The Extinction Of The Bison

Native Americans were affected by whites depleting their resources. Americans moving west found killing Buffalo to be a sport in a way. The Buffalo at the time was a viable resource for the Natives. There was a letter to a Professor Baird from William G. Hornaday. Hornaday states, “There are only two buffalo left in that land! Since seeing the buffalo

The American Bison, more commonly known as the Buffalo is a humpbacked wild ox. Historically, the American bison played an important role in the Great Plains. They graze on native grasses and actually disturb the soil with their hooves which allows plant and animal species to flourish. Prairie dogs prefer areas grazed by bison where the grass is short so they can keep a lookout for hungry predators, and wolves once relied on bison herds as a major food source. Today, wild bison are beginning to return, mainly in national parks but they still need to more room to roam as they are still being hunted outside the park’s safe borders.

One extreme change for the Indians was the arrival of Anglo-Europeans. Native peoples’ lives were changed at the blink of an eye while new ideas, practices and beliefs were shown to them. The arrival of the Europeans changed the way the Indians viewed their world and manipulated their resources. This new change could be viewed as positive as well as negative, for while some tribes entered into trade relations with the Anglos, others were used as slave labor and all were subject to disease brought on by the European newcomers. However, despite all the advantages and disadvantages, no other introduction changed the lives of the Indians more than firearms and horses. West outlines one of the most important evolutions for Native life and how it represented a new way to harness resources and gain power. In just a few chapters, we are able to see the great advancements the Indians made in hunting and trade due to these new technologies and how they allowed the Cheyennes to rise to a new purpose as the Called Out People.

The near-extinction of the American Bison was the result of the following: the loss of habitat due to the expanding livelihoods of ranchers and farmers, government policy aimed to destroy the food source of the native Indians, and most importantly, the senseless slaughter of the species by the market hunters due to the high demand for bison hides

The buffalo were evidently everything to the Native Americans, hereby causing the defeat of buffalo to fall hand in hand with theirs. The plains Indians used bison as not only food, but in religious rituals, for clothing, for hunting, for shelter, and more. The buffalo were an integral part of the native’s lives. In the aftermath of the increasing killings of bison, the lives of countless Native Americans were destroyed. The said 30-60 million buffalo which had roamed freely upon the Great

The Great Plains were home to many Native Americans and several animals, most importantly the buffalo. Life was peaceful for the Native Americans until the railroad started being built and Americans began to expand westward. The Great Plains at first were viewed at in a negative way by the Americans because they thought it was just a “useless wasteland.” Americans thought that this land was too dry for their farming and agriculture. As these railroads were built westward Americans realized how beneficial they actually were. For example, many settlers found no dry land, but millions of acres of fertile soil. Also, cattlemen saw an open range for cattle and the opportunities here started to open up. Although this land was already taken by both Native Americans and buffalo, that meant nothing to the new settlers as they planned to get rid of both of them (Doc 1). I thought that the expansion of the Great Plains was negative for the Indians, but also positive for the Americans. I believe that the expansion of the railroad was positive for the Americans because as I said earlier, it brought them new opportunities find better lives and better land. It was very negative for the Indian because Americans decided to invade their land and get rid of them and

Restoration of the Bison is something that has been going on for the past two decades. As a matter of fact, several Native American tribes have come together to form the Inter Tribal Bison Cooperative (ITBC) which has been set out to bring bison back onto the American plains in the midwest. Bison have an intimate relationship in the traditions and rituals of Native Americans. The importance of bison within the culture has made bringing back the bison an important issue in the preservation of wildlife. However, some of the arguments made by the ITBC show that the bison's economic value should be the main factor why they should be brought back. Yet others involved in this cause suggest that buffalo restoration

The buffalo would supply the Indians with their necessities for living including resources for thread, clothes, food and shelter. The buffalo was also used for trading things more valuable. An important action that undermined the Plains Indian culture was the large killing of buffalo in a short period of time. Army commanders who worked in the north west often tried to deprive the Indians of their main source of survival by killing the buffalo as a way to drive them of their land. As the population of buffalo dwindled, the Plains Indians had no means of independent support or nourishment and were forced to accept the US government’s policy of living on Indian reservations. The killing of buffalo was supported by the US military in order to undermine the survival of the Indians, and up to 250 buffalo were killed each

