Latest / Extermination of the American Bison / 021 - Part II Chapter 3 Progress of the Extermination continued

Transcript

021 - Part II Chapter 3 Progress of the Extermination continued · Extermination of the American Bison

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Section twenty of the Extermination of the American Bison. This
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: LibriVox dot org. The Extermination of the American Bison by
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: William T. Hornaday, Part two, Chapter three. Progress of the
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: extermination continued, Section B the period of systematic slaughter from
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: eighteen thirty to eighteen thirty eight. We come now to
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: a history which I would gladly leave unwritten. Its record
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: is a disgrace to the American people in general, and
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: the territorial state and general government in particular. It will
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: cause succeeding generations to regard us as being possessed of
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: the leading characteristics of the savage and the beast of prey, cruelty,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: and greed. We will be likened to the bloodthirsty tiger
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: of the Indian jungle who slaughters a dozen bullocks at
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: wae once when he knows he can eat only one.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: In one respect, at least, the white men who engaged
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: in the systematic slaughter of the bison wore savages just
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: as much as the Piagan Indians, who would drive a
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: whole herd over a precipice to secure a week's rations
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: of meat for a single village. The men who killed
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: buffaloes for their tongues, and those who shot them from
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: the railway trains for sport were murderers. In no way
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: does civilized man so quickly revert to his former state
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: as when he is alone with the beasts of the field.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Give him a gun and something which he may kill
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: without getting himself in trouble, and presto, he is instantly
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: a savage again, finding exquisite delight in bloodshed, slaughter, and death,
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: if not for gain, then solely for the joy and
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: happiness of it. There is no kind of warfare against
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: game animals too unfair, too disreputable, or too mean for
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: white men to engage in. If they can only do
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: so with safety to their own own precious carcasses. They
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: will shoot buffalo and antelope from running railway trains, drive
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: deer into water with hounds, and cut their throats in
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: cold blood. Kill does with fawns a week old. Kill
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: fawns by the score for their spotted skins. Slaughter deer, moose,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: and cariboo in the snow at a pitiful disadvantage, just
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: as the wolves do exterminate the wild ducks on the
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: whole Atlantic sea board with punt guns for the metropolitan markets,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: kill off the Rocky Mountain goats for hides worth only
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: fifty cents apiece, destroy wagon loads of trout with dynamite,
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: and so on to the end of the chapter. Perhaps
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: the most gigantic task ever undertaken on this continent in
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: the line of game slaughter was the extermination of the
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: bison in the Great Pasture region by the hide hunters.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Probably the brilliant rapidity and success with which that lofty
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: undertaking was accomplished was a matter of surprise even to
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: those who participated in it. The story of the slaughter
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: is by no means a long one. The period of
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: systematic slaughter of the bison naturally begins with the first
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: organized efforts in that direction in a business like wholesale way.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Although the species had been steadily driven westward for one
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: hundred years by the advancing settlements, and had during all
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: that time been hunted for the meat and robes it yielded,
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: its extermination did not begin in earnest until eighteen twenty
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: or thereabouts. As before stated, various persons had previous to
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: that time made buffalo killing a business in order to
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: sell their skins, but such instances were very exceptional. By
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: that time, the bison was totally extinct in all the
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: region lying east of the Mississippi River, except a portion
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: of Wisconsin, where it survived until about eighteen thirty. In
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: eighteen twenty, the first organized buffalo hunting expedition on a
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: grand scale was made from the Red River Settlement, Manitoba,
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: in which five hundred and forty carts proceeded to the range.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Previous to that time, the buffaloes were found near enough
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: to the settlements around Fort Garry that every settler could
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: hunt independently, but as the herds were driven farther and
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: farther away, it required an organized effort and a long
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: journey to reach them. The American Fur Company established trading
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: posts along the Missouri River, one at the mouth of
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: the Teeton River and another at the mouth of the Yellowstone.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: In eighteen twenty six, a post was established at the
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: eastern base of the Rocky Mountains at the head of
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: the Arkansas River, and in eighteen thirty two another was
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: located in a corresponding situation at the head of the
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: south fork of the Platte, close to where Denver now stands.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Both the latter were on what was then the western
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: border of the Buffalo Range. Elsewhere throughout the Buffalo Country
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: there were numerous other posts, always situated as near as
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: possible to the best hunting ground and at the same
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: time where they would be most accessible to the hunters,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: both white and red. As might be supposed, the Indians
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: were encouraged to kill buffaloes for their robes, and this
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: is what mister George Catlan wrote at the mouth of
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: the Teeton River, Piot County, Dakota, in eighteen thirty two,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: concerning this trade, Note sixty three North American Indians, one page,
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: two hundred sixty three. It seems hard and cruel, does
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: it not, that we civilized people, with all the luxuries
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: and comforts of the world about us, should be drawing
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: from the backs of these useful animals the skins for
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: our luxury, leaving their carcasses to be devoured by the wolves.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: That we should draw from that country some one hundred
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: and fifty or two hundred thousand of their robes annually,
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: the greater part of which are taken from animals that
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: are killed expressly for the robe at a season when
