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DAYS OF THE BUFFALO Millions Roamed On the Great West and Southwest Plains General Pliil Shcridnns Amended AmendedEstimate Estimate of tlie Great Bands BandsHe He Saw The passing of the American bison commonly called the buffalo is conceded by historians old plainsmen and army officers of the sixties and seventies to have been the main solution of the Indian question In the early days when this noble animal roamed in countless millions over what was then called the Great American Desert the Indian had no need to apply to the Great Father at Washington for food and raiment as it was the buffalo chiefly which furnished him both bothThe The slaughter of the buffalo by the white hide hunters was against the law and in violation of solemn treaties made with the Indians who saw in the destruction of this great animal the rapid disappearance of their homes food clothing bed ¬ ding tenee equipment and everything that satisfied their wants and needs In vain did the Indian Bureau make a feeble effort to keep the white hunters out of the Indian Territory They spread all over that section and killed the animals at their pleasure pleasureOf Of the vast numbers of these great animals on the western plains between say 1850 and 1883 when the last big herd was practically exterminated statisticians differ but in the year 18r 0 It is safe to assume that there were in the neighborhood of 50000000 buffalo ranging between Manitoba and the Staked Plains of Texas So vast were their numbers that the first trains oil tlio Union Pacific railroad were often obliged to stop for hours at a time until the immense herds of buffalo had crossed their tracks tracksHERDS HERDS OF MARVELOUS SIZE SIZEIn In 1871 it was not uncommon to see herds of buf ¬ falo from twenty to fifty miles in width and of unknown depth from front to rear Col Richard I Dodge an army officer of over thirty years experience in Indian warfare in 1871 drove in a light wagon along the Arkansas River from Walnut Creek to Pawnee Fork through one herd of buf ¬ falo not less than twentyfive miles wide and ex ¬ tending north and south as far as the eye could reach reachIn In Kansas the wide expanse of wrairie lying south of White Kock creek and west of the Re ¬ publican River was until 1870 the grazing place of the main herd of buffalo and from its appear ¬ ance and location probably liad been for a hundred years or more This scope of country bounded on the east by the White Rock on the southwest by the Solomon its interior being traversed by the Limestone Buffalo Big Timber and several other small streams also having within its boundary a famous salt marsh made it a favorite grazing place for the buffalo buffaloEither Either for protection or some other cause the buffalo were always in the palmy days to be found banded together in large numbers wherever found at all and after grazing upon the prairie they would seek a stream for water Tiie whole herd would follow the leader generally in single file In the heat of summer the animals would congregate at the larger streams and stand in the water to protect themselves from insect pests Shortly before dusk they would again take to the prairie where they would graze until the following day when they would again go to the stream streamGREAT GREAT WESTERN TRAILS STILL SEEN SEENWhile While the herd ranging the prairies grazed in an aimless way and were apparently guided in their movements by the scarcity of forage In one place or its abundance in another yet when it came to moving from one grazing ground to another where the grounds were some distance apart or when going from a grazing ground to a stream they always followed an established trail Many of these old buffalo trails are today plainly discernible discernibleThe The buffalo were but little disturbed by tue Indians during the spring and summer months only sufficient to meet their needs of the day being killed It was not until October or later when the fur was in prime condition that the great hunt was made to secure the winters supply of meat as well as to secure hides for tepee covers clothing bedding and trading purposes purposesIt It was when the Union Pacific railroad was being built in 180970 tlTat the real slaughter of the buffalo began The animal Avas easily approached in the early days by the hide hunters Thousands of men flocked to the plains to enter this new and novel industry and so countless were the hides which were thrown upon the market that the price dwindled from 4 and 5 eacli to 1 It was found that the buffalo leather made excellent belt ¬ ing for machinery and the demand soon became enormous At one time 40000 hides were stacked in a corral at Dodge City Kansas awaiting ship ¬ ment The hide hunters took only the skin leaving the carcass to rot while hundreds of men be it said to their disgrace salughtered buffalo for the mere wanton pleasure of killing killingStatistics Statistics gathered by Major Henry Inmau show that from 1808 to 1881 a period of thirteen years there was paid out in Kansas alone 2500000 for buffalo bones gathered on the prairies to be utilized by the various carbon works of the country It re ¬ quired about 100 carcasses to make one ton of bones the average price paid being about 8 a ton and the sum mentioned above represents the skele ¬ tons of over 31000000 of buffalos And this from but one state GENERAL SHERIDANS AMENDED ESTIMATE ESTIMATEOne One night in the early seventies General Phil Sheridan and Major Iiimun were occupying the office of Robert M Wright a prominent resident of Dodge City Kan They hail just made the trip from Fort Supply and Mr Wright was called into the office to consult with the officers as to the probable number of buffalo there were between Dodge and Fort Supply Taking a strip fifty miles east and fifty miles west tliev had first made an estimate of 10000000000 