The American bison, commonly called the buffalo, occupied an extended
area of the United States in ancient times. About 1850, the range of the
buffalo extended from the Red River valley, Manitoba, to central Texas;
through western and central Minnesota and as far west as the arid plains
of Colorado, and to near the headwaters of the Missouri River in the
Northwest. As settlers pushed west of the Mississippi, the buffalo
disappeared from eastern Nebraska, Missouri and western Arkansas. The
animal does not appear to have ranged in eastern Arkansas or Louisiana,
preferring the portion of the country known as the Great Plains, and the
entire Missouri River valley. In the later sixties, when the Union
Pacific Railroad was built westward, hundreds of hunters were enabled to
ship East unnumbered thousands of robes and great quantities of meat.
The herds were further restricted, and by 1885, the buffalo almost
entirely disappeared.
Of the numbers of these animals, none of the authorities seem to agree.
Robert M. Wright of Dodge City, Kansas, one of the earliest pioneers,
recently published a book entitled “Dodge City, the Cowboy Capital.” He
gives the estimates prepared by men living at the time, as to the number
of buffalo. I present his remarks at some length as indicative of the
difference of opinion even among those familiar with the Great Plains,
of their numerical extent. It is safe to assume, however, that there
were between 25,000,000 and 50,000,000 buffalo in the West in the year
1850.
“I wish here to assert a few facts concerning game, and animal life in
general, in early days, in the vicinity of Fort Dodge and Dodge
City.[54] There were wonderful herds of buffalo, antelope, deer, elk,
and wild horses, big gray wolves and coyotes by the thousand, hundreds
of the latter frequently being seen in bands and often from ten to fifty
gray wolves in a bunch. There were also black and cinnamon bears,
wildcats and mountain lions, though these latter were scarce and seldom
seen so far from the mountains. General Sheridan and Major Inman were
occupying my office at Fort Dodge one night, having just made a trip
from Fort Supply, and called me in to consult as to how many buffaloes
there were between Dodge and Supply. Taking a strip fifty miles east and
fifty miles west, they had first estimated it ten billion. General
Sheridan said, ‘That won’t do.’ They figured it again, and made it one
billion. Finally they reached the conclusion that there must be one
hundred million; but said, they were afraid to give out these figures;
nevertheless they believed them. This vast herd moved slowly toward the
north when spring opened, and moved steadily back again from the north
when the grass began to grow short, and winter was setting in.
“Horace Greeley estimated the number of buffaloes at five million. I
agree with him, only I think there were nearly five times that number.
Mr. Greeley passed through herds of them twice. I lived in the heart of
the buffalo range for nearly fifteen years. I am told that some recent
writer, who has studied the buffalo closely, has placed their number at
ninety million, and I think that he is nearer right than I. Brick Bond,
a resident of Dodge, an old, experienced hunter, a great shot, a man of
considerable intelligence and judgment, and a most reliable man as to
truthfulness, says that he killed 1500 buffaloes in seven days, and his
highest killing was 250 in one day; and he had to be on the lookout for
hostile Indians all the time. He had fifteen “skinners,” and he was only
one of many hunters.
“Charles Rath and I shipped over 200,000 buffalo hides the first winter
the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad reached Dodge City, and I
think there were at least as many more shipped from there, besides 200
cars of hind-quarters and two cars of buffalo tongues.”
A Kansas newspaper (_Dodge City Times_, August 18th, 1877) remarks:
“Dickinson County has a buffalo hunter by the name of Mr. Warnock, who
has killed as high as 658 in one winter.—_Edwards County Leader._
“Oh, dear, what a mighty hunter! Ford County has twenty men who each
have killed five times that many in one winter. The best on record,
however, is that of Tom Nickson, who killed 120 at one stand in forty
minutes, and who, from the 15th of September to the 20th of October,
killed 2,173 buffaloes.”
Colonel Richard I. Dodge, who spent thirty years on the Plains,
commenting in 1880 on the value of the buffalo to the Indian, says:
“It is almost impossible for a civilized being to realize the value to
the Plains Indians of the buffalo. It furnished him with home, food,
clothing, bedding, house equipment, almost everything. Without it he is
poor as poverty itself, and on the verge of starvation.