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: the meat is not cured and preserved, and for each
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: of which skins the Indian has received but a pint
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: of whisky. Such is the fact, and that number or
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: near it are annually destroyed, in addition to the number
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: that is necessarily killed for the subsistence of three hundred
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: thousand Indians who live chiefly upon them. The author further
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: declared that the fur trade in those great Western realms
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: was then limited chiefly to the purchase of buffalo robes.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: Part one the Red River half Breeds. In June eighteen forty,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: when the Red River half Breeds assembled at Pembina for
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: their annual expedition against the buffalo, they mustered as follows
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: carts one thousand, two hundred ten hunters, six hundred twenty women,
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: between six hundred fifty and one thousand, six hundred thirty
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: boys and girls, three hundred sixty horses, buffalo runners, four
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: hundred three dogs, five hundred forty two cart horses, six
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: hundred fifty five draft oxen, five hundred eighty six skinning
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: knives one thousand, two hundred forty The total value of
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: the property employed in this expedition, and the working time
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: occupied by it two months amounted to the enormous sum
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: of twenty four thousand pounds. Although the bison formally ranged
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: to Fort Garry near Winnipeg, they had been steadily killed
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: off and driven back, and in eighteen forty none were
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: found by the expedition until it was two hundred fifty
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: miles from Pembina, which is situated on the Red River
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: at the international boundary. At that time, the extinction of
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: the species from the Red River to the Cheyenne was
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: practically complete. The Red River settlers, aided of course by
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: the Indians of that region, are responsible for the extermination
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: of the bison throughout northeastern Dakota, as far as the
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: Cheyenne River, northern Minnesota, and the whole of what is
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: now the province of Manitoba. More than that, as the
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: game grew scarce and retired farther and farther, the half breeds,
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: who despised agriculture as long as there was a buffalo
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: to kill, extended their hunting operations westward along the Capel
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: until they encroached upon the hunting grounds of the plane
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: crees who lived in the Saskatchewan country. Thus was an
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: immense inroad made in the northern half of the herd,
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: which had previously covered the entire pasture region from the
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: Great Slave Lake to central Texas. This was the first
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: visible impression of the systematic killing which began in eighteen
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: twenty Up to eighteen forty. It is reasonably certain, as
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: will be seen by figures given elsewhere, that by this
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: businesslike method of the half breeds, at least six hundred
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: fifty two thousand buffaloes were destroyed by them alone. Even
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: as early as eighteen forty, the Red River or hunt
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: was prosecuted through Dakota southwestwardly to the Missouri River at
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: a short distance beyond it. Here it touched the wide
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: strip of territory bordering that stream, which was even then
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: being regularly drained of its animal resources by the Indian
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: hunters who made the river their base of operations and
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: whose robes were shipped on its steamboats. It is certain
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: that these annual Red River expeditions into Dakota were kept
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: up as late as eighteen forty seven, and as long
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: thereafter as buffaloes were to be found in any number
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: between the Cheyenne and the Missouri. At the same time,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: the White Horse Plains Division, which hunted westward from Fort Garry,
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: did its work of destruction quite as rapidly and as
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: thoroughly as the rival expedition to the United States. In
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: eighteen fifty seven, the Plains Crees, inhabiting the country around
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: the headwaters of the Capel River, two hundred fifty miles
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: due west from Winnipeg, assembled in council and quote determined
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: that in consequence of promises often made and broken by
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: the white men and half breeds, and the rapid destruction
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: by them of the buffalo they fed on, they would
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: not permit either white men or half breeds to hunt
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: in their country or travel through it, except for the
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: purpose of trading for their dried meat, Pemmican skins, and
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: robes end quote. In eighteen fifty eight, the Crees reported
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: that between the two branches of the Saskatchewan, buffalo were
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: very scarce. Professor Hines expedition saw only one buffalo in
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: the whole course of their journey from Winnipeg until they
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: reached sand Hill Lake at the head of the Capelle
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: near the south branch of the Saskatchewan, where the first
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: herd was encountered. Although the species was not totally extinct
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: on the Capelle at that time, it was practically so.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: Part two the country of the Sioux. The next terror
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: the Tory, completely depopulated at buffaloes by systematic hunting, was
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: very nearly the entire southern half of Dakota, southwestern Minnesota,
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: and northern Nebraska, as far as the North Platte. This
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: vast region, once the favorite range for hundreds of thousands
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: of buffaloes, had for many years been the favorite hunting
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: ground of the Sioux, Indians of the Missouri, the Pawnees, Omahas,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: and all other tribes of that region. The settlement of
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Iowa and Minnesota presently forced into this region the entire
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: body of Mississippi Sioux from the country west of Prairie
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: Duchen and around Fort Snelling, and materially hastened the extermination
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: of all the game animals which were once so abundant there.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: It is absolutely certain that if the Indians had been
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: uninfluenced by the white traders, or in other words, had
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: not been induced to take and prepare a large number
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: of robes every year for the market, this species would
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: have survived very much longer than it did, but the
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: demand quickly proved to be far greater than the supply.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: The Indians, of course, found it necessary to slaughter annually
