|
|
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."
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. Putrefying 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
Catlin65 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, re-crossed 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.
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.
A great deal has been said about the slaughter of buffaloes by
foreign sportsmen, particularly Englishmen; but I must say that,
from all that can be ascertained on this point, this element of
destruction has been greatly exaggerated and overestimated. It is
true that every English sportsman who visited this country in the
days of the buffalo always resolved to have, and did have, "a
buffalo hunt," and usually under the auspices of United States Army
officers. Undoubtedly these parties did kill hundreds of buffaloes,
but it is very doubtful whether the aggregate of the number slain by
foreign sportsmen would run up higher than ten thousand. Indeed, for
myself, I am well convinced that there are many old ex-still-hunters
yet living, each of whom is accountable for a greater number of
victims than all buffaloes killed by foreign sportsmen would make
added together. The professional butchers were very much given to
crying out against "them English lords," and holding up their hands
in holy horror at buffaloes killed by them for their heads, instead
of for hides to sell at a dollar apiece; but it is due the American
public to say that all this outcry was received at its true value
and deceived very few. By those in possession of the facts it was
recognized as "a blind," to divert public opinion from the real
culprits.
Nevertheless it is very true that many men who were properly classed
as sportsmen, in contradistinction from the pot-hunters, did engage
in useless and inexcusable slaughter to an extent that was highly
reprehensible, to say the least. A sportsman is not supposed to kill
game wantonly, when it can be of no possible use to himself or any
one else, but a great many do it for all that. Indeed, the sportsman
who kills sparingly and conscientiously is rather the exception than
the rule. Colonel Dodge thus refers to the work of some foreign
sportsmen:
"In the fall of that year [1872] three English gentlemen went out
with me for a short hunt, and in their excitement bagged more
buffalo than would have supplied a brigade." As a general thing,
however, the professional sportsmen who went out to have a buffalo
hunt for the excitement of the chase and the trophies it yielded,
nearly always found the bison so easy a victim, and one whose
capture brought so little glory to the hunter, that the chase was
voted very disappointing, and soon abandoned in favor of nobler
game. In those days there was no more to boast of in killing a
buffalo than in the assassination of a Texas steer.
It was, then, the hide-hunters, white and red, but especially
white, who wiped out the great southern herd in four short years.
The prices received for hides varied considerably, according to
circumstances, but for the green or undressed article it usually
ranged from 50 cents for the skins of calves to $1.25 for those of
adult animals in good condition. Such prices seem ridiculously
small, but when it is remembered that, when buffaloes were plentiful
it was no uncommon thing for a hunter to kill from forty to sixty
head in a day, it will readily be seen that the chances of making
very handsome profits were sufficient to tempt hunters to make
extraordinary exertions. Moreover, even when the buffaloes were
nearly gone, the country was overrun with men who had absolutely
nothing else to look to as a means of livelihood, and so, no matter
whether the profits were great or small, so long as enough buffaloes
remained to make it possible to get a living by their pursuit, they
were hunted down with the most determined persistency and
pertinacity.
Statistics
of the slaughter.
The most careful and reliable estimate ever
made of results of the slaughter of the southern buffalo herd is
that of Col. Richard Irving Dodge, and it is the only one I know of
which furnishes a good index of the former size of that herd.
Inasmuch as this calculation was based on actual statistics,
supplemented by personal observations and inquiries made in that
region during the great slaughter, I can do no better than to quote
Colonel Dodge almost in full.66
The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé Railroad furnished the
following statistics of the buffalo product carried by it during the
years 1872, 1873, and 1874:
Buffalo product.
| Year |
No. of skins carried |
Meat carried |
Bone carried |
| |
|
Pounds |
Pounds |
| 1872 |
165,721 |
|
1,135,300 |
| 1873 |
251,443 |
1,617,600 |
2,743,100 |
| 1874 |
42,289 |
632,800 |
6,914,950 |
| Total |
459,453 |
2,250,400 |
10,793,350 |
The officials of the Kansas Pacific and Union Pacific railroads
either could not or would not furnish any statistics of the amount
of the buffalo product carried by their lines during this period,
and it became necessary to proceed without the actual figures in
both cases. Inasmuch as the Kansas Pacific road cuts through a
portion of the buffalo country which was in every respect as thickly
inhabited by those animals as the region traversed by the Atchison,
Topeka and Santa Fé, it seemed absolutely certain that the former
road hauled out fully as many hides as the latter, if not more, and
its quota is so set down. The Union Pacific line handled a much
smaller number of buffalo hides than either of its southern rivals,
but Colonel Dodge believes that this, "with the smaller roads which
touch the buffalo region, taken together, carried about as much as
either of the two principal buffalo roads."
