.
[Illustration: STILL-HUNTING BUFFALOES ON THE NORTHERN RANGE.
From a painting by J. H. Moser, in the National Museum.]
Having secured a position within from 100 to 250 yards of his game
(often the distance was much greater), the hunter secures a comfortable
rest for his huge rifle, all the time keeping his own person thoroughly
hidden from view, estimates the distance, carefully adjusts his sights,
and begins business. If the herd is moving, the animal in the lead is
the first one shot, close behind the fore leg and about a foot above the
brisket, which sends the ball through the lungs. If the herd is at rest,
the oldest cow is always supposed to be the leader, and she is the one
to kill first. The noise startles the buffaloes, they stare at the
little cloud of white smoke and feel inclined to run, but seeing their
leader hesitate they wait for her. She, when struck, gives a violent
start forward, but soon stops, and the blood begins to run from her
nostrils in two bright crimson streams. In a couple of minutes her body
sways unsteadily, she staggers, tries hard to keep her feet, but soon
gives a lurch sidewise and falls. Some of the other members of the herd
come around her and stare and sniff in wide-eyed wonder, and one of the
more wary starts to lead the herd away. But before she takes half a
dozen steps "bang!" goes the hidden rifle again, and her leadership is
ended forever. Her fall only increases the bewilderment of the survivors
over a proceeding which to them is strange and unaccountable, because
the danger is not visible. They cluster around the fallen ones, sniff at
the warm blood, bawl aloud in wonderment, and do everything but run
away.
The policy of the hunter is to not fire too rapidly, but to attend
closely to business, and every time a buffalo attempts to make off,
shoot it down. One shot per minute was a moderate rate of firing, but
under pressure of circumstances two per minute could be discharged with
deliberate precision. With the most accurate hunting rifle ever made, a
"dead rest," and a large mark practically motionless, it was no wonder
that nearly every shot meant a dead buffalo. The vital spot on a buffalo
which stands with its side to the hunter is about a foot in diameter,
and on a full-grown bull is considerably more. Under such conditions as
the above, which was called getting "a stand," the hunter nurses his
victims just as an angler plays a big fish with light tackle, and in the
most methodical manner murders them one by one, either until the last
one falls, his cartridges are all expended, or the stupid brutes come to
their senses and run away. Occasionally the poor fellow was troubled by
having his rifle get too hot to use, but if a snow-bank was at hand he
would thrust the weapon into it without ceremony to cool it off.
A success in getting a stand meant the slaughter of a good-sized herd. A
hunter whom I met in Montana, Mr. Harry Andrews, told me that he once
fired one hundred and fifteen shots from one spot and killed sixty-three
buffalo in less than an hour. The highest number Mr. McNaney ever knew
of being killed in one stand was ninety-one head, but Colonel Dodge
once counted one hundred and twelve carcasses of buffalo "inside of a
semicircle of 200 yards radius, all of which were killed by one man from
the same spot, and in less than three-quarters of an hour."
The "kill" being completed, the hunter then addressed himself to the
task of skinning his victims. The northern hunters were seldom guilty of
the reckless carelessness and lack of enterprise in the treatment of
robes which at one time was so prominent a feature of work on the
southern range. By the time white men began to hunt for robes on the
northern range, buffalo were becoming comparatively scarce, and robes
were worth from $2 to $4 each. The fur-buyers had taught the hunters,
with the potent argument of hard cash, that a robe carefully and neatly
taken off, stretched, and kept reasonably free from blood and dirt, was
worth more money in the market than one taken off in a slovenly manner,
and contrary to the nicer demands of the trade. After 1880, buffalo on
the northern range were skinned with considerable care, and amongst the
robe-hunters not one was allowed to become a loss when it was possible
to prevent it. Every full-sized cow robe was considered equal to $3.50
in hard cash, and treated accordingly. The hunter, or skinner, always
stretched every robe out on the ground to its fullest extent while it
was yet warm, and cut the initials of his employer in the thin
subcutaneous muscle which always adhered to the inside of the skin. A
warm skin is very elastic, and when stretched upon the ground the hair
holds it in shape until it either dries or freezes, and so retains its
full size. On the northern range skins were so valuable that many a
dispute arose between rival outfits over the ownership of a dead
buffalo, some of which produced serious results.
2. _The chase on horseback or "running buffalo."_--Next to the
still-hunt the method called "running buffalo" was the most fatal to the
race, and the one most universally practiced. To all hunters, save
greedy white men, the chase on horseback yielded spoil sufficient for
every need, and it also furnished sport of a superior kind--manly,
exhilarating, and well spiced with danger. Even the horses shared the
excitement and eagerness of their riders.
So long as the weapons of the Indian consisted only of the bow and arrow
and the spear, he was obliged to kill at close quarters or not at all.
And even when fire-arms were first placed in his hands their caliber was
so small, the charge so light, and the Indian himself so poor a marksman
at long range, that his best course was still to gallop alongside the
herd on his favorite "buffalo horse" and kill at the shortest possible
range. From all accounts, the Red River half-breeds, who hunted almost
exclusively with fire-arms, never dreamed of the deadly still hunt, but
always killed their game by "running" it.
In former times even the white men of the plains did the most of their
buffalo hunting on horseback, using the largest-sized Colt's revolver,
sometimes one in each hand, until the repeating-rifle made its
appearance, which in a great measure displaced the revolver in running
buffalo. But about that time began the mad warfare for "robes" and
"hides," and the only fair and sportsmanlike method of hunting was
declared too slow for the greedy buffalo-skinners.
Then came the cold-blooded butchery of the still-hunt. From that time on
the buffalo as a game animal steadily lost caste. It soon came to be
universally considered that there was no sport in hunting buffalo. True
enough of still-hunting, where the hunter sneaks up and shoots them down
one by one at such long range the report of his big rifle does not even
frighten them away. So far as sportsmanlike fairness is concerned, that
method was not one whit more elevated than killing game by poison.
Bat the chase on horseback was a different thing. Its successful
prosecution demanded a good horse, a bold rider, a firm seat, and
perfect familiarity with weapons. The excitement of it was intense, the
dangers not to be despised, and, above all, the buffalo had a fair show
for his life, or partially so, at least. The mode of attack is easily
described.
Whenever the hunters discovered a herd of buffalo, they usually got to
leeward of it and quietly rode forward in a body, or stretched out in a
regular skirmish line, behind the shelter of a knoll, perhaps, until
they had approached the herd as closely as could be done without
alarming it. Usually the unsuspecting animals, with a confidence due
more to their great numbers than anything else, would allow a party of
horsemen to approach within from 200 to 400 yards of their flankers, and
then they would start off on a slow trot. The hunters then put spurs to
their horses and dashed forward to overtake the herd as quickly as
possible. Once up with it, each hunter chooses the best animal within
his reach, chases him until his flying steed carries him close
alongside, and then the arrow or the bullet is sent into his vitals. The
fatal spot is from 12 to 18 inches in circumference, and lies
immediately back of the fore leg, with its lowest point on a line with
the elbow.
This, the true chase of the buffalo, was not only exciting, but
dangerous. It often happened that the hunter found himself surrounded by
the flying herd, and in a cloud of dust, so that neither man nor horse
could see the ground before them. Under such circumstances fatal
accidents to both men and horses were numerous. It was not an uncommon
thing for half-breeds to shoot each other in the excitement of the
chase; and, while now and then a wounded bull suddenly turned upon his
pursuer and overthrew him, the greatest number of casualties were from
falls.
Of the dangers involved in running buffalo Colonel Dodge writes as
follows:[52]
[Note 52: Plains of the Great West, p. 127.]
"The danger is not so much from the buffalo, which rarely makes an
effort to injure his pursuer, as from the fact that neither man nor
horse can see the ground, which may be rough and broken, or perforated
with prairie-dog or gopher holes. This danger is so imminent, that a man
who runs into a herd of buffalo may be said to take his life in his
hand. I have never known a man hurt by a buffalo in such a chase. I have
known of at least six killed, and a very great many more or less
injured, some very severely, by their horses falling with them."
On this point Catlin declares that to engage in running buffalo is "at
the hazard of every bone in one's body, to feel the fine and thrilling
exhilaration of the chase for a moment, and then as often to upbraid and
blame himself for his folly and imprudence."
Previous to my first experience in "running buffalo" I had entertained a
mortal dread of ever being called upon to ride a chase across a
prairie-dog town. The mouth of a prairie-dog's burrow is amply large to
receive the hoof of a horse, and the angle at which the hole descends
into the earth makes it just right for the leg of a running horse to
plunge into up to the knee and bring down both horse and rider
instantly; the former with a broken leg, to say the least of it. If the
rider sits loosely, and promptly resigns his seat, he will go flying
forward, as if thrown from a catapult, for 20 feet or so, perhaps to
escape with a few broken bones, and perhaps to have his neck broken, or
his skull fractured on the hard earth. If he sticks tightly to his
saddle, his horse is almost certain to fall upon him, and perhaps kill
him. Judge, then, my feelings when the first bunch of buffalo we started
headed straight across the largest prairie-dog town I had ever seen up
to that time. And not only was the ground honey-combed with gaping round
holes, but it was also crossed here and there by treacherous ditch-like
gullies, cut straight down into the earth to an uncertain depth, and so
narrow as to be invisible until it was almost time to leap across them.
