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

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Speaker 1: Section twenty one of the Extermination of the American Bison.
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Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
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Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. The Extermination of the American Bison
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Speaker 1: by William T. Hornaday, Part two. Progress of the extermination
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Speaker 1: continued section B Parts four and five. Part four the
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Speaker 1: division of the universal heard. Until the building of the
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Speaker 1: first transcontinental Railway made it possible to market the buffalo product,
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Speaker 1: buffalo hunting as a business was almost wholly in the
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Speaker 1: hands of the Indians. Even then, the slaughter so far
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Speaker 1: exceeded the natural increase that the narrowing limits of the
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Speaker 1: buffalo range was watched with anxiety, and the ultimate extinction
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Speaker 1: of the species confidently predicted. Even without railroads, the extermination
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Speaker 1: of the race would have taken place eventually, but it
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Speaker 1: would have been delayed, perhaps twenty years, with a recklessness
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Speaker 1: of the future that was not to be expected of savages,
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Speaker 1: though perhaps perfectly natural to civilized white men, who placed
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Speaker 1: the possession of a dollar above everything else. The Indians,
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Speaker 1: with one accord, singled out the cows for slaughter because
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Speaker 1: their robes and their flesh better suited the fastidious taste
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Speaker 1: of the noble redskin. The building of the Union Pacific
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Speaker 1: Railway began at Omaha in eighteen sixty five, and during
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Speaker 1: that year forty miles were constructed. The year following saw
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Speaker 1: the completion of two hundred sixty five miles more, and
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Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty seven, two hundred forty five miles were added,
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Speaker 1: which brought it to Cheyenne. In eighteen sixty eight, three
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Speaker 1: hundred fifty miles were built, and in eighteen sixty nine
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Speaker 1: the entire line was open to traffic. In eighteen sixty seven,
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Speaker 1: when Major J. W. Powell and Professor A. H. Thompson
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Speaker 1: crossed the plains by means of the Union Pacific Railway
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Speaker 1: as far as it was constructed and thence onward by wagon,
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Speaker 1: they saw during the entire trip only one live buffalo,
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Speaker 1: a solitary old bull, wandering aimlessly along the south bank
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Speaker 1: of the Platte River. The completion of the Union Pacific
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Speaker 1: Railway divided forever the buffaloes of the United States into
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Speaker 1: two great herds, which thereafter became known respectively as the
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Speaker 1: Northern and Southern Herds. Both retired rapidly and permanently from
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Speaker 1: the railway, and left a strip of country over fifty
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Speaker 1: miles wide almost uninhabited by them. Although many thousand buffaloes
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Speaker 1: were killed by hunters who made the Union Pacific Railway
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Speaker 1: their base of operations, the two great bodies retired north
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Speaker 1: and south so far that the greater number were beyond
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Speaker 1: striking distance from that line. Section five, The Destruction of
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Speaker 1: the Southern Herd. The geographical center of the Great Southern
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Speaker 1: Herd during the few years of its separate existence previous
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Speaker 1: to its destruction was very near the present site of
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Speaker 1: Garden City, Kansas. On the east, Even as late as
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Speaker 1: eighteen seventy two, thousands of buffaloes ranged within ten miles
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Speaker 1: of Wichita, which was then the headquarters of a great
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Speaker 1: number of buffalo hunters who plied their occupation vigorously during
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Speaker 1: the winter. On the north, the herd ranged within twenty
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Speaker 1: five miles of the Union Pacific until the swarm of
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Speaker 1: hunters coming down from the north drove them farther and
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Speaker 1: farther south. On the west, a few small bands ranged
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Speaker 1: as far as Pike's Peak and the South Park, but
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Speaker 1: the main body ranged east of the town of Pueblo, Colorado,
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Speaker 1: in the southwest, buffaloes were abundant as far as the
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Speaker 1: Pecos and the Staked Plains, while the southern limit of
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Speaker 1: the herd was about on a line with the southern
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Speaker 1: boundary of New Mexico. Regarding this herd, Colonel Dodge writes
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Speaker 1: as follows, their most prized feeding ground was the section
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Speaker 1: of country between the South Platte and Arkansas Rivers, watered
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Speaker 1: by the Republican, Smoky, Walnut, Pawnee, and other parallel or
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Speaker 1: tributary streams, and generally known as the Republican Country. Hundreds
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Speaker 1: of thousands went south from here each winter, but hundreds
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Speaker 1: of thousands remained. It was the chosen home of the
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Speaker 1: buffalo en. Although the range of the northern herd covered
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Speaker 1: about twice as much territory as did the southern, the
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Speaker 1: latter contained probably twice as many buffaloes. The number of
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Speaker 1: individuals in the southern herd in the year eighteen seventy
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Speaker 1: one must have been at least three millions, and most
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Speaker 1: estimates placed the total much higher than that. During the
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Speaker 1: years from eighteen sixty six to eighteen seventy one, inclusive,
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Speaker 1: the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway and what is
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Speaker 1: now known as the Kansas Pacific or Kansas Division of
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Speaker 1: the Union Pacific Railway were constructed from the Missouri River
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Speaker 1: westward across Kansas and through the heart of the Southern Buffalo.