“Some years, as in 1871, the buffalo appeared to move northward in one
immense column, oftentimes from twenty to fifty miles in width, and of
unknown depth from front to rear. Other years the northward journey was
made in several parallel columns, moving at the same rate and with their
numerous flankers covering a width of a hundred or more miles.
“During the three years 1872–73–74, at least five millions of buffaloes
were slaughtered for their hides.
“This slaughter was all in violation of law, and in contravention of
solemn treaties made with the Indians, but it was the duty of no special
person to put a stop to it. The Indian Bureau made a feeble effort to
keep the white hunters out of Indian Territory, but soon gave it up, and
these parties spread all over the country, slaughtering the buffalo
under the very noses of the Indians.
“Ten years ago the Plains Indians had an ample supply of food, and could
support life comfortably without the assistance of the Government. Now
everything is gone, and they are reduced to the condition of paupers,
without food, shelter, clothing, or any of those necessaries of life
which came from the buffalo; and without friends, except the harpies,
who, under the guise of friendship, feed upon them.”
The first trains on the Union Pacific Railway were frequently compelled
to stop for one or two days until these immense herds had crossed the
tracks. The Missouri River has been known to be filled with buffalo
swimming across; a boat descending or ascending the river was compelled
to wait a day or two for the herds to pass. Unnumbered thousands were
drowned at the time of these crossings. Prairie fires must have
destroyed multitudes of these animals.
The American bison was very easily approached and killed, and a careful
reading of the accounts of buffalo-hunts indicates that there was about
as much real sport in the slaughter of these animals as in killing
domesticated cattle. In fact, the long-horned Texas steer such as used
to range the Southwest forty years ago, would probably afford more sport
to men engaged in a “running hunt,” than the buffalo. The latter were
heavy, ponderous animals and save when stampeded, could be shot down
from ambush. An “oldtimer”, long on the Plains, told me that he
frequently killed from fifty to seventy-five buffalo from one stand. He
would secret himself on a little bluff, overlooking a ravine where the
grass was exceptionally good, and from this vantage-point, using a heavy
Sharpes rifle, he shot down one after another. He stated that the bulls
would walk up to a fallen animal, smell of the blood, paw the dirt, and
perhaps bellow a little, but until the animals got scent of him, they
would not move away. Professor William T. Hornaday in the United States
National Museum Reports for 1887 and 1889 has given an extended account
of the buffalo and its destruction. Catlin has presented us, in earlier
years, of a stirring account of a buffalo-hunt. Coming down to later
times, General Custer, Colonel William F. Cody and others have pictured
the excitement of the buffalo-chase. Colonel Cody, in fifteen months,
according to his own admission, slaughtered 4280.[55] He thus obtained
the name “Buffalo Bill.”
[Illustration:
UNITED STATES CAVALRY ATTACKING BLACK KETTLE’S VILLAGE ON THE WASHITA,
NOVEMBER 27, 1868
Black Kettle was killed in the fight. Reproduced from Col. Dodge’s
“Our Wild Indians”
]
The senseless slaughter of this magnificent creature by thousands of
hunters, frontiersmen, Bills and Dicks, and others between 1850 and
1880, soon brought about the near extinction of the species. A few were
saved by Messrs. Allard and Conrad of Montana, the Canadian Government,
our own Government, Colonel W. A. Jones (Buffalo Jones) and others. The
late Senator Corbin secured a number of animals and shipped them to New
Hampshire where a tract of several thousand acres was set aside as a
park. All of these herds increased, and at the present time in the
United States and Canada there must be nearly, if not quite, 1500 head.
Thus the species is preserved. The Government had great difficulty in
preventing poachers in Yellowstone Park from slaughtering the animals,
and in the early nineties there were very few animals left alive. Public
opinion has been aroused to the necessity of preserving this typically
American animal, and it is now certain that the species will not become
extinct.
Buffalo Bill, not content with his records of “big killings”, took
numbers of bison East during the ’80’s. Of these, twenty fine specimens
died of pleuro-pneumonia while his show was at Madison Square Garden,
New York City, during the winter of 1886–’87. The last survivors of this
magnificent creature were hauled about the country and exhibited before
gaping crowds. At Newark, Ohio, in the early ’80’s, when a boy I
attended Buffalo Bill’s “Wild West Show”. I shall ever remember my
sensations when witnessing the “grand buffalo hunt”. Three or four poor,
old, scarred bison were driven into the fair-ground enclosure by some
whooping cow-punchers. Buffalo Bill himself dashed up alongside the
lumbering animals and from a Winchester repeater discharged numerous
“blanks” into the already powder-burned sides of the helpless creatures.