But at such a time, with the game thundering along a few rods in
advance, the hunter thinks of little else except getting up to it. He
looks as far ahead as possible, and helps his horse to avoid dangers,
but to a great extent the horse must guide himself. The rider plies his
spurs and looks eagerly forward, almost feverish with excitement and
eagerness, but at the same time if he is wise he _expects_ a fall, and
holds himself in readiness to take the ground with as little damage as
he can.
Mr. Catlin gives a most graphic description of a hunting accident, which
may fairly be quoted in full as a type of many such. I must say that I
fully sympathize with M. Chardon in his estimate of the hardness of the
ground he fell upon, for I have a painful recollection of a fall I had
from which I arose with the settled conviction that the ground in
Montana is the hardest in the world! It seemed more like falling upon
cast-iron than prairie turf.
"I dashed along through the thundering mass as they swept away over the
plain, scarcely able to tell whether I was on a buffalo's back or my
horse, hit and hooked and jostled about, till at length I found myself
alongside my game, when I gave him a shot as I passed him.
[Illustration: THE CHASE ON HORSEBACK. From a painting in the National
Museum by George Catlin.]
I saw guns flash about me in several directions, but I heard them
not. Amidst the trampling throng Mons. Chardon had wounded a stately
bull, and at this moment was passing him with his piece leveled for
another shot. They were both at full speed and I also, within the
reach of the muzzle of my gun, when the bull instantly turned,
receiving the horse upon his horns, and the ground received poor
Chardon, who made a frog's leap of some 20 feet or more over the
bull's back and almost under my horse's heels. I wheeled my horse as
soon as possible and rode back where lay poor Chardon, gasping to
start his breath again, and within a few paces of him his huge
victim, with his heels high in the air, and the horse lying across
him. I dismounted instantly, but Chardon was raising himself on his
hands, with his eyes and mouth full of dirt, and feeling for his gun,
which lay about 30 feet in advance of him. 'Heaven spare you! are you
hurt, Chardon?' 'Hi-hic--hic--hic--hic--no;--hic--no--no, I believe
not. Oh, this is not much, Mons. Cataline--this is nothing new--but
this is a d--d hard piece of ground here--hic--oh! hic!' At this the
poor fellow fainted, but in a few moments arose, picked up his gun,
took his horse by the bit, which then opened _its_ eyes, and with a
_hic_ and a ugh--_ughk!_--sprang upon its feet, shook off the dirt,
and here we were, all upon our legs again, save the bull, whose fate
had been more sad than that of either."[53]
[Note 53: North American Indians, I, pp. 25-26.]
The following passage from Mr. Alexander Ross's graphic description of a
great hunt,[54] in which about four hundred hunters made an onslaught
upon a herd, affords a good illustration of the dangers in running
buffalo:
[Note 54: Red River Settlement, p. 256.]
"On this occasion the surface was rocky and full of badger-holes.
Twenty-three horses and riders were at one moment all sprawling on the
ground; one horse, gored by a bull, was killed on the spot; two more
were disabled by the fall; one rider broke his shoulder-blade; another
burst his gun and lost three of his fingers by the accident; and a third
was struck on the knee by an exhausted ball. These accidents will not be
thought overnumerous, considering the result, for in the evening no less
than thirteen hundred and seventy-five tongues were brought into camp."
It really seems as if the horses of the plains entered willfully and
knowingly into the war on the doomed herds. But for the willingness and
even genuine eagerness with which the "buffalo horses" of both white men
and Indians entered into the chase, hunting on horseback would have been
attended with almost insurmountable difficulties, and the results would
have been much less fatal to the species. According to all accounts the
horses of the Indians and half-breeds were far better trained than those
of their white rivals, no doubt owing to the fact that the use of the
bow, which required the free use of both hands, was only possible when
the horse took the right coarse of his own free will or else could be
guided by the pressure of the knees. If we may believe the historians of
that period, and there is not the slightest reason to doubt them, the
"buffalo horses" of the Indians displayed almost as much intelligence
and eagerness in the chase as did their human riders. Indeed, in
"running buffalo" with only the bow and arrow, nothing but the willing
co-operation of the horse could have possibly made this mode of hunting
either satisfactory or successful.
In Lewis and Clarke's Travels, volume II, page 387, appears the
following record:
"He [Sergeant Pryor] had found it almost impossible with two men to
drive on the remaining horses, for as soon as they discovered a herd of
buffaloes the loose horses immediately set off in pursuit of them, and
surrounded the buffalo herd with almost as much skill as their riders
could have done. At last he was obliged to send one horseman forward and
drive all the buffaloes from the route."
The Hon. H. H. Sibley, who once accompanied the Red River half-breeds on
their annual hunt, relates the following[55]:
"One of the hunters fell from his saddle, and was unable to overtake his
horse, which continued the chase as if he of himself could accomplish
great things, so much do these animals become imbued with a passion for
this sport! On another occasion a half-breed left his favorite steed at
the camp, to enable him to recruit his strength, enjoining upon his wife
the necessity of properly securing the animal, which was not done. Not
relishing the idea of being left behind, he started after us and soon
was alongside, and thus he continued to keep pace with the hunters in
their pursuit of the buffalo, seeming to await with impatience the fall
of some of them to the earth. The chase ended, he came neighing to his
master, whom he soon singled out, although the men were dispersed here
and there for a distance of miles."
[Note 55: Schoolcraft's "North American Indians," 108.]
Col. R. I. Dodge, in his Plains of the Great West, page 129, describes a
meeting with two Mexican buffalo-hunters whose horses were so fleet and
so well trained that whenever a herd of buffalo came in sight, instead
of shooting their game wherever they came up with it, the one having the
best horse would dash into the herd, cut out a fat two-year old, and,
with the help of his partner, then actually drive it to their camp
before shooting it down. "They had a fine lot of meat and a goodly pile
of skins, and they said that every buffalo had been driven into camp and
killed as the one I saw. 'It saves a heap of trouble packing the meat to
camp,' said one of them, naively."
Probably never before in the history of the world, until civilized man
came in contact with the buffalo, did whole armies of men march out in
true military style, with officers, flags, chaplains, and rules of war,
and make war on wild animals. No wonder the buffalo has been
exterminated. So long as they existed north of the Missouri in any
considerable number, the half-breeds and Indians of the Manitoba Red
River settlement used to gather each year in a great army, and go with
carts to the buffalo range. On these great hunts, which took place every
year from about the 15th of June to the 1st of September, vast numbers
of buffalo were killed, and the supply was finally exhausted. As if
Heaven had decreed the extirpation of the species, the half-breed
hunters, like their white robe-hunting rivals farther south, always
killed _cows_ in preference to bulls so long as a choice was possible,
the very course best calculated to exterminate any species in the
shortest possible time.
The army of half-breeds and Indians which annually went forth from the
Red River settlement to make war on the buffalo was often far larger
than the army with which Cortez subdued a great empire. As early as 1846
it had become so great, that it was necessary to divide it into two
divisions, one of which, the White Horse Plain division, was accustomed
to go west by the Assinniboine River to the "rapids crossing-place," and
from there in a southwesterly direction. The Red River division went
south to Pembina, and did the most of their hunting in Dakota. The two
divisions sometimes met (says Professor Hind), but not intentionally. In
1849 a Mr. Flett took a census of the White Horse Plain division, in
Dakota Territory, and found that it contained 603 carts, 700
half-breeds, 200 Indians, 600 horses, 200 oxen, 400 dogs, and 1 cat.
In his "Red River Settlement" Mr. Alexander Ross gives the following
census of the number of carts assembled in camp for the buffalo hunt at
five different-periods:
+--------------------------+
|_Number of carts assembled|
| for the first trip._ |
+--------------------------+
|In 1820 | 540|
|In 1825 | 680|
|In 1830 | 820|
|In 1835 | 970|
|In 1840 | 1,210|
+--------------------------+
The expedition which was accompanied by Rev. Mr. Belcourt, a Catholic
priest, whose account is set forth in the Hon. Mr. Sibley's paper on the
buffalo,[56] was a comparatively small one, which started from Pembina,
and very generously took pains not to spoil the prospects of the great
Red River division, which was expected to take the field at the same
time. This, therefore, was a small party, like others which had already
reached the range; but it contained 213 carts, 55 hunters and their
families, making 60 lodges in all. This party killed 1,776 cows (bulls
not counted, many of which were killed, though "not even a tongue was
taken"), which yielded 228 bags of pemmican, 1,213 bales of dried meat,
166 sacks of tallow, and 556 bladders full of marrow. But this was very
moderate slaughter, being about 33 buffalo to each family. Even as late
as 1872, when buffalo were getting scarce, Mr. Grant[57] met a
half-breed family on the Qu'Appelle, consisting of man, wife, and seven
children, whose six carts were laden with the meat and robes yielded by
_sixty_ buffaloes; that number representing this one hunter's share of
the spoils of the hunt.