The Native Americans developed their cultures, communities and way of life around the buffalo. About 24 to 28 Native American tribes had figured out how to use the buffalo in 52 different ways for food, supplies, and war. The hooves, for example, are boiled to use as glue. The humpback is, that part of the buffalo is really kind of sturdy, and so it's used for making shields, the hides for making a teepee.( The buffalo was indeed the most important resource for them. In Document 5 it show how much the Native American relied on the buffalo for for everything for example they used the buffalo’s tongue for hair brushes and their bones, for silverware, dice and brushes. After the Americans killed most of them they had to move to reservations or they wouldn’t be able to survive. In 1870 the American hunters killed at least 100 million buffalo a year. By the 1880s, the buffalo were dying out and most plains peoples were being forced onto reservations. The Native American people were not happy going to reservations but that's the only way they could survive do to their number one food supply dying out. The Natives lost a lot of the land from the

Additionally, Royal gives clarification for Native Americans’ positive stereotypes. He explains, “ But this is far from modern concepts of ecology. Native Americans in fact overhunted deer and beaver even before the arrival of the white man, and did not seriously try to preserve the resources in the vicinity of their villages. As a result, the typical woodland village, having exhausted local soil and game, had to move on average every eight to 10 years” (Royal 47). Although the Native Americans did not destroy the environment like Europeans on such a large scale, they are not trying to protect the environment either. This opposes the stereotypes that Native Americans are model ecologists. Royal also examines the inhumane sides of Native American tribes. Royal reveals, “The

Westward expansion effected the Native Americans because the Indians lived in these areas. First, the pioneers started to kill the bison, the Indian’s main food source, which lessened the amount of bison in the area causing hunger in Native American tribes ("Buffalo Hunters in the Old West." Buffalo Hunters in the Old West, 2015). Next, they moved into the Native’s lands to build houses and farms. Searching for gold was another problem, because the gold miners would search in their sacred hills, disturbing peace between the two. ("America Indians and Western Expansion,”

During the years of 1872 to 1875 about 9 million buffalo were killed during that short period of time. The white settlers would would over kill the buffalo and only take what was needed for profit and leave the rest. The Indians would kill for only the specific amount of buffalo needed and not over kill the buffalo population. A man by the name of Buffalo Bill Cody was responsible for the killing of buffalo and Indians out in the Trans-Mississippi West. (Footnote) The native Americans were always able find where buffalo herds would

Because buffalo were becoming extinct, the Native Americans had no real diet and their population began to decline rapidly.3

The introduction of weapons, alcohol, and other European things and ideas also great and unpredictable effects. The Europeans encountered many sophisticated Indian cultures and some owe their survival to the Natives. The Europeans introduced the idea of “ownership of the land” to the Indians. Of course, tribes fought over territory to hunt, fish and occasionally practice agricultural on, but the idea of “ownership” of land was something they didn't comprehend. For some Indians the land was considered sacred, the idea of agriculture was thought of as insulting to the Earth, and many aspects of nature. For the Indians, things in nature like rivers, ponds, and even rocks, were like the saints in Christian cultures. Even after they had made deals with the Europeans for the purchase of land, they didn't understand what they had done and that led to further conflict. Europeans also changed their barter system. They had built complex economic relationships with other tribes and understood commerce as it existed in their barter and exchange system. Europeans had a destructive impact of this trading culture, trading different things than the Indians were used to and also through the use of currency.

The Indians relied on buffalo for survival. In Dances with Wolves, Dunbar quickly learns that hunting buffalo is key for survival. Dunbar’s new friends end up having to move to a different location because there were no buffalo to hunt and Dunbar decides to go with them. The Indians use the buffalo fur for blankets, teepees, and drums (Native American Culture). They also would eat the meat of the buffalo. They used everything so that nothing was wasted. Also in The Searchers there is a scene that shows the white men killing all the buffalo in the valley. They did that because they knew how important they were to the Indians survival. Obviously, they didn’t care about them surviving because they had kidnapped Ethan’s niece.