General Sheridan said That wont do1 They figured a while longer and made it one billion Finally they readied the con ¬ clusion that there must be 100000000 but said they were atraid to give out those figures lest they might be accused of prevaricating but that they believed them nevertheless This immense herd moved slowly toward the north when spring opened and moved steadily back again to the soutli when the days began to grov short and winter set in inThe The buffalo was an animal not easily frightened unless it smelted or detected an enemy and even then would occasionally not become alarmed An old plainsman friend of mine told me that once when the army post where he was stationed was in need of fresli meat he located a herd and sitting on the ground within less than one hundred yards of them he shot down two cows and thirteen calves the others not attempting to leave He stated that it was necessary to drive the otljers away by shout ¬ ing and waving his hat in order to dress and cut up the game already secured At the same time the old frontiersman said a herd which might stand and be shot at without stampeding would at another hour rush headlong over the prairie in mad flight without any apparent reason for so doing doingGREAT GREAT SOUTHERN HERD OF 3000000 3000000The The completion of the western railroads divided the buffalo into two immense herds the northern and southern The southern herd in 1871 was esti ¬ mated at 3000000 and was being diminished at the rate of 3000 to 4000 a day Robert Wright and Charles Rath of Dodge City shipped over 200000 buffalo hides the first winter the Atchison Topeka Santa Fe railroad readied Dodge and they esti ¬ mated that other parties shipped as many more Besides thee hides there were two hundred cars of hindquarters and two cars of tongues also shipped What would the present generation say in these meatless days were such a harvest possible possibleMr Mr Wright further states that the buffalo were so plentiful around Dodge City that he used to shoot them from the walls of his corral and let his hogs feed upon the carcasses and that time and again when putting up liny it was necessary to have men out day and night to drive the buffalo mt of their herds of work cattle cattleFrom From 1872 to 1874 there were 1780401 buffaloes killed ami wasted the meat being left to rot on the plains the hides imlv being utilized It is esti ¬ mated that UiiS7SO in all were killed by white people and the hides sent over the Santa Fe Dur ¬ ing the same period the Indians killed about 390000 Besides these settlers and mountain Indian tribes are estimated to have killed 150000 so that the grand total for these years was 3698780 In the following year 1875 the end came to the great southern herd and at the close of the year it had been swept from the face of the earth One hunter in Ford County Kansas is credited with having killed 120 buffalo at one stand in forty minutes and in thirtyfive diivs ti have slain I An ¬ other Dodge City man says he killed 1500 in seven days and his greatest slaughter was 250 in a single day He employed fifteen skinners whose sole duty was to follow him and remove the hides us fast as he killed the animals The great northern herd went the same way In 1882 it was estimated there were 1000000 alive in this herd but there were at least 5000 white hunters in the field shooting and slaughtering tho great beasts at every point Then came 1881 Thousands more grabbed rifles and took the field and Sitting Bull and some whites hail the honor of killing the last 10000 Such a merciless war of extermination was never known in a civilized land landSUPERSTITIONS SUPERSTITIONS OF INDIANS AND HUNTERS HUNTERSAmong Among the Indians and even among many of the more superstitious of the old trappers and plains ¬ men it was solemnly averred that the buffalo never migrated south but that the herd which moved northward every spring was composed of an entirely new band of buffalo which never made the journey before and would never return again to the south All would admit the northern migration but not the southern and because the buffalo did not return south in one immense herd as they did to the north it was averred they did not go soutli at all The Arapahoes Kiowas and others of the plains tribes firmly believed that the buffalo were pro ¬ duced in countless numbers in great caves under the ground and that every spring the surplus swarmed like bees from a hive out of great cave like openings and that these caves were situated in the Staked Plains of Texas TexasThis This sudden and wanton destruction of the buf ¬ falo which left the Indians virtually on the point of starvation was unquestionably the chief cause of the later Indian wars on the plains Their hunting grounds which the government had sworn by treaty to respect were overrun by white settlers hunters gold seekers and adventurers who killed off the game without regard to its use or the con ¬ sequences of such slaughter to the Indians them ¬ selves The government permitted this invasion of the Indians hunting grounds together with the destruction of game therein and then expected the untutored ignorant savage to make a sudden change from the chase and the wild free life to that of tho farmer and stock raiser and agriculturist a change which the Indian was totally unprepared for and unfitted to make The very life of the Indian was destroyed and he was thrown a pauper on the hands of a set of coldblooded political parasites who robbed him first of his sustenance and then of his land It was only fair to the Indian that the United States government having destroyed the very lif of the Indians should have immediately prepared proper sustenance for them but it was not until years later that the Indian received justice and let us not boast that this justice even lias been fair and right to poor Lo E A Brininstool in HunterTraderTrapper