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: a great number of buffaloes for their own wants for meat, robes, leather, teapeas,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: et cetera. When it came to supplementing this necessary slaughter
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: by an additional fifty thousand or more every year for
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: marketable robes, it is no wonder that the improvident Savages
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: soon found, when too late, that the supply of buffaloes
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: was not inexhaustible naturally enough, they attributed their disappearance to
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: the white man, who was therefore a robber and a
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: proper subject for the scalping knife. Apparently, it never occurred
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: to the minds of the Sioux that they themselves were
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: equally to blame. It was always the pale face who
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: killed the buffaloes, and it was always Sioux buffaloes that
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: they killed. The Sioux seemed to feel that they held
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: a chattel mortgage on all the buffaloes north of the Platte,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: and it required more than one pitched battle to convince
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: them otherwise. Up to the time when the Great Sioux
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: Reservation was established in Dakota eighteen seventy five to seventy seven,
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: when thirty three thousand, seven hundred thirty nine square miles
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: of country, or nearly the whole southwest corner of the territory,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: was set aside for the exclusive occupancy of the Sioux.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Buffaloes were very numerous throughout that entire region east of
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: the Missouri River, which is the eastern boundary of the
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Sioux Reservation from Bismarck all the way down. The species
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: was practically extinct as early as eighteen seventy, but at
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: the time when it became unlawful for white hunters to
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: enter the territory of the Sioux Nation, there were tens
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: of thousands of buffaloes upon it, and their subsequent slaughter
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: is chargeable to the Indians alone, save as to those
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: which migrated into the hunting grounds of the whites. Part
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: three Western railways and their part in the extermination of
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: the buffalo. The building of a railroad means the speedy
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: extermination of all the big game along its line. In
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: its eagerness to attract the public and build up a
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: big business. Every new line which traverses a country containing
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: game does its utmost by means of advertisements and posters
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: to attract the man with the gun. Its game resorts
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: are all laid bare, and the market hunters and sportsmen
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: swarm in, immediately slaying and to sleigh. Within the last year,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: the last real retreat for our finest game, the only
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: remaining stronghold for the Mountain sheep goat Cariboo, Elk and
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Deer northwestern Montana, northern Ohio, and thence westward, has been
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: laid open to the very heart by the building of
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: the Saint Paul Minneapolis and Manitoba Railway, which runs up
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: the valley of the Milk River to Fort Assiniboine and
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: crosses the Rocky Mountains through two medicine pass Heretofore, that
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: region has been so difficult to reach that the game
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: it contains has been measurably secure from general slaughter. But
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: now it also must go. The marking out of the
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Great Overland Trail by the Argonauts of forty nine in
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: their rush for the gold fields of California, was the
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: foreshadowing of the great East and West Breach in the
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: Universal Herd, which was made twenty years later by the
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: first transcontinental Railway. The pioneers who crossed the plains in
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: those days killed buffaloes for food whenever they could, and
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: the constant harrying of those animals experienced along the line
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: of travel soon led them to retire from the proximity
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: of such continual danger. It was undoubtedly due to this
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: cause that the number seen by parties who crossed the
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: plains in eighteen forty nine and subsequently was surprisingly small.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: But fortunately for the buffaloes, the pioneers, who would gladly
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: have halted and turned aside now and then for the
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: excitement of the chase, were compelled to hurry on and
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: accomplished the long journey while good weather lasted. It was
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: owing to this fact and the scarcity of good horses,
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: that the buffaloes found it necessary to retire only a
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: few miles from the wagon route to get beyond the
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: reach of those who would have gladly hunted them. Mister
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: Allan Varner of Indianola, Illinois, has kindly furnished me with
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: the following facts in regard to the presence of the
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: buffalo as observed by him during his journey westward over
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: what was then known as the Oregon Trail quote the
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: old Oregon Trail ran from Independence, Missouri, to Old Fort Laramie,
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: through the south pass of the Rocky Mountains, and thence
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: up to Salt Lake City. We left Independence on May
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: c eighteen forty nine and struck the Platte River at
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: Grand Island. The trail had been traveled but very little
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: previous to that year. We saw no buffaloes whatever until
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: we reached the forks of the Platte on May twentieth
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: or thereabouts. There we saw seventeen head. From that time
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: on we saw small bunches now and then never more
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: than forty or fifty together. We saw no great herds anywhere,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: and I should say we did not see over five
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: hundred head all told. The most western point at which
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: we saw buffaloes was about due north of Laramie Peak,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: and it must have been about the twentieth of June.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: We killed several head for meat during our trip, and
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: found them all rather thin in flesh. Plains Men who
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: claimed to know said that all the buffaloes we saw
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: had wintered in that locality and had not had time
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: to get fat. The annual migration from the south had
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: not yet begun, or rather had not yet brought any
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: of the southern buffaloes that far north. In a few years,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: the tide of overland travel became so great that the
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: buffaloes learned to keep away from the dangers of the trail,
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: and many a pioneer has crossed the plains without ever
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: seeing alive buffalo. End of section twenty