Colonel Dodge considers it reasonably certain that the statistics
furnished by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé road represent only
one-third of the entire buffalo product, and there certainly appears
to be good ground for this belief. It is therefore in order to base
further calculations upon these figures.
According to evidence gathered on the spot by Colonel Dodge during
the period of the great slaughter, one hide sent to market in 1872
represented three dead buffaloes, in 1873 two, and in 1874 one
hundred skins delivered represented one hundred and twenty-five dead
animals. The total slaughter by white men was therefore about as
below:
| Year |
Hides shipped by A., T. and S F. railway |
Hides shipped by other roads, same
period (estimated) |
Total number of buffaloes utilized |
Total number killed and wasted |
Total of buffaloes slaughtered by whites |
| 1872 |
165,721 |
331,442 |
497,163 |
994,326 |
1,491,489 |
| 1873 |
251,443 |
502,886 |
754,329 |
754,329 |
1,508,658 |
| 1874 |
42,289 |
84,578 |
126,867 |
31,716 |
158,583 |
| Total |
459,453 |
918,906 |
1,378,359 |
1,780,481 |
3,158,730 |
During all this time the Indians of all tribes within striking
distance of the herds killed an immense number of buffaloes every
year. In the summer they killed for the hairless hides to use for
lodges and for leather, and in the autumn they slaughtered for robes
and meat, but particularly robes, which were all they could offer
the white trader in exchange for his goods. They were too lazy and
shiftless to cure much buffalo meat, and besides it was not
necessary, for the Government fed them. In regard to the number of
buffaloes of the southern herd killed by the Indians, Colonel Dodge
arrives at an estimate, as follows:
"It is much more difficult to estimate the number of dead buffalo
represented by the Indian-tanned skins or robes sent to market. This
number varies with the different tribes, and their greater or less
contact with the whites. Thus, the Cheyenne, Arapahoe, and Kiowa of
the southern plains, having less contact with whites, use skins for
their lodges, clothing, bedding, par-fléches, saddles, lariats, for
almost everything. The number of robes sent to market represent only
what we may call the foreign exchange of these tribes, and is really
not more than one-tenth of the skins taken. To be well within bounds
I will assume that one robe sent to market by these Indians
represents six dead buffaloes.
"Those bands of Sioux who live at the agencies, and whose peltries
are taken to market by the Union Pacific Railroad, live in lodges of
cotton cloth furnished by the Indian Bureau. They use much civilized
clothing, bedding, boxes, ropes, etc. For these luxuries they must
pay in robes, and as the buffalo range is far from wide, and their
yearly 'crop' small, more than half of it goes to market."
Leaving out of the account at this point all consideration of the
killing done north of the Union Pacific Railroad, Colonel Dodge's
figures are as follows:
Southern buffaloes slaughtered by southern Indians.
| Indians |
Sent to market |
No. of dead buffaloes represented |
| Kiowa, Comanche, Cheyenne, Arapahoe, and other
Indians whose robes go over the Atchison, Topeka and
Santa Fé Railroad |
19,000 |
114,000 |
| Sioux at agencies, Union Pacific Railroad |
10,000 |
16,000 |
| Total slaughtered per annum |
29,000 |
130,000 |
| Total for the three years 1872-1874 |
|
390,000 |
Reference has already been made to the fact that during those
years an immense number of buffaloes were killed by the farmers of
eastern Kansas and Nebraska for their meat. Mr. William Mitchell, of
Wabaunsee, Kansas, stated to the writer that "in those days, when
buffaloes were plentiful in western Kansas, pretty much everybody
made a trip West in the fall and brought back a load of buffalo
meat. Everybody had it in abundance as long as buffaloes remained in
any considerable number. Very few skins were saved; in fact, hardly
any, for the reason that nobody knew how to tan them, and they
always spoiled. At first a great many farmers tried to dress the
green hides that they brought back, but they could not succeed, and
finally gave up trying. Of course, a great deal of the meat killed
was wasted, for only the best parts were brought back."
The Wichita (Kansas) World of February 9, 1889, contains the
following reference:
| "In 1871 and 1872 the buffalo ranged within 10 miles
of Wichita, and could be counted by the thousands. The
town, then in its infancy, was the headquarters for a
vast number of buffalo-hunters, who plied their
occupation vigorously during the winter. The buffalo
were killed [Pg 501] principally for their hides, and
daily wagon trains arrived in town loaded with them.
Meat was very cheap in those days; fine, tender buffalo
steak selling from 1 to 2 cents per pound. The
business was quite profitable for a time, but a sudden
drop in the price of hides brought them down as low as
25 and 50 cents each. It was a very common thing
in those days for people living in Wichita to start out
in the morning and return by evening with a wagon load
of buffalo meat." |
Unquestionably a great many thousand buffaloes were killed
annually by the settlers of Kansas, Nebraska, Texas, New Mexico, and
Colorado, and the mountain Indians living west of the great range.