[Note 56: Schoolcraft, pp. 101-110.]
[Note 57: Ocean to Ocean, p. 116.]
To afford an idea of the truly military character of those Red River
expeditions, I have only to quote a page from Prof. Henry Youle
Hind:[58]
[Note 58: Assinniboine and Saskatch. Exp. Exped., II, p. 111.]
"After the start from the settlement has been well made, and all
stragglers or tardy hunters have arrived, a great council is held and a
president elected. A number of captains are nominated by the president
and people jointly. The captains then proceed to appoint their own
policemen, the number assigned to each not exceeding ten. Their duties
are to see that the laws of the hunt are strictly carried out. In 1840,
if a man ran a buffalo without permission before the general hunt began,
his saddle and bridle were cut to pieces for the first offense; for the
second offense his clothes were cut off his back. At the present day
these punishments are changed to a fine of 20 shillings for the first
offense. No gun is permitted to be fired when in the buffalo country
before the 'race' begins. A priest sometimes goes with the hunt, and
mass is then celebrated in the open prairies.
"At night the carts are placed in the form of a circle, with the horses
and cattle inside the ring, and it is the duty of the captains and their
policemen to see that this is rightly done. All laws are proclaimed in
camp, and relate to the hunt alone. All camping orders are given by
signal, a flag being carried by the guides, who are appointed by
election. Each guide has his tarn of one day, and no man can pass a
guide on duty without subjecting himself to a fine of 5 shillings. No
hunter can leave the camp to return home without permission, and no one
is permitted to stir until any animal or property of value supposed to
be lost is recovered. The policemen, at the order of their captains, can
seize any cart at night-fall and place it where they choose for the
public safety, but on the following morning they are compelled to bring
it back to the spot from which they moved it the previous evening. This
power is very necessary, in order that the horses may not be stampeded
by night attacks of the Sioux or other Indian tribes at war with the
half-breeds. A heavy fine is imposed in case of neglect in extinguishing
fires when the camp is broken up in the morning.
"In sight of buffalo all the hunters are drawn up in line, the
president, captains, and police being a few yards in advance,
restraining the impatient hunters. 'Not yet! Not yet!' is the subdued
whisper of the president. The approach to the herd is cautiously made.
'Now!' the president exclaims; and as the word leaves his lips the
charge is made, and in a few minutes the excited half-breeds are amongst
the bewildered buffalo."
"After witnessing one buffalo hunt," says Prof. John Macoun, "I can not
blame the half-breed and the Indian for leaving the farm and wildly
making for the plains when it is reported that buffalo have crossed the
border."
The "great fall hunt" was a regular event with about all the Indian
tribes living within striking distance of the buffalo, in the course of
which great numbers of buffalo were killed, great quantities of meat
dried and made into pemmican, and all the skins taken were tanned in
various ways to suit the many purposes they were called upon to serve.
Mr. Francis La Flesche informs me that during the presence of the
buffalo in western Nebraska and until they were driven south by the
Sioux, the fall hunt of the Omahas was sometimes participated in by
three hundred lodges, or about 3,000 people all told, six hundred of
whom were warriors, and each of whom generally killed about ten
buffaloes. The laws of the hunt were very strict and inexorable. In
order that all participants should have an equal chance, it was decreed
that any hunter caught "still-hunting" should be soundly flogged. On one
occasion an Indian was discovered in the act, but not caught. During the
chase which was made to capture him many arrows were fired at him by the
police, but being better mounted than his pursuers he escaped, and kept
clear of the camp during the remainder of the hunt. On another occasion
an Omaha, guilty of the same offense, was chased, and in his effort to
escape his horse fell with him in a coulée and broke one of his legs. In
spite of the sad plight of the Omaha, his pursuers came up and flogged
him, just as if nothing had happened.
After the invention of the Colt's revolver, and breech-loading rifles
generally, the chase on horseback speedily became more fatal to the
bison than it ever had been before. With such weapons, it was possible
to gallop into the midst of a flying herd and, during the course of a
run of 2 or 3 miles, discharge from twelve to forty shots at a range of
only a few yards, or even a few feet. In this kind of hunting the heavy
Navy revolver was the favorite weapon, because it could be held in one
hand and fired with far greater precision than could a rifle held in
both hands. Except in the hands of an expert, the use of the rifle was
limited, and often attended with risk to the hunter; but the revolver
was good for all directions; it could very often be used with deadly
effect where a rifle could not have been used at all, and, moreover, it
left the bridle-hand free. Many cavalrymen and hunters were able to use
a revolver with either hand, or one in each hand. Gen. Lew. Wallace
preferred the Smith and Wesson in 1867, which he declared to be "the
best of revolvers" then.
It was his marvelous skill in shooting buffaloes with a rifle, from the
back of a galloping horse, that earned for the Hon. W. F. Cody the
sobriquet by which he is now familiarly known to the world--"Buffalo
Bill." To the average hunter on horseback the galloping of the horse
makes it easy for him to aim at the heart of a buffalo and shoot clear
over its back. No other shooting is so difficult, or requires such
consummate dexterity as shooting with any kind of a gun, especially a
rifle, from the back of a running horse. Let him who doubts this
statement try it for himself and he will doubt no more. It was in the
chase of the buffalo on horseback, armed with a rifle, that "Buffalo
Bill" acquired the marvelous dexterity with the rifle which he has since
exhibited in the presence of the people of two continents. I regret that
circumstances have prevented my obtaining the exact figures of the great
kill of buffaloes that Mr. Cody once made in a single run, in which he
broke all previous records in that line, and fairly earned his title. In
1867 he entered into a contract with the Kansas Pacific Railway, then in
course of construction through western Kansas, at a monthly salary of
$500, to deliver all the buffalo meat that would be required by the army
of laborers engaged in building the road. In eighteen mouths he killed
4,280 buffaloes.
3. _Impounding or Killing in Pens._--At first thought it seems hard to
believe that it was ever possible for Indians to build pens and drive
wild buffaloes into them, as cowboys now corral their cattle, yet such
wholesale catches were of common occurrence among the Plains Crees of
the south Saskatchewan country, and the same general plan was pursued,
with slight modifications, by the Indians of the Assinniboine,
Blackfeet, and Gros Ventres, and other tribes of the Northwest. Like the
keddah elephant-catching operations in India, this plan was feasible
only in a partially wooded country, and where buffalo were so numerous
that their presence could be counted upon to a certainty. The "pound"
was simply a circular pen, having a single entrance; but being unable to
construct a gate of heavy timbers, such as is made to drop and close the
entrance to an elephant pen, the Indians very shrewdly got over the
difficulty by making the opening at the edge of a perpendicular bank 10
or 12 feet high, easy enough for a buffalo to jump down, but impossible
for him to scale afterward. It is hardly probable that Indians who were
expert enough to attack and kill buffalo on foot would have been tempted
to undertake the labor that building a pound always involved, had it not
been for the wild excitement attending captures made in this way, and
which were shared to the fullest possible extent by warriors, women, and
children alike.
The best description of this method which has come under our notice is
that of Professor Hind, who witnessed its practice by the Plains Crees,
on the headwaters of the Qu'Appelle River, in 1858. He describes the
pound he saw as a fence, constructed of the trunks of trees laced
together with green withes, and braced on the outside by props,
inclosing a circular space about 120 feet in diameter. It was placed in
a pretty dell between sand-hills, and leading from it in two diverging
rows (like the guiding wings of an elephant pen) were the two rows of
bushes which the Indians designate "dead men," which serve to guide the
buffalo into the pound. The "dead men" extended a distance of 4 miles
into the prairie. They were placed about 50 feet apart, and the two
rows gradually diverged until at their extremities they were from 11/2
to 2 miles apart.
[Illustration: CREE INDIANS IMPOUNDING BUFFALOES. Reproduced from Prof.
H. Y. Hind's--"Red River, Assinniboine and Saskatchewan Expedition."]
"When the skilled hunters are about to bring in a herd of buffalo from
the prairie," says Professor Hind, "they direct the course of the gallop
of the alarmed animals by confederates stationed in hollows or small
depressions, who, when the buffalo appear inclined to take a direction
leading from the space marked out by the 'dead men,' show themselves for
a moment and wave their robes, immediately hiding again. This serves to
turn the buffalo slightly in another direction, and when the animals,
having arrived between the rows of 'dead men,' endeavor to pass through
them, Indians stationed here and there behind a 'dead man' go through
the same operation, and thus keep the animals within the narrowing
limits of the converging lines. At the entrance to the pound there is a
strong trunk of a tree placed about a foot from the ground, and on the
inner side an excavation is made sufficiently deep to prevent the
buffalo from leaping back when once in the pound. As soon as the animals
have taken the fatal spring, they begin to gallop round and round the
ring fence, looking for a chance to escape, but with the utmost silence
women and children on the outside hold their robes before every orifice
until the whole herd is brought in; then they climb to the top of the
fence, and, with the hunters who have followed closely in the rear of
the buffalo, spear or shoot with bows and arrows or fire-arms at the
bewildered animals, rapidly becoming frantic with rage and terror,
within the narrow limits of the pound.