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Speaker 1: The Southern herd was literally cut to pieces by railways,
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Speaker 1: and every portion of its range rendered easily accessible. There
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Speaker 1: had always been a market for buffalo ropes at a
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Speaker 1: fair price, and as soon as the railways crossed the
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Speaker 1: Buffalo country, the slaughter began. The rush to the range
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Speaker 1: was only surpassed by the rush to the gold mines
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Speaker 1: of California in earlier years. The railroad builders, teamsters, fortune seekers,
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Speaker 1: professional hunters, trappers, guides, and everyone out of a job
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Speaker 1: turned out to hunt buffalo for hides and meet the
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Speaker 1: merchants who had already settled in all the little towns
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Speaker 1: along the three great railways. Saw an opportunity to make
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Speaker 1: money out of the buffalo product, and forthwith began to
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Speaker 1: organize and supply hunting parties with arms, ammunition, and provisions
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Speaker 1: and send them to the range. An immense business of
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Speaker 1: this kind was done by the merchants of Dodge City,
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Speaker 1: Fort Dodge, Wichitah, and Leavenworth, and scores of smaller towns
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Speaker 1: did a correspond amount of business in the same line
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Speaker 1: during the years eighteen seventy one to eighteen seventy four,
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Speaker 1: but little else was done in that country except buffalo killing.
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Speaker 1: Central depots were established in the best buffalo country from whence,
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Speaker 1: hunting parties operated in all directions. Buildings were erected for
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Speaker 1: the curing of meat, and corrals were built in which
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Speaker 1: to heap up the immense piles of buffalo skins that
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Speaker 1: accumulated At Dodge City. As late as eighteen seventy eight,
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Speaker 1: Professor Thompson saw a lot of baled buffalo skins in
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Speaker 1: a corral, the solid cubicle contents of which he calculated
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Speaker 1: to equal one hundred twenty cords. At first, the utmost
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Speaker 1: wastefulness prevailed. Everyone wanted to kill buffalo, and no one
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Speaker 1: was willing to do the skinning and curing. Thousands upon
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Speaker 1: thousands of buffaloes were killed for their tongues alone and
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Speaker 1: never skinned. Thousands more were wounded by unskillful marksmen and
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Speaker 1: wandered off to die and become a total loss. But
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Speaker 1: the climax of wastefulness and sloth was ann reached until
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Speaker 1: the enterprising buffalo butcher began to skin his dead buffaloes
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Speaker 1: by horsepower. The processes of interest as showing the depth
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Speaker 1: of degradation to which a man can fall and still
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Speaker 1: call himself a hunter. The skin of the buffalo was
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Speaker 1: ripped open along the belly and throat, the legs, cut
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Speaker 1: around at the knees, and ripped up the rest of
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Speaker 1: the way. The skin of the neck was divided all
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Speaker 1: the way around the back of the head and skinned
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Speaker 1: back a few inches to afford a start. A stout
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Speaker 1: iron bar like a hitching post was then driven through
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Speaker 1: the skull and about eighteen inches into the earth, after
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Speaker 1: which a rope was tied very firmly to the thick
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Speaker 1: skin of the neck made ready for that purpose. The
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Speaker 1: other end of this rope was then hitched to the
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Speaker 1: whiffletree of a pair of horses or to the rear
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Speaker 1: axle of a wagon. The horses were whipped up, and
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Speaker 1: the skin was forthwith either torn in two or torn
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Speaker 1: off the buffalo, with about fifty pounds of flesh adhering
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Speaker 1: to it. It soon became apparent to even the most
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Speaker 1: enterprising buffalo skin that this method was not an unqualified success,
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Speaker 1: and it was presently abandoned. The slaughter, which began in
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Speaker 1: eighteen seventy one, was prosecuted with great vigor and enterprise