The number so slain can only be guessed at, for there is absolutely
no data on which to found an estimate. Judging merely from the
number of people within reach of the range, it may safely be
estimated that the total number of buffaloes slaughtered annually to
satisfy the wants of this heterogeneous element could not have been
less than fifty thousand, and probably was a much higher number.
This, for the three years, would make one hundred and fifty
thousand, and the grand total would therefore be about as follows:
The slaughter of the southern herd.
| Killed by "professional" white hunters in 1872,
1873, and 1874 |
3,158,730 |
| Killed by Indians, same period |
390,000 |
| Killed by settlers and mountain Indians |
150,000 |
| Total slaughter in three years 3,098,730 |
|
These figures seem incredible, but unfortunately there is not the
slightest reason for believing they are too high. There are many men
now living who declare that during the great slaughter they each
killed from twenty-five hundred to three thousand buffaloes every
year. With thousands of hunters on the range, and such possibilities
of slaughter before each, it is, after all, no wonder that an
average of nearly a million and a quarter of buffaloes fell each
year during that bloody period.
By the close of the hunting season of 1875 the great southern herd
had ceased to exist. As a body, it had been utterly annihilated. The
main body of the survivors, numbering about ten thousand head, fled
southwest, and dispersed through that great tract of wild, desolate,
and inhospitable country stretching southward from the Cimarron
country across the "Public Land Strip," the Pan-handle of Texas, and
the Llano Estacado, or Staked Plain, to the Pecos River. A few small
bands of stragglers maintained a precarious existence for a few
years longer on the headwaters of the Republican River and in
southwestern Nebraska, near Ogalalla, where calves were caught alive
as late as 1885. Wild buffaloes were seen in southwestern Kansas for
the last time in 1886, and the two or three score of individuals
still living in the Canadian River country of the Texas Panhandle
are the last wild survivors of the great Southern herd.
The main body of the fugitives which survived the great slaughter of
1871-'74 continued to attract hunters who were very "hard up," who
pursued them, often at the risk of their own lives, even into the
terrible Llano Estacado. In Montana in 1886 I met on a cattle ranch
an ex-buffalo-hunter from Texas, named Harry Andrews, who from 1874
to 1876 continued in pursuit of the scattered remnants of the great
southern herd through the Pan-handle of Texas and on into the Staked
Plain itself. By that time the market had become completely
overstocked with robes, and the prices received by Andrews and other
hunters was only 65 cents each for cow robes and $1.15 each for bull
robes, delivered on the range, the purchaser providing for their
transportation to the railway. But even at those prices, which were
so low as to make buffalo killing seem like downright murder, Mr.
Andrews assured me that he "made big money." On one occasion, when
he "got a stand" on a large bunch of buffalo, he fired one hundred
and fifteen shots from one spot, and killed sixty-three buffaloes in
about an hour.
In 1880 buffalo hunting as a business ceased forever in the
Southwest, and so far as can be ascertained, but one successful hunt
for robes has been made in that region since that time. That
occurred in the fall and winter of 1887, about 100 miles north of
Tascosa, Texas, when two parties, one of which was under the
leadership of Lee Howard, attacked the only band of buffaloes left
alive in the Southwest, and which at that time numbered about two
hundred head. The two parties killed fifty-two buffaloes, of which
ten skins were preserved entire for mounting. Of the remaining
forty-two, the heads were cut off and preserved for mounting and the
skins were prepared as robes. The mountable skins were finally sold
at the following prices: Young cows, $50 to $60; adult cows, $75 to
$100; adult bull, $150. The unmounted heads sold as follows: Young
bulls, $25 to $30; adult bulls, $50; young cows, $10 to $12; adult
cows, $15 to $25. A few of the choicest robes sold at $20 each, and
the remainder, a lot of twenty eight, of prime quality and in
excellent condition, were purchased by the Hudson's Bay Fur Company
for $350.
Such was the end of the great southern herd. In 1871 it contained
certainly no fewer than three million buffaloes, and by the
beginning of 1875 its existence as a herd had utterly ceased, and
nothing but scattered, fugitive bands remained.
This site includes some historical
materials that may imply negative stereotypes reflecting the culture or language
of a particular period or place. These items are presented as part of the
historical record and should not be interpreted to mean that the WebMasters in
any way endorse the stereotypes implied.
Source:
The
Extermination of the American Bison,
1886-’87, By William T. Hornaday, Government Printing Office,
Washington, 1889
Extermination of the American Bison
 |