"A dreadful scene of confusion and slaughter then begins; the oldest and
strongest animals crush and toss the weaker; the shouts and screams of
the excited Indians rise above the roaring of the bulls, the bellowing
of the cows, and the piteous moaning of the calves. The dying struggles
of so many huge and powerful animals crowded together create a revolting
and terrible scene, dreadful from the excess of its cruelty and waste of
life, but with occasional displays of wonderful brute strength and rage;
while man in his savage, untutored, and heathen state shows both in deed
and expression how little he is superior to the noble beasts he so
wantonly and cruelly destroys."[59]
[Note 59: Assinniboine and Saskatchewan Expedition, p. 358.]
The last scene of the bloody tragedy is thus set forth a week later:
"Within the circular fence ... lay, tossed in every conceivable
position, over two hundred dead buffalo. [The exact number was 240.]
From old bulls to calves of three months' old, animals of every age were
huddled together in all the forced attitudes of violent death. Some lay
on their backs, with eyes starting from their heads and tongue thrust
out through clotted gore. Others were impaled on the horns of the old
and strong bulls. Others again, which had been tossed, were lying with
broken backs, two and three deep. One little calf hung suspended on the
horns of a bull which had impaled it in the wild race round and round
the pound. The Indians looked upon the dreadful and sickening sight
with evident delight, and told how such and such a bull or cow had
exhibited feats of wonderful strength in the death-struggle. The flesh
of many of the cows had been taken from them, and was drying in the sun
on stages near the tents. It is needless to say that the odor was
overpowering, and millions of large blue flesh-flies, humming and
buzzing over the putrefying bodies, was not the least disgusting part of
the spectacle."
It is some satisfaction to know that when the first "run" was made, ten
days previous, the herd of two hundred buffaloes was no sooner driven
into the pound than a wary old bull espied a weak spot in the fence,
charged it at full speed, and burst through to freedom and the prairie,
followed by the entire herd.
Strange as it may seem to-day, this wholesale method of destroying
buffalo was once practiced in Montana. In his memoir on "The American
Bison," Mr. J. A. Allen states that as late as 1873, while journeying
through that Territory in charge of the Yellowstone Expedition, he
"several times met with the remains of these pounds and their converging
fences in the region above the mouth of the Big Horn River." Mr. Thomas
Simpson states that in 1840 there were three camps of Assinniboine
Indians in the vicinity of Carlton House, each of which had its buffalo
pound into which they drove forty or fifty animals daily.
4. _The "Surround."_--During the last forty years the final
extermination of the buffalo has been confidently predicted by not only
the observing white man of the West, but also nearly all the Indians and
half-breeds who formerly depended upon this animal for the most of the
necessities, as well as luxuries, of life. They have seen the great
herds driven westward farther and farther, until the plains were left
tenantless, and hunger took the place of feasting on the choice tid-bits
of the chase. And is it not singular that during this period the Indian
tribes were not moved by a common impulse to kill sparingly, and by the
exercise of a reasonable economy in the chase to make the buffalo last
as long as possible.
But apparently no such thoughts ever entered their minds, so far as
_they themselves_ were concerned. They looked with jealous eyes upon the
white hunter, and considered him as much of a robber as if they had a
brand on every buffalo. It has been claimed by some authors that the
Indians killed with more judgment and more care for the future than did
the white man, but I fail to find any evidence that such was ever the
fact. They all killed wastefully, wantonly, and always about five times
as many head as were really necessary for food. It was always the same
old story, whenever a gang of Indians needed meat a whole herd was
slaughtered, the choicest portions of the finest animals were taken, and
about 75 per cent of the whole left to putrefy and fatten the wolves.
And now, as we read of the appalling slaughter, one can scarcely repress
the feeling of grim satisfaction that arises when we also read that many
of the ex-slaughterers are almost starving for the millions of pounds
of fat and juicy buffalo meat they wasted a few years ago. Verily, the
buffalo is in a great measure avenged already.
The following extract from Mr. Catlin's "North American Indians,"[60] I,
page 199-200, serves well to illustrate not only a very common and very
deadly Indian method of wholesale slaughter--the "surround"--but also
to show the senseless destructiveness of Indians even when in a state of
semi-starvation, which was brought upon them by similar acts of
improvidence and wastefulness.
[Note 60: H. Mis. 600, pt. 2-31]
"The Minatarees, as well as the Mandans, had suffered for some months
past for want of meat, and had indulged in the most alarming fears that
the herds of buffalo were emigrating so far off from them that there was
great danger of their actual starvation, when it was suddenly announced
through the village one morning at an early hour that a herd of
buffaloes was in sight. A hundred or more young men mounted their
horses, with weapons in hand, and steered their course to the prairies.
* * *
"The plan of attack, which in this country is familiarly called a
surround, was explicitly agreed upon, and the hunters, who were all
mounted on their 'buffalo horses' and armed with bows and arrows or long
lances, divided into two columns, taking opposite directions, and drew
themselves gradually around the herd at a mile or more distance from
them, thus forming a circle of horsemen at equal distances apart, who
gradually closed in upon them with a moderate pace at a signal given.
The unsuspecting herd at length 'got the wind' of the approaching enemy
and fled in a mass in the greatest confusion. To the point where they
were aiming to cross the line the horsemen were seen, at full speed,
gathering and forming in a column, brandishing their weapons, and
yelling in the most frightful manner, by which they turned the black and
rushing mass, which moved off in an opposite direction, where they were
again met and foiled in a similar manner, and wheeled back in utter
confusion; by which time the horsemen had closed in from all directions,
forming a continuous line around them, whilst the poor affrighted
animals were eddying about in a crowded and confused mass, hooking and
climbing upon each other, when the work of death commenced. I had rode
up in the rear and occupied an elevated position at a few rods'
distance, from which I could (like the general of a battlefield) survey
from my horse's back the nature and the progress of the grand _mêlée_,
but (unlike him) without the power of issuing a command or in any way
directing its issue.
"In this grand turmoil [see illustration] a cloud of dust was soon
raised, which in parts obscured the throng where the hunters were
galloping their horses around and driving the whizzing arrows or their
long lances to the hearts of these noble animals; which in many
instances, becoming infuriated with deadly wounds in their sides,
erected their shaggy manes over their bloodshot eyes and furiously
plunged forward at the sides of their assailants' horses, sometimes
goring them to death at a lunge and putting their dismounted riders to
flight for their lives. Sometimes their dense crowd was opened, and the
blinded horsemen, too intent on their prey amidst the cloud of dust,
were hemmed and wedged in amidst the crowding beasts, over whose backs
they were obliged to leap for security, leaving their horses to the fate
that might await them in the results of this wild and desperate war.
Many were the bulls that turned upon their assailants and met them with
desperate resistance, and many were the warriors who were dismounted and
saved themselves by the superior muscles of their legs; some who were
closely pursued by the bulls wheeled suddenly around, and snatching the
part of a buffalo robe from around their waists, threw it over the horns
and eyes of the infuriated beast, and darting by its side drove the
arrow or the lance to its heart; others suddenly dashed off upon the
prairie by the side of the affrighted animals which had escaped from the
throng, and closely escorting them for a few rods, brought down their
heart's blood in streams and their huge carcasses upon the green and
enameled turf.
"In this way this grand hunt soon resolved itself into a desperate
battle, _and in the space of fifteen minutes resulted in the total
destruction of the whole herd_, which in all their strength and fury
were doomed, like every beast and living thing else, to fall before the
destroying hands of mighty man.
"I had sat in trembling silence upon my horse and witnessed this
extraordinary scene, which allowed not one of these animals to escape
out of my sight. Many plunged off upon the prairie for a distance, but
were overtaken and killed, and although I could not distinctly estimate
the number that were slain, yet I am sure that some hundreds of these
noble animals fell in this grand _mêlée_. * * * Amongst the poor
affrighted creatures that had occasionally dashed through the ranks of
their enemy and sought safety in flight upon the prairie (and in some
instances had undoubtedly gained it), I saw them stand awhile, looking
back, when they turned, and, as if bent on their own destruction,
retraced their steps, and mingled themselves and their deaths with those
of the dying throng. Others had fled to a distance on the prairies, and
for want of company, of friends or of foes, had stood and gazed on till
the battle-scene was over, seemingly taking pains to stay and hold their
lives in readiness for their destroyers until the general destruction
was over, when they fell easy victims to their weapons, making the
slaughter complete."
It is to be noticed that _every animal_ of this entire herd of several
hundred was slain on the spot, and there is no room to doubt that at
least half (possibly much more) of the meat thus taken was allowed to
become a loss. People who are so utterly senseless as to wantonly
destroy their own source of food, as the Indians have done, certainly
deserve to starve.
This "surround" method of wholesale slaughter was also practiced by
the Cheyennes, Arapahoes, Sioux, Pawnees, Ornabas, and probably many
other tribes.