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Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy two, and reached its height in eighteen
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Speaker 1: seventy three. By that time the buffalo country fairly swarmed
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Speaker 1: with hunters, each party putting forth its utmost efforts to
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Speaker 1: destroy more buffaloes than its rivals. By that time, experience
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Speaker 1: had taught the value of thorough organization, and the butchering
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Speaker 1: was done in a more businesslike way. By a coincidence
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Speaker 1: that proved fatal to the bison. It was just at
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Speaker 1: the beginning of the slaughter that breech loading long range
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Speaker 1: rifles attained what was practically perfection. The sharps forty ninety
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Speaker 1: or forty five one twenty and the remington were the
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Speaker 1: favorite weapons of the buffalo hunter, the former being the
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Speaker 1: one in most general use. Before the leaden hail of
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Speaker 1: thousands of these deadly breech loaders, the buffaloes went down
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Speaker 1: at the rate of several thousand daily during the hunting
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Speaker 1: sea during the years eighteen seventy one and eighteen seventy two,
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Speaker 1: the most wanton wastefulness prevailed Colonel Dodge declares that though
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Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of skins were sent to market, they
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Speaker 1: scarcely indicated the extent of the slaughter, through want of
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Speaker 1: skill in shooting and want of knowledge in preserving the
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Speaker 1: hides of those slain by green hunters, one hide sent
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Speaker 1: to market represented three, four, or even five dead buffalo.
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Speaker 1: The skinners and curers knew so little of the proper
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Speaker 1: mode of curing hides that at least half of those
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Speaker 1: actually taken were lost. In the summer and fall of
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Speaker 1: eighteen seventy two, one hide sent to market represented at
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Speaker 1: least three dead buffalo. This condition of affairs rapidly improved,
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Speaker 1: but such was the furer for slaughter and the ignorance
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Speaker 1: of all concerned, that every hide sent to market in
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Speaker 1: eighteen seventy one represented no less than five dead buffalo.
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Speaker 1: By eighteen seventy three, the condition of affairs had somewhat
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Speaker 1: improved through better organizzation of the hunting parties and knowledge
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Speaker 1: gained by experience in curing. For all that, however, buffaloes
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Speaker 1: were still so exceedingly plentiful, and shooting was so much
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Speaker 1: easier than skinning, the latter was looked upon as unnecessary
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Speaker 1: evil and still slighted to such an extent that every
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Speaker 1: hide actually sold and delivered represented two dead buffaloes. In
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Speaker 1: eighteen seventy four, the slaughterers began to take alarm at
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Speaker 1: the increasing scarcity of buffalo. Having a much smaller number
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Speaker 1: of dead animals to take care of than ever before,
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Speaker 1: were able to devote more time to each subject and
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Speaker 1: do their work properly. As a result, Colonel Dodge estimated
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Speaker 1: that during eighteen seventy four and from that time on,
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Speaker 1: one hundred skins delivered represented not more than one hundred
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Speaker 1: and twenty five dead buffaloes, but that no parties have
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Speaker 1: ever got the proportion lower than this. The greatest Southern
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Speaker 1: herd was slaughtered by still hunting, a method which has
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Speaker 1: already been fully described. A typical hunting party is thus
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Speaker 1: to described by Colonel Dodge Note sixty four. The most
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Speaker 1: approved party consisted of four men, one shooter, two skinners,
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Speaker 1: and one man to cook, stretch hides, and take care
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Speaker 1: of camp. Where buffalo were very plentiful, the number of
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Speaker 1: skinners was increased. A light wagon drawn by two horses
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Speaker 1: or mules takes the outfit into the wilderness and brings