The crowd roared with appreciation, and as the cow-punchers pursued, and
rounded up the hapless bison before the grandstand, Buffalo Bill reined
in his steed, and spurring the horse (so he would prance), bowed right
and left.
Professor Hornady’s report, together with other information, indicates
that enough buffalo were carted about the East to have formed a very
respectable herd—had they been permitted to remain in some favored spot
in the buffalo country.
The killing of the buffalo furnished employment for the type of men who
usually flock to any frontier. There was more or less excitement in the
chase, the animals were absolutely defenseless, the hides and meat could
be sold. But for the hostility of the Plains tribes, the buffalo would
long ago have disappeared. But when the Sioux, Pawnee, Cheyenne,
Arapaho, Kiowa, Omaha and others saw that the Whites would destroy their
means of sustenance, they inaugurated a campaign of hostility throughout
the Great Plains and the Upper Missouri country, against the Whites.
Certain communities where a large number of fearless men were assembled
(such as Dodge City, Kansas,) became headquarters for the hunters, but
the ranging of hunting parties throughout the entire West was
restricted. This delayed the destruction of the buffalo. As I have
stated, the coming of the railroad, and the subsequent building of other
railroads, and steamboat navigation upon the Missouri, brought about
curtailment of Indian activities and the ultimate destruction of the
buffalo. I present a drawing from Wright’s book in which are exhibited
upwards of 40,000 buffalo hides stacked up in the corral at Dodge
City.[56] This was in 1876. So many hides were shipped to the eastern
market that the price fell to a dollar. Unnumbered thousands were sold
at $1.25. I entered a furrier’s store in Boston last winter and saw
three buffalo robes offered for sale. The ordinary one was $75, another
one was $100, and an extra fine robe was priced at $150. A few live
buffalo were recently sold and the price was, I have been told, $1,000
each.
The hide-hunters killed the animal for the robe, as the name implies,
and left the carcass to rot. Sometimes men took neither the hides nor
the tongues, but killed for the mere pleasure of slaughtering.
It is not at all difficult for us to reconstruct the “good old buffalo
days” among any of the tribes, from the Comanches of Texas to the Sioux
of Minnesota. Many of the Indian bands followed the buffalo in its
annual migration north or south, killing such of the animals as were
needed for use and permitting the greater number to escape. There is no
authentic account of early Indians slaughtering to satisfy a craving for
blood. Indians sometimes killed enemies for the sheer love of slaughter,
but the buffalo was not an enemy. Having obtained sufficient meat or
hides, they simply quit, for they had not become “civilized”.
Let us imagine some village of the period between 1850 and 1865. There
are numerous accounts of such, and we need read few of them to form an
accurate, though composite picture. The camp is located in some favorite
spot. Young men, out upon a scout, observe the approach of a great herd,
and, lashing their ponies, speed back home with the welcome news. All is
excitement in the village some twenty miles to the east. Immediately the
village crier gallops from one end of the encampment to the other
announcing that a buffalo dance is to be held that night. Everybody
prepares for the festive occasion; the shamans make their medicine; the
buffalo dance paraphernalia is brought out, and until early morning
hours the dance continues.
Great merriment is caused when the better dancers try to outdo each
other. Much feasting follows—for are they not soon to possess an
abundance of meat? An old shaman appears; the dancers pause; he informs
them that his medicine is “good.” No enemies are near; the dreadful
white hunters are not at hand; every lodge will secure at least three
buffalo. Therefore, all must prepare and be ready to begin the hunt at
daybreak.
Shortly after sunrise a large portion of the Indians mounted on their
most reliable “buffalo horses” (which have been trained to skillfully
avoid the rushes of the bulls) pursue the herd. Each man selects a
well-proportioned beast, and with rifle, arrow or lance, he brings him
down.
