The Extermination of the American Bison

by William T. Hornaday

“A great abundance of wild cattle are also found there, which might be domesticated by rearing up the young calves.” Whether these animals were buffaloes might be considered an open question but for the following additional information, which affords positive evidence: “The trade in furs and peltry would be immensely valuable and exceedingly profitable. We could also draw from thence a great quantity of buffalo hides every year, as the plains are filled with the animals.”

In the same volume, page 47, in a document entitled “Annals of Louisiana from 1698 to 1722, by M. Penicaut” (1698), the author records the presence of the buffalo on the Gulf coast on the banks of the Bay St. Louis, as follows: “The next day we left Pea Island, and passed through the Little Rigolets, which led into the sea about three leagues from the Bay of St. Louis. We encamped at the entrance of the bay, near a fountain of water that flows from the hills, and which was called at this time Belle Fountain. We hunted during several days upon the coast of this bay, and filled our boats with the meat of the deer, buffaloes, and other wild game which we had killed, and carried it to the fort (Biloxi).”

The occurrence of the buffalo at Natchez is recorded,[12] and also (p. 115) at the mouth of Red River, as follows: “We ascended the Mississippi to Pass Manchac, where we killed fifteen buffaloes. The next day we landed again, and killed eight more buffaloes and as many deer.”

The presence of the buffalo in the Delta of the Mississippi was observed and recorded by D’Iberville in 1699.[13]

According to Claiborne,[14] the Choctaws have an interesting tradition in regard to the disappearance of the buffalo from Mississippi. It relates that during the early part of the eighteenth century a great drought occurred, which was particularly severe in the prairie region. For three years not a drop of rain fell. The Nowubee and Tombigbee Rivers dried up and the forests perished. The elk and buffalo, which up to that time had been numerous, all migrated to the country beyond the Mississippi, and never returned.

TEXAS.—It will be remembered that it was in southeastern Texas, in all probability within 50 miles of the present city of Houston, that the earliest discovery of the American bison on its native heath was made in 1530 by Cabeza de Vaca, a half-starved, half-naked, and wholly wretched Spaniard, almost the only surviving member of the celebrated expedition which burned its ships behind it. In speaking of the buffalo in Texas at the earliest periods of which we have any historical record, Professor Allen says: “They were also found in immense herds on the coast of Texas, at the Bay of St. Bernard (Matagorda Bay), and on the lower part of the Colorado (Rio Grande, according to some authorities), by La Salle, in 1685, and thence northwards across the Colorado, Brazos, and Trinity Rivers.” Joutel says that when in latitude 28° 51' “the sight of abundance of goats and bullocks, differing in shape from ours, and running along the coast, heightened our earnestness to be ashore.” They afterwards landed in St. Louis Bay (now called Matagorda Bay), where they found buffaloes in such numbers on the Colorado River that they called it La Rivière aux Boeufs.[15] According to Professor Allen, the buffalo did not inhabit the coast of Texas east of the mouth of the Brazos River.

It is a curious coincidence that the State of Texas, wherein the earliest discoveries and observations upon the bison were made, should also now furnish a temporary shelter for one of the last remnants of the great herd.

MEXICO.—In regard to the existence of the bison south of the Rio Grande, in old Mexico, there appears to be but one authority on record, Dr. Berlandier, who at the time of his death left in MS. a work on the mammals of Mexico. At one time this MS. was in the Smithsonian Institution, but it is there no longer, nor is its fate even ascertainable. It is probable that it was burned in the fire that destroyed a portion of the Institution in 1865. Fortunately Professor Allen obtained and published in his monograph (in French) a copy of that portion of Dr. Berlandier’s work relating to the presence of the bison in Mexico,[16] of which the following is a translation:

“In Mexico, when the Spaniards, ever greedy for riches, pushed their explorations to the north and northeast, it was not long before they met with the buffalo. In 1602 the Franciscan monks who discovered Nuevo Leon encountered in the neighborhood of Monterey numerous herds of these quadrupeds. They were also distributed in Nouvelle Biscaye (States of Chihuahua and Durango), and they sometimes advanced to the extreme south of that country. In the eighteenth century they concentrated more and more toward the north, but still remained very abundant in the neighborhood of the province of Bexar. At the commencement of the nineteenth century we see them recede gradually in the interior of the country to such an extent that they became day by day scarcer and scarcer about the settlements. Now, it is not in their periodical migrations that we meet them near Bexar. Every year in the spring, in April or May, they advance toward the north, to return again to the southern regions in September and October. The exact limits of these annual migrations are unknown; it is, however, probable that in the north they never go beyond the banks of the Rio Bravo, at least in the States of Cohahuila and Texas. Toward the north, not being checked by the currents of the Missouri, they progress even as far as Michigan, and they are found in summer in the Territories and interior States of the United States of North America. The route which these animals follow in their migrations occupies a width of several miles, and becomes so marked that, besides the verdure destroyed, one would believe that the fields had been covered with manure.