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Speaker 1: into camp the skins taken each day. The outfit is
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Speaker 1: most meager. A sack of flour, a side of bacon,
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Speaker 1: five pounds of coffee, tea, and sugar, a little salt,
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Speaker 1: and possibly a few beans is a month's supply. A
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Speaker 1: common or a tent furnishes shelter. A couple of blankets
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Speaker 1: for each man is a bed, One or more of
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Speaker 1: sharps or Remington's heaviest sporting rifles, and an unlimited supply
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Speaker 1: of ammunition is the armament, while a coffee pot, dutch
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Speaker 1: oven frying pan, four tin plates, and four tin cups
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Speaker 1: constitute the kitchen and table furniture. The skinning knives do
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Speaker 1: duty at the platter and fingers were made before forks,
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Speaker 1: nor must be forgotten. One or more ten gallon kegs
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Speaker 1: for water, as the camp may of necessity be far
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Speaker 1: away from a stream. The supplies are generally furnished by
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Speaker 1: the merchant for whom the party is working, who, in addition,
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Speaker 1: pays each of the party a specified percentage of the
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Speaker 1: value of the skins delivered. The shooter is carefully selected
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Speaker 1: for his skill and knowledge of the habits of the buffalo.
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Speaker 1: He is captain and leader of the party. When all
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Speaker 1: is ready, he plunges into the wilderness, going to the
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Speaker 1: center of the best Buffalo region known to him, not
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Speaker 1: already occupied, for there are unwritten regulations recognized as laws,
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Speaker 1: giving to each hunter certain rights of discovery and occupancy.
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Speaker 1: Arrived at the position, he makes his camp in some
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Speaker 1: hidden ravine or thicket, and makes all ready for work.
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Speaker 1: End Note sixty four. Plains of the Great West, page
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Speaker 1: one thirty four. Of course, the slaughter was greatest along
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Speaker 1: the lines of the three great railways, the Kansas Pacific,
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Speaker 1: the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, and the Union Pacific,
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Speaker 1: about in the order named. It reached its height in
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Speaker 1: the season of eighteen seventy three. During that year, the Atchison,
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Speaker 1: Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad carried out of the Buffalo
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Speaker 1: country two hundred fifty one thousand, four hundred forty three robes,
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Speaker 1: one million, seventeen thousand, six hundred pounds of meat, and
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Speaker 1: two million, seven hundred forty three thousand, one hundred pounds
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Speaker 1: of bones. The end of the Southern herd was then
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Speaker 1: near it hand. Could the Southern Buffalo range have been
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Speaker 1: roofed over at that time, it would have made one
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Speaker 1: vast Charnel House putrefying carcasses, many of them with the
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Speaker 1: hide still on lay thickly scattered over thousands of square
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Speaker 1: miles of the level prairie, poisoning the air and water,
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Speaker 1: and offending the site. The remaining herds had become more
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Speaker 1: scattered bands, harried and driven hither and thither by the hunters,
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Speaker 1: who now swarmed almost as thickly as the buffaloes. A
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Speaker 1: cordon of camps was established along the Arkansas River, the
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Speaker 1: South Platte, the Republican, and the few other streams that
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Speaker 1: contained water, And when the thirsty animals came to drink,
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Speaker 1: they were attacked and driven away, and with the most
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Speaker 1: fiendish persistency, kept from slaking their thirst, so that they
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Speaker 1: would again be compelled to seek the river and come
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Speaker 1: within range of the deadly breech loaders. Colonel Dodge declares
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Speaker 1: that in places favorable to such warfare as the south
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Speaker 1: bank of the Platte, a herd of buffalo has, by
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Speaker 1: shooting at it by day and by lighting fires and
