The Descent of Civilization: The Extermination of the American Buffalo

Written by Christopher W. Czajka
"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." – William T. Hornady, in The Extermination of the American Bison (1889)

In 1889, William T. Hornady, the Superintendent of the National Zoological Park in Washington, DC, wrote a detailed report about the disappearance of the bison, a.k.a. American buffalo, from the North American continent. At the time of Hornady's writing, there were less than 200 bison living in the wild. Five years later, in 1894, the number was believed to be 25.

Comanche Buffalo hunters and their tepee lodges. 1871. Photo courtesy of the National Archives.

It is generally agreed that, ninety years prior to Hornady's writing, more than 60 million bison roamed the plains and prairies of the American West. Most of the bison -- millions upon millions upon millions -- were destroyed between the 1830s and the 1870s.
How did this happen? How could the most dominant animal on the continent be driven to the verge of extinction in the course of forty years?
William T. Hornady had his own theories. The primary reason for the bison's extermination, Hornady maintained, was the "settling" and "civilizing" of the bison's habitat. The secondary causes could 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 inexcusable absence of protective measures and agencies on the part of the national government and of the Western states and territories, 3) The fatal preference 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, and 5) the perfection of modern breech-loading rifles and other sporting fire-arms in general."
Though greed, ignorance, technology, and stupidity all certainly played a part in the destruction of the buffalo, the cause of their near-demise was a relentless, swirling combination of economic, environmental, and cultural factors that resulted from the meeting of two societies: that of the Plains Indians, and that of European explorers and, later, American settlers.
American bison originally ranged from modern-day Nevada and Oregon in the west, to Tennessee and Pennsylvania in the east. The immense herds -- which could comprise tens of thousands of animals -- could cover the land as far as the eye could see. Prior to European colonization and American settlement, the bison population was limited only by environmental factors, such as droughts, prairie fires, and predation by wolves, and the limited hunting efforts of native tribes. Before the introduction of horses and firearms by Europeans, American Indians hunted bison by stampeding them over cliffs, or "buffalo jumps." Since the bison followed no particular migratory patterns, and therefore could not be counted on as a consistent source of food, most tribes adopted an economy that combined both hunting and agriculture.


Blackfoot Indians chasing buffalo, Three Buttes, Montana. 1855. Photo courtesy of the National Archive.

The introduction of horses to the North American continent by European explorers in the late 17th century transformed the lives and societies of many Plains Indian tribes. Indians abandoned their settled existence, and began to live as nomads, following the buffalo herds wherever they went. Bison hunting on horseback proved far more efficient than the Indians' prior methods, but it quickly made the nomadic tribes dependent on bison for their very survival. The introduction of firearms not only yielded greater kills during buffalo hunts, but it deepened Indians' dependence on both the buffalo and the Europeans.
With the arrival of Europeans and, later, Americans, various Plains tribes began to engage in the fur trade. While Indians had previously used all the parts of the bison they slaughtered -- from the meat and skin to the hooves, bones, and organs -- the fur trade made it profitable to kill bison solely for those parts valued by traders: the robe and the tongue. Additionally, explorers and settlers noticed that the Indians were not always moderate in their hunting activities outside of the fur trade. An early French explorer wrote of the Crow Indians in 1804, "It is amazing what numbers of Buffaloes they destroy. When hunting, they take but the fattest and cut part of an animal, and [leave] the rest."

