CHAPTER XXIX. THE BUFFALO
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.”
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.
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.
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.