[Illustration: THE SURROUND. From a painting in the National Museum by
George Catlin.]
5. _Decoying and Driving._--Another method of slaughtering by wholesale
is thus described by Lewis and Clarke, I, 235. The locality indicated
was the Missouri River, in Montana, just above the mouth of Judith
River:
"On the north we passed a precipice about 120 feet high, under which lay
scattered the fragments of at least one hundred carcasses of buffaloes,
although the water which had washed away the lower part of the hill,
must have carried off many of the dead. These buffaloes had been chased
down a precipice in a way very common on the Missouri, and by which vast
herds are destroyed in a moment. The mode of hunting is to select one of
the most active and fleet young men, who is disguised by a buffalo skin
round his body; the skin of the head with the ears and horns fastened on
his own head in such a way as to deceive the buffaloes. Thus dressed, he
fixes himself at a convenient distance between a herd of buffaloes and
any of the river precipices, which sometimes extend for some miles.
"His companions in the mean time get in the rear and side of the herd,
and at a given signal show themselves, and advance towards the
buffaloes. They instantly take alarm, and, finding the hunters beside
them, they run toward the disguised Indian or decoy, who leads them on
at full speed toward the river, when, suddenly securing himself in some
crevice of the cliff which he had previously fixed on, the herd is left
on the brink of the precipice; it is then in vain for the foremost to
retreat or even to stop; they are pressed on by the hindmost rank, who,
seeing no danger but from the hunters, goad on those before them till
the whole are precipitated and the shore is strewed with their dead
bodies. Sometimes in this perilous seduction the Indian is himself
either trodden under foot by the rapid movements of the buffaloes, or,
missing his footing in the cliff, is urged down the precipice by the
falling herd. The Indians then select as much meat as they wish, and the
rest is abandoned to the wolves, and creates a most dreadful stench."
Harper's Magazine, volume 38, page 147, contains the following from the
pen of Theo. E. Davis, in an article entitled "The Buffalo Range:"
"As I have previously stated, the best hunting on the range is to be
found between the Platte and Arkansas Rivers. Here I have seen the
Indians have recourse to another method of slaughtering buffalo in a
very easy, but to me a cruel way, for where one buffalo is killed
several are sure to be painfully injured; but these, too, are soon
killed by the Indians, who make haste to lance or shoot the cripples.
"The mode of hunting is somewhat as follows: A herd is discovered
grazing on the table-lands. Being thoroughly acquainted with the
country, the Indians are aware of the location of the nearest point
where the table land is broken abruptly by a precipice which descends a
hundred or more feet. Toward this 'devil-jump' the Indians head the
herd, which is at once driven pell mell to and over the precipice.
Meanwhile a number of Indians have taken their way by means of routes
known to them, and succeed in reaching the cañon through which the
crippled buffalo are running in all directions. These are quickly
killed, so that out of a very considerable band of buffalo but few
escape, many having been killed by the fall and others dispatched while
limping off. This mode of hunting is sometimes indulged in by
harum-scarum white men, but it is done more for deviltry than anything
else. I have never known of its practice by army officers or persons who
professed to hunt buffalo as a sport."
6. _Hunting on Snow-shoes._--"In the dead of the winters," says Mr.
Catlin,[61] "which are very long and severely cold in this country,
where horses can not be brought into the chase with any avail, the
Indian runs upon the surface of the snow by aid of his snow-shoes, which
buoy him up, while the great weight of the buffaloes sinks them down to
the middle of their sides, and, completely stopping their progress,
insures them certain and easy victims to the bow or lance of their
pursuers. The snow in these regions often lies during the winter to the
depth of 3 and 4 feet, being blown away from the tops and sides of the
hills in many places, which are left bare for the buffaloes to graze
upon, whilst it is drifted in the hollows and ravines to a very great
depth, and rendered almost entirely impassable to these huge animals,
which, when closely pursued by their enemies, endeavor to plunge through
it, but are soon wedged in and almost unable to move, where they fall an
easy prey to the Indian, who runs up lightly upon his snow-shoes and
drives his lance to their hearts. The skins are then stripped off, to be
sold to the fur traders, and the carcasses left to be devoured by the
wolves. [Owing to the fact that the winter's supply of meat was procured
and dried in the summer and fall months, the flesh of all buffalo killed
in winter was allowed to become a total loss.] This is the season in
which the greatest number of these animals are destroyed for their
robes; they are most easily killed at this time, and their hair or fur,
being longer and more abundant, gives greater value to the robe."
[Note 61: North American Indians, I, 253.]
* * * * *
III. PROGRESS OF THE EXTERMINATION.
A. THE PERIOD OF DESULTORY DESTRUCTION, FROM 1730 TO 1830.
[Illustration: INDIANS ON SNOW-SHOES HUNTING BUFFALOES.
From a painting in the National Museum by George Catlin.]
The disappearance of the buffalo from all the country east of the
Mississippi was one of the inevitable results of the advance of
civilization. To the early pioneers who went forth into the wilderness
to wrestle with nature for the necessities of life, this valuable animal
might well have seemed a gift direct from the hand of Providence. During
the first few years of the early settler's life in a new country, the
few domestic animals he had brought with him were far too valuable to
be killed for food, and for a long period he looked to the wild animals
of the forest and the prairie for his daily supply of meat. The time was
when no one stopped to think of the important part our game animals
played in the settlement of this country, and even now no one has
attempted to calculate the lessened degree of rapidity with which the
star of empire would have taken its westward way without the bison,
deer, elk, and antelope. The Western States and Territories pay little
heed to the wanton slaughter of deer and elk now going on in their
forests, but the time will soon come when the "grangers" will enter
those regions and find the absence of game a very serious matter.
Although the bison was the first wild species to disappear before the
advance of civilization, he served a good purpose at a highly critical
period. His huge bulk of toothsome flesh fed many a hungry family, and
his ample robe did good service in the settler's cabin and sleigh in
winter weather. By the time game animals had become scarce, domestic
herds and flocks had taken their place, and hunting became a pastime
instead of a necessity.
As might be expected, from the time the bison was first seen by white
men he has always been a conspicuous prize, and being the largest of the
land quadrupeds, was naturally the first to disappear. Every man's hand
has been against him. While his disappearance from the eastern United
States was, in the main, due to the settler who killed game as a means
of subsistence, there were a few who made the killing of those animals a
regular business. This occurred almost exclusively in the immediate
vicinity of salt springs, around which the bison congregated in great
numbers, and made their wholesale slaughter of easy accomplishment. Mr.
Thomas Ashe[62] has recorded some very interesting facts and
observations on this point. In speaking of an old man who in the latter
part of the last century built a log house for himself "on the immediate
borders of a salt spring," in western Pennsylvania, for the purpose of
killing buffaloes out of the immense droves which frequented that spot,
Mr. Ashe says:
[Note 62: Travels in America in 1806. London, 1808.]
"In the first and second years this old man, with some companions,
killed from six to seven hundred of these noble creatures merely for the
sake of their skins, which to them were worth only 2 shillings each; and
after this 'work of death' they were obliged to leave the place till the
following season, or till the wolves, bears, panthers, eagles, rooks,
ravens, etc., had devoured the carcasses and abandoned the place for
other prey. In the two following years the same persons killed great
numbers out of the first droves that arrived, skinned them, and left
their bodies exposed to the sun and air; but they soon had reason to
repent of this, for the remaining droves, as they came up in succession,
stopped, gazed on the mangled and putrid bodies, sorrowfully moaned or
furiously lowed aloud, and returned instantly to the wilderness in an
unusual run, without tasting their favorite spring or licking the
impregnated earth, which was also once their most agreeable occupation;
nor did they nor any of their race ever revisit the neighborhood.
"The simple history of this spring is that of every other in the settled
parts of this Western World; the carnage of beasts was everywhere the
same. I met with a man who had killed two thousand buffaloes with his
own hand, and others no doubt have done the same thing. In consequence
of such proceedings not one buffalo is at this time to be found east of
the Mississippi, except a few domesticated by the curious, or carried
through the country on a public show."
But, fortunately, there is no evidence that such slaughter as that
described by Mr. Ashe was at all common, and there is reason for the
belief that until within the last forty years the buffalo was sacrificed
in ways conducive to the greatest good of the greatest number.
From Coronado to General Frémont there has hardly been an explorer of
United States territory who has not had occasion to bless the bison, and
its great value to mankind can hardly be overestimated, although by many
it can readily be forgotten.
The disappearance of the bison from the eastern United States was due to
its consumption as food. It was very gradual, like the march of
civilization, and, under the circumstances, absolutely inevitable. In a
country so thickly peopled as this region speedily became, the mastodon
could have survived extinction about as easily as the bison. Except when
the latter became the victim of wholesale slaughter, there was little
reason to bemoan his fate, save upon grounds that may be regarded purely
sentimental. He served a most excellent purpose in the development of
the country. Even as late as 1875 the farmers of eastern Kansas were in
the habit of making trips every fall into the western part of that State
for wagon loads of buffalo meat as a supply for the succeeding winter.