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Speaker 1: firing guns at night, been kept from water until it
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Speaker 1: has been entirely destroyed. In the autumn of eighteen seventy three,
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Speaker 1: when mister William Blackmore traveled for some thirty or forty
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Speaker 1: miles along the north bank of the Arkansas River to
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Speaker 1: the east of Port Dodge. There was a continuous line
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Speaker 1: of putrescent carcasses, so that the air was rendered pestilential
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Speaker 1: and offensive to the last degree. The hunters had formed
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Speaker 1: a line of camps along the banks of the river
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Speaker 1: and had shot down the buffalo night and morning as
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Speaker 1: they came to drink. In order to give an idea
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Speaker 1: of the number of these carcasses, it is only necessary
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Speaker 1: to mention that I counted sixty seven on one spot,
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Speaker 1: not covering four acres. White hunters were not allowed to
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Speaker 1: hunt in the Indian territory, but the southern boundary of
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Speaker 1: the state of Kansas was picketed by them, and a
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Speaker 1: herd no sooner crossed the line going north than it
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Speaker 1: was destroyed. Every water hole was guarded by a camp
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Speaker 1: of hunters, and whenever a thirsty herd approached, it was
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Speaker 1: promptly met by rifle bullets. During this entire period, the
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Speaker 1: slaughter of buffaloes was universal. The man who desired buffalo
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Speaker 1: meat for food almost invariably killed five times as many
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Speaker 1: animals as he could utilize and after cutting from each
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Speaker 1: victim its very choicest parts, the tongue alone, possibly, or
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Speaker 1: perhaps the hump and hind quarters one or the other,
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Speaker 1: or both fully four fifth, so the really edible portion
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Speaker 1: of the carcass would be left to the wolves. It
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Speaker 1: was no uncommon thing for a man to bring in
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Speaker 1: two barrels of salted buffalo tongues without another pound of
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Speaker 1: meat or a solitary robe. The tongues were purchased at
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Speaker 1: twenty five cents each and sold in the markets farther
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Speaker 1: east at fifty cents. In those days of criminal wastefulness,
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Speaker 1: it was a very common thing for buffaloes to be
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Speaker 1: slaughtered for their tongues alone. Mister George Catlan Note sixty
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Speaker 1: five relates that a few days previous to his arrival
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Speaker 1: at the mouth of the Teton River, Dakota in eighteen
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Speaker 1: thirty two, quote, an immense herd of buffaloes had showed
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Speaker 1: themselves on the opposite side of the river end quote,
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Speaker 1: whereupon a party of five or six hundred Sioux Indians
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Speaker 1: on horseback forded the river, attacked the herd, recrossed the
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Speaker 1: river about sunset, and came into the fort with fourteen
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Speaker 1: hundred fresh buffalo tongues, which were thrown down in a mass,
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Speaker 1: and for which they required only a few gallons of whiskey,
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Speaker 1: which was soon consumed in a little harmless carous. Mister
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Speaker 1: Catlan states that from all he could learn, not a
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Speaker 1: skin or a pound of meat other than the tongues
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Speaker 1: was saved after this awful slaughter Note sixty five North
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Speaker 1: American Indians one two hundred fifty six. Judging from all accounts,
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Speaker 1: it is making a safe estimate to say that probably
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Speaker 1: no fewer than fifty thousand buffaloes have been killed for
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Speaker 1: their tongues alone, and the most of these are undoubtedly
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Speaker 1: chargeable against white men who ought to have known better.
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Speaker 1: A great deal has been said about the slaughter of
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Speaker 1: buffaloes by foreign sportsmen, particularly Englishmen, but I must say
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Speaker 1: that from all that can be ascertained on this point,
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Speaker 1: this element of destruction has been greatly exaggerated and overestimated.