Now, hunting buffalo with the lance, or bow and arrow, was sport. The
use of a rifle required no skill. With the lance, the hunter must ride
up close, thrust the lance in and swing his pony suddenly to avoid the
charge of any belligerent bull. The steel-pointed arrows must be shot at
close range, and when the beast was “on the jump”, in order that the
arrow penetrate between the ribs to a vital part. Much of the arrow’s
force was lost, if it struck a rib. Hence, great skill on the hunter’s
part was required. He must shoot or thrust at the proper moment. This
was true sport—just the opposite of still hunting, the favorite pastime
of the pot-and-hide hunters; far more exciting than the work of such men
as Buffalo Bill, who killed in order to make “big records”. When Indians
hunted, the women and children and older men followed along in the wake
of the advance party, removed the hides and cut up the meat.
Or, if the herd is a small one, it is surrounded by a large number of
horsemen and forced to a common center. “Milling”, the old frontiersmen
used to call it. Indians ride furiously around the herd, making much
noise, and the animals seeking to escape, crowd toward the center of the
circle. Buffalo were often maimed or crushed as a result of this style
of hunt. It afforded the Indians opportunity to shoot down a large
number of animals before the buffalo ceased “milling” and fled in
various directions.
Again, small herds were run over precipices, or into ravines having
steep sides. Sometimes they were pursued to the banks of the Missouri
River and shot while swimming.
Often from a village small parties of young men would go out on informal
hunts, preceding which there was no special ceremony such as the buffalo
dance. But as a rule, the hunts were more or less ceremonial affairs, or
at least preceded by certain rites. The introduction of the Sharpes
rifle, and later the Winchester, among the Indians, changed this style
of hunt and many of the Indians followed the example of the white men
and hunted individually, or in small groups, rather than tribally.
[Illustration:
THE HIDE HUNTER
]
Miss Alice C. Fletcher is considered an authority upon the Omaha and
related tribes. Of the buffalo she says:—
“Tribal regulations controlled the cutting up of the animal and the
distribution of the parts. The skin and certain parts of the carcass
belonged to the man who had slain the buffalo; the remainder was divided
according to certain fixed rules among the helpers, which afforded an
opportunity for the poor and disabled to procure food. Butchering was
generally done by men on the field, each man’s portion being taken to
his tent and given to the women as their property.
“The buffalo was hunted in the winter by small, independent but
organized parties, not subject to the ceremonial exactions of the tribal
hunt. The pelts secured at this time were for bedding and for garments
of extra weight and warmth. The texture of the buffalo hide did not
admit of fine dressing, hence was used for coarse clothing, moccasins,
tent covers, parfleche cases, and other articles. The hide of the heifer
killed in the fall or early winter made the finest robe.
“The buffalo was supposed to be the instructor of doctors who dealt with
the treatment of wounds, teaching them in dreams where to find healing
plants and the manner of their use. The multifarious benefits derived
from the animal brought the buffalo into close touch with the people. It
figured as a gentile totem, its appearance and movements were referred
to in gentile names, its habits gave designations to the months, and it
became the symbol of the leader and the type of long life and plenty;
ceremonies were held in its honor, myths recounted its creation, and its
folk-tales delighted old and young.”[57]
There were many separate uses to which the entire buffalo carcass was
put. I have grouped them thus:—
FLESH
Ordinary food
Dried for winter
use
Mixed (pounded)
with other foods
HIDE
House
Bedding
Lariat
Trunk
Boat
Garments
Leggins
Footwear
BONES
Shovels of shoulder-blades
Grooved adzes
Scrapers
Flint-chippers
Spoons
Needles
Awls, etc.
Skull for ceremonies
Hoof-points for rattles
HORNS
Ornaments
Cups
Club-heads
SINEWS
Thread
Bow-strings
Ropes
OTHER PARTS
Tallow
Pemmican
Fuel
Bladder (storage)
Hair (Stuffings)
It will thus be seen that he meant to many of the Plains tribes their
very existence. The destruction of the buffalo meant the destruction of
all. Indian chiefs were quick to foresee that if indiscriminate
slaughter on the part of white people continued, the power of the Indian
as a race was doomed. That is, of the Plains or “Horse” tribes. Our own
army officers also were aware of this fact, and Custer, Miles, Sherman,
Crook and others have stated in their reports that in order to bring the
Plains Indians into subjection and control them on reservations, it was
necessary to destroy the American bison. All the prominent Sioux,
Cheyenne and other chiefs inspired their followers to continue the war
against the white people, using as an incentive the phrase—“They are
destroying the Indians’ means of livelihood.” Speeches of this character
were always made in councils, or preceding war dances, and never failed
to rouse a militant spirit.