The farmers of Texas, Nebraska, Dakota, and Minnesota also drew largely
upon the buffalo as long as the supply lasted.
The extirpation of the bison west of the Rocky Mountains was due to
legitimate hunting for food and clothing rather than for marketable
peltries. In no part of that whole region was the species ever numerous,
although in the mountains themselves, notably in Colorado, within easy
reach of the great prairies on the east, vast numbers were seen by the
early explorers and pioneers. But to the westward, away from the
mountains, they were very rarely met with, and their total destruction
in that region was a matter of easy accomplishment. According to Prof.
J. A. Allen the complete disappearance of the bison west of the Rocky
Mountains took place between 1838 and 1840.
B. THE PERIOD OF SYSTEMATIC SLAUGHTER, FROM 1830 TO 1838.
We come now to a history which I would gladly leave unwritten. Its
record is a disgrace to the American people in general, and the
Territorial, State, and General Government in particular. It will cause
succeeding generations to regard us as being possessed of the leading
characteristics of the savage and the beast of prey--cruelty and greed.
We will be likened to the blood-thirsty tiger of the Indian jungle, who
slaughters a dozen bullocks at once when he knows he can eat only one.
In one respect, at least, the white men who engaged in the systematic
slaughter of the bison were savages just as much as the Piegan Indians,
who would drive a whole herd over a precipice to secure a week's rations
of meat for a single village. The men who killed buffaloes for their
tongues and those who shot them from the railway trains for sport were
murderers. In no way does civilized man so quickly revert to his former
state as when he is alone with the beasts of the field. Give him a gun
and something which he may kill without getting himself in trouble, and,
presto! he is instantly a savage again, finding exquisite delight in
bloodshed, slaughter, and death, if not for gain, then solely for the
joy and happiness of it. There is no kind of warfare against game
animals too unfair, too disreputable, or too mean for white men to
engage in if they can only do so with safety to their own precious
carcasses. They will shoot buffalo and antelope from running railway
trains, drive deer into water with hounds and cut their throats in cold
blood, kill does with fawns a week old, kill fawns by the score for
their spotted skins, slaughter deer, moose, and caribou in the snow at a
pitiful disadvantage, just as the wolves do; exterminate the wild ducks
on the whole Atlantic seaboard with punt guns for the metropolitan
markets; kill off the Rocky Mountain goats for hides worth only 50 cents
apiece, destroy wagon loads of trout with dynamite, and so on to the end
of the chapter.
Perhaps the most gigantic task ever undertaken on this continent in the
line of game-slaughter was the extermination of the bison in the great
pasture region by the hide-hunters. Probably the brilliant rapidity and
success with which that lofty undertaking was accomplished was a matter
of surprise even to those who participated in it. The story of the
slaughter is by no means a long one.
The period of systematic slaughter of the bison naturally begins with
the first organized efforts in that direction, in a business-like,
wholesale way. Although the species had been steadily driven westward
for a hundred years by the advancing settlements, and had during all
that time been hunted for the meat and robes it yielded, its
extermination did not begin in earnest until 1820, or thereabouts. As
before stated, various persons had previous to that time made buffalo
killing a business in order to sell their skins, but such instances were
very exceptional. By that time the bison was totally extinct in all the
region lying east of the Mississippi River except a portion of
Wisconsin, where it survived until about 1830. In 1820 the first
organized buffalo hunting expedition on a grand scale was made from the
Red River settlement, Manitoba, in which five hundred and forty carts
proceeded to the range. Previous to that time the buffaloes were found
near enough to the settlements around Fort Garry that every settler
could hunt independently; but as the herds were driven farther and
farther away, it required an organized effort and a long journey to
reach them.
The American Fur Company established trading posts along the Missouri
River, one at the mouth of the Tetón River and another at the mouth of
the Yellowstone. In 1826 a post was established at the eastern base of
the Rocky Mountains, at the head of the Arkansas River, and in 1832
another was located in a corresponding situation at the head of the
South Fork of the Platte, close to where Denver now stands. Both the
latter were on what was then the western border of the buffalo range.
Elsewhere throughout the buffalo country there were numerous other
posts, always situated as near as possible to the best hunting ground,
and at the same time where they would be most accessible to the hunters,
both white and red.
As might be supposed, the Indians were encouraged to kill buffaloes for
their robes, and this is what Mr. George Catlin wrote at the mouth of
the Tetón River (Pyatt County, Dakota) in 1832 concerning this
trade:[63]
"It seems hard and cruel (does it not?) that we civilized people, with
all the luxuries and comforts of the world about us, should be drawing
from the backs of these useful animals the skins for our luxury, leaving
their carcasses to be devoured by the wolves; that we should draw from
that country some one hundred and fifty or two hundred thousand of their
robes annually, the greater part of which are taken from animals that
are killed expressly for the robe, at a season when the meat is not
cured and preserved, and for each of which skins the Indian has received
but a pint of whisky! Such is the fact, and that number, or near it, are
annually destroyed, in addition to the number that is necessarily killed
for the subsistence of three hundred thousand Indians, who live chiefly
upon them."
The author further declared that the fur trade in those "great western
realms" was then limited chiefly to the purchase of buffalo robes.
1. _The Red River half-breeds._--In June, 1840, when the Red River
half-breeds assembled at Pembina for their annual expedition against the
buffalo, they mustered as follows:
+-------------------------------------+
|Carts |1,210|
+-------------------------+-----+-----+
|Hunters | 620| |
+-------------------------+-----+ |
|Women | 650|1,630|
+-------------------------+-----+ |
|Boys and girls | 360| |
+-------------------------+-----+-----+
|Horses (buffalo runners) | 403|
+-------------------------------+-----+
|Dogs | 542|
+-------------------------------+-----+
|Cart horses | 655|
+-------------------------------+-----+
|Draught oxen | 586|
+-------------------------------+-----+
|Skinning knives |1,240|
+-------------------------------------+
The total value of the property employed in this expedition and the
working time occupied by it (two months) amounted to the enormous sum of
£24,000.
[Note 63: North American Indians, I, p. 263.]
Although the bison formerly ranged to Fort Garry (near Winnipeg), they
had been steadily killed off and driven back, and in 1840 none were
found by the expedition until it was 250 miles from Pembina, which is
situated on the Red River, at the international boundary. At that time
the extinction of the species from the Red River to the Cheyenne was
practically complete. The Red River settlers, aided, of course, by the
Indians of that region, are responsible for the extermination of the
bison throughout northeastern Dakota as far as the Cheyenne River,
northern Minnesota, and the whole of what is now the province of
Manitoba. More than that; as the game grew scarce and retired farther
and farther, the half-breeds, who despised agriculture as long as there
was a buffalo to kill, extended their hunting operations westward along
the Qu'Appelle until they encroached upon the hunting-grounds of the
Plain Crees, who lived in the Saskatchewan country.
Thus was an immense inroad made in the northern half of the herd which
had previously covered the entire pasture region from the Great Slave
Lake to central Texas. This was the first visible impression of the
systematic killing which began in 1820. Up to 1840 it is reasonably
certain, as will be seen by figures given elsewhere, that by this
business-like method of the half-breeds, at least 652,000 buffaloes were
destroyed by them alone.
Even as early as 1840 the Red River hunt was prosecuted through Dakota
southwestwardly to the Missouri River and a short distance beyond it.
Here it touched the wide strip of territory, bordering that stream,
which was even then being regularly drained of its animal resources by
the Indian hunters, who made the river their base of operations, and
whose robes were shipped on its steam-boats.
It is certain that these annual Red River expeditions into Dakota were
kept up as late as 1847, and as long thereafter as buffaloes were to be
found in any number between the Cheyenne and the Missouri. At the same
time, the White Horse Plains division, which hunted westward from Fort
Garry, did its work of destruction quite as rapidly and as thoroughly as
the rival expedition to the United States.
In 1857 the Plains Crees, inhabiting the country around the headwaters
of the Qu'Appelle River (250 miles due west from Winnipeg), assembled in
council, and "determined that in consequence of promises often made and
broken by the white men and half-breeds, and the rapid destruction by
them of the buffalo they fed on, they would not permit either white men
or half-breeds to hunt in their country, or travel through it, except
for the purpose of trading for their dried meat, pemmican, skins and
robes."
In 1858 the Crees reported that between the two branches of the
Saskatchewan buffalo were "very scarce." Professor Hind's expedition saw
only one buffalo in the whole course of their journey from Winnipeg
until they reached Sand Hill Lake, at the head of the Qu'Appelle, near
the south branch of the Saskatchewan, where the first herd was
encountered. Although the species was not totally extinct on the
Qu'Appelle at that time, it was practically so.