Fanny Kelly, who lived in the captivity of the Oglala Sioux, noted, "The Indians often, for the mere sport, make an onslaught, killing great numbers of [the buffalo], and having a plentiful feast of 'tatonka,' as they call buffalo meat. Each man selects the part of the animal he has killed that best suits his own taste, and leaves the rest to decay or be eaten by wolves, thus wasting their own game."
The wanton killing of bison by some Indians, however, would soon be overshadowed by the irreversible impact of American settlers.
With the opening of the Oregon Trail in the 1840s, steady streams of settlers began encroaching on the buffalo's habitat. While the shooting of bison for sport by settlers certainly had an effect on the population, the emigrants' livestock took an even greater toll. Oxen and horses devoured grasses for miles on both sides of the trail, destroying grazing lands for many northern Plains herds. Simultaneously, settlers' livestock introduced new diseases to the Plains, which often proved fatal for buffalo. As steamboats began to make their way onto the Missouri and other rivers of the Plains, thousands of trees were felled for firewood, ruining the bison's winter habitats.
Still, it seemed to many settlers that there was no end to the number of buffalo on the Plains. William T. Hornady wrote,
"[The bison] lived and moved as no other great quadrupeds ever have, in great multitudes, like grand armies in review, covering scores of square miles at once. They were so numerous they frequently stopped boats in rivers, threatened to overwhelm travelers on the Plains, and in later years derailed locomotives and cars, until railroad engineers learned by experience the wisdom of stopping their trains whenever there were buffaloes crossing the track."
While the fur trade, steamboats, railroads, Indians, and settlers were having an impact on the bison, the environment itself may have played a significant role in their destruction. Periods of drought and some extremely cold winters in the mid-nineteenth century could also have hampered the bison's natural population increase.

In the 1870s, buffalo robes became fashionable, and industrialists discovered that buffalo hides could be used for machine belts. The destruction of the bison gathered speed as dealers used the nation's expanding railroads to transport the hides to market. Railroads were particularly interested in disposing of bison; the enormous herds delayed trains, and frequently destroyed huge sections of track. Several railroads offered "hunting specials" across the Plains to their customers; passengers were welcome to shoot as many bison as they possibly could from the comfort of their train car. After a particularly good summer of "hunting specials" in the 1870s, several railroads had to cancel the excursions for a time because the smell from the rotting carcasses on either side of the tracks was so nauseating to passengers.
The number of bison being killed for sport and for profit was astronomical; in 1874, the editor of a Dodge City newspaper wrote, "It is no uncommon thing to find sixty to eighty thousand buffalo robes and hides in the train yard on any given day."
While the Federal government never officially sanctioned a policy regarding deliberate destruction of buffalo, there were many who noted that the elimination of the buffalo would also lead to the elimination of the "Indian problem." In 1874, the Secretary of the Interior stated, "The buffalo are disappearing rapidly, but not faster than I desire. I regard the destruction of such game as Indians subsist upon as facilitating the policy of the government, of destroying their hunting habits, coercing them on reservations, and compelling them to begin to adopt the habits of civilization."

Similarly, Senator James Throckmorton of Texas reasoned, "It would be a great step forward in the civilization of the Indians and the preservation of peace on the [frontier] if there was not a buffalo in existence."
Throckmorton's wish was very nearly realized. By the 1880s, the number of buffalo on the Plains dropped off dramatically. In 1882, nearly 200,000 buffalo hides were shipped East from Dakota Territory. One year later, the number had dropped to 40,000. In 1884, the hides from Dakota bison barely filled a single freight car. In 1883, the last two major herds are believed to have been killed on the Northern Plains, one by Sitting Bull's Sioux and the other by white hunters. At the same time, it was estimated that there were 500,000 cattle grazing on the bison's former habitat in Eastern Montana alone.
The evidence of the buffalo's reign on the prairies was evident for years afterward. A.M. Bede, a judge from North Dakota, wrote that "The country out here looked like a charnel house with so many skulls staring at a man, and so many bones that newcomers felt nervous, and in some cases, could hardly plow the land."
After a century of belated protective measures and conservation efforts, an estimated 150,000 bison currently live in the United States, in public and private herds.

Works Consulted
Hornady, William T. THE EXTERMINATION OF THE AMERICAN BISON.
Hoxie, Frederick E. PARADING THROUGH HISTORY: THE MAKING OF THE CROW NATION IN AMERICA 1805-1935. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Ward, Geoffrey C. THE WEST: AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY. Boston: Little, Brown, 1996.
Isenberg, Andrew C. THE DESTRUCTION OF THE BISON. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/frontierhouse/frontierlife/essay8_3.html