As the Indians became settled on reservations and attempted to provide
themselves with meat, robes, dwellings, etc., as formerly, they
experienced great difficulty on account of the scarcity of the buffalo.
It was very natural, therefore, for them to turn to the authorities at
Washington for support, since the authorities had permitted the
hide-hunters, frontiersmen and numerous persons who flocked to the
frontier at the close of the Civil War, to engage in lawless acts. These
Indians were not agriculturalists, and yet they had always supported
themselves. Their inter-tribal wars, while at some times serious, never
resulted in the total destruction of a large band. In fact, too much has
been made of the wars between the Crows and the Sioux, or the Ojibwa and
the Sioux, or those between other bands. The existence that they led, in
the good old buffalo days, was to them ideal. And from their point of
view we must admit that they speak truly when they so declare. Many an
old Indian has told me he would rather “take chances on a piece of lead”
in olden times, than live as he does today. The effect of this lawless
element on Indian life has been overlooked by other writers. They have
minimized its pernicious effect. We know they were free from disease,
until white men came among them; they desired nothing further than to be
properly fed, clothed and housed. The destruction of the buffalo put an
end to all of this, and the presence of the military further curtailed
their activities. Hence the reservation and ration system sprang up.
But it seems to me, we have all minimized one great truth. Having
destroyed that which was the very life of these Indians, we should have
given them something in its place. The Indian frequently asked for
stock, but it was not until years afterwards that stock in any numbers
was issued to them. The issue of cattle to the Plains Indians was much
curtailed because of reports from Agents and Superintendents, during the
eighties, that the Indians killed much of this stock for food. All the
Plains tribes were meat-eaters and not vegetarians. We could not expect
them to live where there was no meat available, save their own cattle.
Agriculture was (and among the Sioux, still is) in its infancy.
[Illustration:
CREEK CHURCH AND CAMP-MEETING GROUND NEAR SYLVIAN, OKLAHOMA, 1913
]
A gentleman living in northern Nebraska, who has been familiar with the
Sioux for forty years, writes me on this point as follows:—
“On the spring round-up of the year that Major Clapp left Pine Ridge,
(thirty years ago) these Indians branded over 16,000 calves; and horses
dotted the hills in herds of from fifty to several hundred head each. At
this time there are a few herds of small proportion, and the calves
produced by the entire four counties that originally comprised the
reservation, is numbered by a paltry few hundred.”
What the Government did was to permit the destruction of the buffalo,
corral the Indians, expect them to change from the chase to agriculture,
or, it utterly destroyed their sustenance and commanded:—“Become as
white men,” all within one or two decades. This was, manifestly,
impossible. The ration system was a necessity, not a mere gratuity, as
so many of the writers have maintained. Without a ration system, these
Indians would have starved to death. If large numbers of cattle had been
issued them, and they had been compelled to save a certain portion of
these for breeding purposes, and thus increased their herds, we should
certainly have avoided a great deal of misery.
Be this as it may, it is quite clear that the extinction of the bison
worked a hardship not only to the Indians, but was a great monetary loss
to our own nation. The frontier element responsible should have been
controlled. Canada has not been cursed with the class of Bills and Dicks
who roamed at will the Great Plains in our own country between 1850 and
1880. Canada had, and has, a great many Indians in her northwestern
possessions. Her white population was, numerically, far weaker than our
own between these periods of time. Such a united band as Red Cloud led
against Fort Fetterman in 1866 could have utterly destroyed all the
white settlers in western Canada were the chiefs so inclined. The very
fact that they never attacked the Canadians, and that immediately south
of the boundary between the two countries, bloodshed was rampant from
1850 to 1880, indicates that the Canadian authorities adopted a much
wiser policy than that followed by our easy-going officials at
Washington. If we possessed a mounted police service such as that long
ago established in the Canadian northwest, roving hunters, and
undesirable citizens responsible for most of the Indian wars, could have
been held in check.
As time passes, and men view dispassionately the events of the Plains,
our historians will record that most of the wars had their origin with
ourselves. The Indians never began them.
-----
Footnote 54:
Pages 71–6.
Footnote 55:
U. S. National Museum Report, 1887, page 478.
Footnote 56:
Page 182.
Footnote 57:
Handbook of American Indians. Vol. I, page 169.