2. _The country of the Sioux._--The next territory completely
depopulated of buffaloes by systematic hunting was very nearly the
entire southern half of Dakota, southwestern Minnesota, and northern
Nebraska as far as the North Platte. This vast region, once the favorite
range for hundreds of thousands of buffaloes, had for many years been
the favorite hunting ground of the Sioux Indians of the Missouri, the
Pawnees, Omahas, and all other tribes of that region. The settlement of
Iowa and Minnesota presently forced into this region the entire body of
Mississippi Sioux from the country west of Prairie du Chien and around
Fort Snelling, and materially hastened the extermination of all the game
animals which were once so abundant there. It is absolutely certain that
if the Indians had been uninfluenced by the white traders, or, in other
words, had not been induced to take and prepare a large number of robes
every year for the market, the species would have survived very much
longer than it did. But the demand quickly proved to be far greater than
the supply. The Indians, of course, found it necessary to slaughter
annually a great number of buffaloes for their own wants--for meat,
robes, leather, teepees, etc. When it came to supplementing this
necessary slaughter by an additional fifty thousand or more every year
for marketable robes, it is no wonder that the improvident savages soon
found, when too late, that the supply of buffaloes was not
inexhaustible. Naturally enough, they attributed their disappearance to
the white man, who was therefore a robber, and a proper subject for the
scalping-knife. Apparently it never occurred to the minds of the Sioux
that they themselves were equally to blame; it was always _the paleface_
who killed the buffaloes; and it was always _Sioux_ buffaloes that they
killed. The Sioux seemed to feel that they held a chattel mortgage on
all the buffaloes north of the Platte, and it required more than one
pitched battle to convince them otherwise.
Up to the time when the great Sioux Reservation was established in
Dakota (1875-'77), when 33,739 square miles of country, or nearly the
whole southwest quarter of the Territory, was set aside for the
exclusive occupancy of the Sioux, buffaloes were very numerous
throughout that entire region. East of the Missouri River, which is the
eastern boundary of the Sioux Reservation, from Bismarck all the way
down, the species was practically extinct as early as 1870. But at the
time when it became unlawful for white hunters to enter the territory of
the Sioux nation there were tens of thousands of buffaloes upon it, and
their subsequent slaughter is chargeable to the Indians alone, save as
to those which migrated into the hunting grounds of the whites.
3. _Western railways, and their part in the extermination of the
buffalo._--The building of a railroad means the speedy extermination of
all the big game along its line. In its eagerness to attract the public
and build up "a big business," every new line which traverses a country
containing game does its utmost, by means of advertisements and posters,
to attract the man with a gun. Its game resorts are all laid bare, and
the market hunters and sportsmen swarm in immediately, slaying and to
slay.
Within the last year the last real retreat for our finest game, the only
remaining stronghold for the mountain sheep, goat, caribou, elk, and
deer--northwestern Montana, northern Idaho, and thence westward--has
been laid open to the very heart by the building of the St. Paul,
Minneapolis and Manitoba Railway, which runs up the valley of the Milk
River to Fort Assinniboine, and crosses the Rocky Mountains through Two
Medicine Pass. Heretofore that region has been so difficult to reach
that the game it contains has been measurably secure from general
slaughter; but now it also must "go."
The marking out of the great overland trail by the Argonauts of '49 in
their rush for the gold fields of California was the foreshadowing of
the great east-and-west breach in the universal herd, which was made
twenty years later by the first transcontinental railway.
The pioneers who "crossed the plains" in those days killed buffaloes for
food whenever they could, and the constant harrying of those animals
experienced along the line of travel, soon led them to retire from the
proximity of such continual danger. It was undoubtedly due to this cause
that the number seen by parties who crossed the plains in 1849 and
subsequently, was surprisingly small. But, fortunately for the
buffaloes, the pioneers who would gladly have halted and turned aside
now and then for the excitement of the chase, were compelled to hurry
on, and accomplish the long journey while good weather lasted. It was
owing to this fact, and the scarcity of good horses, that the buffaloes
found it necessary to retire only a few miles from the wagon route to
get beyond the reach of those who would have gladly hunted them.
Mr. Allen Varner, of Indianola, Illinois, has kindly furnished me with
the following facts in regard to the presence of the buffalo, as
observed by him during his journey westward, over what was then known as
the Oregon Trail.
"The old Oregon trail ran from Independence, Missouri, to old Fort
Laramie, through the South Pass of the Rocky Mountains, and thence up to
Salt Lake City. We left Independence on May C, 1849, and struck the
Platte River at Grand Island. The trail had been traveled but very
little previous to that year. We saw no buffaloes whatever until we
reached the forks of the Platte, on May 20, or thereabouts. There we saw
seventeen head. From that time on we saw small bunches now and then;
never more than forty or fifty together. We saw no great herds anywhere,
and I should say we did not see over five hundred head all told. The
most western point at which we saw buffaloes was about due north of
Laramie Peak, and it must have been about the 20th of June. We killed
several head for meat during our trip, and found them all rather thin
in flesh. Plainsmen who claimed to know, said that all the buffaloes we
saw had wintered in that locality, and had not had time to get fat. The
annual migration from the south had not yet begun, or rather had not yet
brought any of the southern buffaloes that far north."
In a few years the tide of overland travel became so great, that the
buffaloes learned to keep away from the dangers of the trail, and many a
pioneer has crossed the plains without ever seeing a live buffalo.
4. _The division of the universal herd._--Until the building of the
first transcontinental railway made it possible to market the "buffalo
product," buffalo hunting as a business was almost wholly in the hands
of the Indians. Even then, the slaughter so far exceeded the natural
increase that the narrowing limits of the buffalo range was watched with
anxiety, and the ultimate extinction of the species confidently
predicted. Even without railroads the extermination of the race would
have taken place eventually, but it would have been delayed perhaps
twenty years. With a recklessness of the future that was not to be
expected of savages, though perhaps perfectly natural to civilized white
men, who place the possession of a dollar above everything else, the
Indians with one accord singled out the _cows_ for slaughter, because
their robes and their flesh better suited the fastidious taste of the
noble redskin. The building of the Union Pacific Railway began at Omaha
in 1865, and during that year 40 miles were constructed. The year
following saw the completion of 265 miles more, and in 1867 245 miles
were added, which brought it to Cheyenne. In 1868, 350 miles were built,
and in 1869 the entire line was open to traffic.
In 1867, when Maj. J. W. Powell and Prof. A. H. Thompson crossed the
plains by means of the Union Pacific Railway as far as it was
constructed and thence onward by wagon, they saw during the entire trip
only one live buffalo, a solitary old bull, wandering aimlessly along
the south bank of the Platte River.
The completion of the Union Pacific Railway divided forever the
buffaloes of the United States into two great herds, which thereafter
became known respectively as the northern and southern herds. Both
retired rapidly and permanently from the railway, and left a strip of
country over 50 miles wide almost uninhabited by them. Although many
thousand buffaloes were killed by hunters who made the Union Pacific
Railway their base of operations, the two great bodies retired north and
south so far that the greater number were beyond striking distance from
that line.
5. _The destruction of the southern herd._--The geographical center of
the great southern herd during the few years of its separate existence
previous to its destruction was very near the present site of Garden
City, Kansas. On the east, even as late as 1872, thousands of buffaloes
ranged within 10 miles of Wichita, which was then the headquarters of a
great number of buffalo-hunters, who plied their occupation vigorously
during the winter. On the north the herd ranged within 25 miles of the
Union Pacific, until the swarm of hunters coming down from the north
drove them farther and farther south. On the west, a few small bands
ranged as far as Pike's Peak and the South Park, but the main body
ranged east of the town of Pueblo, Colorado. In the southwest, buffaloes
were abundant as far as the Pecos and the Staked Plains, while the
southern limit of the herd was about on a line with the southern
boundary of New Mexico. Regarding this herd, Colonel Dodge writes as
follows: "Their most prized feeding ground was the section of country
between the South Platte and Arkansas rivers, watered by the Republican,
Smoky, Walnut, Pawnee, and other parallel or tributary streams, and
generally known as the Republican country. Hundreds of thousands went
south from here each winter, but hundreds of thousands remained. It was
the chosen home of the buffalo."
Although the range of the northern herd covered about twice as much
territory as did the southern, the latter contained probably twice as
many buffaloes. The number of individuals in the southern herd in the
year 1871 must have been at least three millions, and most estimates
place the total much higher than that.
During the years from 1866 to 1871, inclusive, the Atchison, Topeka and
Santa Fé Railway and what is now known as the Kansas Pacific, or Kansas
division of the Union Pacific Railway, were constructed from the
Missouri River westward across Kansas, and through the heart of the
southern buffalo range. The southern herd was literally cut to pieces by
railways, and every portion of its range rendered easily accessible.
There had always been a market for buffalo robes at a fair price, and as
soon as the railways crossed the buffalo country the slaughter began.
The rush to the range was only surpassed by the rush to the gold mines
of California in earlier years. The railroad builders, teamsters,
fortune-seekers, "professional" hunters, trappers, guides, and every one
out of a job turned out to hunt buffalo for hides and meat. The
merchants who had already settled in all the little towns along the
three great railways saw an opportunity to make money out of the buffalo
product, and forthwith began to organize and supply hunting parties with
arms, ammunition, and provisions, and send them to the range. An immense
business of this kind was done by the merchants of Dodge City (Fort
Dodge), Wichita, and Leavenworth, and scores of smaller towns did a
corresponding amount of business in the same line. During the years 1871
to 1874 but little else was done in that country except buffalo killing.