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Speaker 1: It is true that every English sportsman who visited this
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Speaker 1: country in the days of the buffalo always resolved to
17:52
Speaker 1: have and did have a buffalo hunt, and usually under
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Speaker 1: the auspices of the United States Army officers. Undoubtedly these
18:00
Speaker 1: parties did kill hundreds of buffaloes, but it is very
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Speaker 1: doubtful whether the aggregate of the numbers slain by foreign
18:06
Speaker 1: sportsmen would run up higher than ten thousand. Indeed, for myself,
18:10
Speaker 1: I am well convinced that there are many old ex
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Speaker 1: still hunters yet living, each of whom is accountable for
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Speaker 1: a greater number of victims than all buffaloes killed by
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Speaker 1: foreign sportsmen would make added together. The professional butchers were
18:26
Speaker 1: very much given to crying out against them English lords
18:29
Speaker 1: and holding up their hands in holy horror at buffaloes
18:31
Speaker 1: killed by them for their heads instead of her hides
18:34
Speaker 1: to sell at a dollar apiece. But it is due
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Speaker 1: the American public to say that all this outcry was
18:40
Speaker 1: received at its true value, and deceived very few by
18:43
Speaker 1: those in possession of the facts. It was recognized as
18:47
Speaker 1: a blind to divert public opinion from the real culprits. Nevertheless,
18:52
Speaker 1: it is very true that many men who were properly
18:54
Speaker 1: classed as sportsmen, in counterradistinction from the pot hunters, did
18:59
Speaker 1: engage in useless, sen inexcusable slaughter to an extent that
19:02
Speaker 1: was highly reprehensible. To say the least, a sportsman is
19:06
Speaker 1: not supposed to kill game wantonly when it can be
19:09
Speaker 1: of no possible use to himself or anyone else, but
19:12
Speaker 1: a great many do it for all that. Indeed, the
19:15
Speaker 1: sportsman who kills sparingly and conscientiously is rather the exception
19:20
Speaker 1: than the rule. Colonel Dodge thus refers to the work
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Speaker 1: of some foreign sportsmen. Quote in the fall of that
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Speaker 1: year eighteen seventy two, three English gentlemen went out with
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Speaker 1: me for a short hunt, and in their excitement, bagged
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Speaker 1: more buffalo than would have supplied a brigade end quote.
19:38
Speaker 1: As a general thing, however, the professional sportsman who went
19:41
Speaker 1: out to have a buffalo hunt, for the excitement of
19:43
Speaker 1: the chase and the trophies it yielded, nearly always found
19:46
Speaker 1: the bison so easy a victim, and one whose capture
19:50
Speaker 1: brought so little glory to the hunter, that the chase
19:52
Speaker 1: was voted very disappointing, and soon abandoned in favor of
19:56
Speaker 1: nobler game. In those days, there was no more to
20:00
Speaker 1: boast of in killing a buffalo than in the assassination
20:03
Speaker 1: of a Texas steer. It was then the hide hunters,
20:08
Speaker 1: white and red, but especially white, who wiped out the
20:11
Speaker 1: great Southern herd in four short years. The prices received
20:15
Speaker 1: for hides varied considerably according to circumstances, but for the
20:19
Speaker 1: green or undressed article it usually ranged from fifty cents
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Speaker 1: for the skins of calves to a dollar and twenty
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Speaker 1: five cents for those of adult animals in good condition.
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Speaker 1: Such prices seemed ridiculously small. But when it is remembered
20:32
Speaker 1: that when buffaloes were plentiful, it was no uncommon thing
20:35
Speaker 1: for a hunter to kill from forty to sixty head
20:38
Speaker 1: in a day, it will readily be seen that the
20:40
Speaker 1: chances of making very handsome profits were sufficient to tempt
20:44
Speaker 1: hunters to make extraordinary exertions. Moreover, even when the buffaloes
20:49
Speaker 1: were nearly gone, the country was overrun with men who
20:52
Speaker 1: had absolutely nothing else to look to as a means
20:54
Speaker 1: of livelihood. And so no matter whether the profits were
20:58
Speaker 1: great or small, so long as enough buffaloes remained to
21:01
Speaker 1: make it possible to get a living by their pursuit,
21:04
Speaker 1: they were hunted down with the most determined persistency and pertinacity.
21:14
Speaker 1: End of Sections four and five