Central depots were established in the best buffalo country, from whence
hunting parties operated in all directions. Buildings were erected for
the curing of meat, and corrals were built in which to heap up the
immense piles of buffalo skins that accumulated. At Dodge City, as late
as 1878, Professor Thompson saw a lot of baled buffalo skins in a
corral, the solid cubical contents of which he calculated to equal 120
cords.
At first the utmost wastefulness prevailed. Every one wanted to kill
buffalo, and no one was willing to do the skinning and curing. Thousands
upon thousands of buffaloes were killed for their tongues alone, and
never skinned. Thousands more were wounded by unskillful marksmen and
wandered off to die and become a total loss. But the climax of
wastefulness and sloth was not reached until the enterprising
buffalo-butcher began to skin his dead buffaloes by horse-power. The
process is of interest, as showing the depth of degradation to which a
man can fall and still call himself a hunter. The skin of the buffalo
was ripped open along the belly and throat, the legs cut around at the
knees, and ripped up the rest of the way. The skin of the neck was
divided all the way around at the back of the head, and skinned back a
few inches to afford a start. A stout iron bar, like a hitching post,
was then driven through the skull and about 18 inches into the earth,
after which a rope was tied very firmly to the thick skin of the neck,
made ready for that purpose. The other end of this rope was then hitched
to the whiffletree of a pair of horses, or to the rear axle of a wagon,
the horses were whipped up, and the skin was forthwith either torn in
two or torn off the buffalo with about 50 pounds of flesh adhering to
it. It soon became apparent to even the most enterprising buffalo
skinner that this method was not an unqualified success, and it was
presently abandoned.
The slaughter which began in 1871 was prosecuted with great vigor and
enterprise in 1872, and reached its heighten 1873. By that time, the
buffalo country fairly swarmed with hunters, each, party putting forth
its utmost efforts to destroy more buffaloes than its rivals. By that
time experience had taught the value of thorough organization, and the
butchering was done in a more business-like way. By a coincidence that
proved fatal to the bison, it was just at the beginning of the slaughter
that breech-loading, long-range rifles attained what was practically
perfection. The Sharps 40-90 or 45-120, and the Remington were the
favorite weapons of the buffalo-hunter, the former being the one in most
general use. Before the leaden hail of thousands of these deadly
breech-loaders the buffaloes went down at the rate of several thousand
daily during the hunting season.
During the years 1871 and 1872 the most wanton wastefulness prevailed.
Colonel Dodge declares that, though hundreds of thousands of skins were
sent to market, they scarcely indicated the extent of the slaughter.
Through want of skill in shooting and want of knowledge in preserving
the hides of those slain by green hunters, _one hide sent to market
represented three, four, or even five dead buffalo_. The skinners and
curers knew so little of the proper mode of curing hides, that at least
half of those actually taken were lost. In the summer and fall of 1872
one hide sent to market represented at least _three_ dead buffalo. This
condition of affairs rapidly improved; but such was the furor for
slaughter, and the ignorance of all concerned, that every hide sent to
market in 1871 represented no less than _five_ dead buffalo.
By 1873 the condition of affairs had somewhat improved, through better
organization of the hunting parties and knowledge gained by experience
in curing. For all that, however, buffaloes were still so exceedingly
plentiful, and shooting was so much easier than skinning, the latter was
looked upon as a necessary evil and still slighted to such an extent
that every hide actually sold and delivered represented two dead
buffaloes.
In 1874 the slaughterers began to take alarm at the increasing scarcity
of buffalo, and the skinners, having a much smaller number of dead
animals to take care of than ever before, were able to devote more time
to each subject and do their work properly. As a result, Colonel Dodge
estimated that during 1874, and from that time on, one hundred skins
delivered represented not more than one hundred and twenty-five dead
buffaloes; but that "no parties have ever got the proportion lower than
this."
The great southern herd was slaughtered by still-hunting, a method which
has already been fully described. A typical hunting party is thus
described by Colonel Dodge:[64]
"The most approved party consisted of four men--one shooter, two
skinners, and one man to cook, stretch hides, and take care of camp.
Where buffalo were very plentiful the number of skinners was increased.
A light wagon, drawn by two horses or mules, takes the outfit into the
wilderness, and brings into camp the skins taken each day. The outfit is
most meager: a sack of flour, a side of bacon, 5 pounds of coffee, tea,
and sugar, a little salt, and possibly a few beans, is a month's supply.
A common or "A" tent furnishes shelter; a couple of blankets for each
man is a bed. One or more of Sharps or Remington's heaviest sporting
rifles, and an unlimited supply of ammunition, is the armament; while a
coffee-pot, Dutch-oven, frying-pan, four tin plates, and four tin cups
constitute the kitchen and table furniture.
"The skinning knives do duty at the platter, and 'fingers were made
before forks.' Nor must be forgotten one or more 10-gallon kegs for
water, as the camp may of necessity be far away from a stream. The
supplies are generally furnished by the merchant for whom the party is
working, who, in addition, pays each of the party a specified percentage
of the value of the skins delivered. The shooter is carefully selected
for his skill and knowledge of the habits of the buffalo. He is captain
and leader of the party. When all is ready, he plunges into the
wilderness, going to the center of the best buffalo region known to him,
not already occupied (for there are unwritten regulations recognized as
laws, giving to each hunter certain rights of discovery and occupancy).
Arrived at the position, he makes his camp in some hidden ravine or
thicket, and makes all ready for work."
[Note 64: Plains of the Great West, p. 134.]
Of course the slaughter was greatest along the lines of the three great
railways--the Kansas Pacific, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé, and the
Union Pacific, about in the order named. It reached its height in the
season of 1873. During that year the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé
Railroad carried out of the buffalo country 251,443 robes, 1,017,600
pounds of meat, and 2,743,100 pounds of bones. The end of the southern
herd was then near at hand. Could the southern buffalo range have been
roofed over at that time it would have made one vast charnel-house.
Putrifying carcasses, many of them with the hide still on, lay thickly
scattered over thousands of square miles of the level prairie, poisoning
the air and water and offending the sight. The remaining herds had
become mere scattered bands, harried and driven hither and thither by
the hunters, who now swarmed almost as thickly as the buffaloes. A
cordon of camps was established along the Arkansas River, the South
Platte, the Republican, and the few other streams that contained water,
and when the thirsty animals came to drink they were attacked and driven
away, and with the most fiendish persistency kept from slaking their
thirst, so that they would again be compelled to seek the river and come
within range of the deadly breech-loaders. Colonel Dodge declares that
in places favorable to such warfare, as the south bank of the Platte, a
herd of buffalo has, by shooting at it by day and by lighting fires and
firing guns at night, been kept from water until it has been entirely
destroyed. In the autumn of 1873, when Mr. William Blackmore traveled
for some 30 or 40 miles along the north bank of the Arkansas River to
the east of Port Dodge, "there was a continuous line of putrescent
carcasses, so that the air was rendered pestilential and offensive to
the last degree. The hunters had formed a line of camps along the banks
of the river, and had shot down the buffalo, night and morning, as they
came to drink. In order to give an idea of the number of these
carcasses, it is only necessary to mention that I counted sixty-seven on
one spot not covering 4 acres."
White hunters were not allowed to hunt in the Indian Territory, but the
southern boundary of the State of Kansas was picketed by them, and a
herd no sooner crossed the line going north than it was destroyed. Every
water-hole was guarded by a camp of hunters, and whenever a thirsty herd
approached, it was promptly met by rifle-bullets.
During this entire period the slaughter of buffaloes was universal. The
man who desired buffalo meat for food almost invariably killed five
times as many animals as he could utilize, and after cutting from each
victim its very choicest parts--the _tongue alone_, possibly, or perhaps
the hump and hind quarters, one or the other, or both--fully four-fifths
of the really edible portion of the carcass would be left to the wolves.
It was no uncommon thing for a man to bring in two barrels of salted
buffalo tongues, without another pound of meat or a solitary robe. The
tongues were purchased at 25 cents each and sold in the markets farther
east at 50 cents. In those days of criminal wastefulness it was a very
common thing for buffaloes to be slaughtered for their tongues alone.
Mr. George Catlin[65] relates that a few days previous to his arrival at
the mouth of the Tetón River (Dakota), in 1832, "an immense herd of
buffaloes had showed themselves on the opposite side of the river,"
whereupon a party of five or six hundred Sioux Indians on horseback
forded the river, attacked the herd, recrossed the river about sunset,
and came into the fort with fourteen hundred fresh buffalo tongues,
which were thrown down in a mass, and for which they required only a few
gallons of whisky, which was soon consumed in "a little harmless
carouse." Mr. Catlin states that from all that he could learn not a skin
or a pound of meat, other than the tongues, was saved after this awful
slaughter.
[Note 65: North American Indians, I, 256.]
Judging from all accounts, it is making a safe estimate to say that
probably no fewer than fifty thousand buffaloes have been killed for
their tongues alone, and the most of these are undoubtedly chargeable
against white men, who ought to have known better.