Thank you Lady Oh for the use of this beautiful picture.

Buffalo Information

Once, there were millions of buffalo roaming free on the land, from the plains to the mountains. They were large fast moving animals that could run for long periods of time at up to 35 mile an hour.

Hunting and killing them was no easy task, yet it was the Native American way of life. Only the buffalo needed for meat and hides were killed. To say that the buffalo was only a source for food, clothing, and shelter would be telling only part of the story.

Once killed, nothing was wasted of the buffalo. These animals were important in the ceremonies of the medicine man and in the spiritual beliefs of the Native Americans.

Non-Native Americans killed the bison for material reasons. They were slaughtered by greedy people who saw nothing but money when they looked at the buffalo. They were killed for their hides and tongues, then the remaining parts of the buffalo were left in the sun to rot.

The railroad promoted this slaughter of the great herds. For $10.00 you could buy a hunting trip and be in luxury as you shot the bison from the window of the train. Your only limits were when you were out of bullets or when the barrel of your gun became to hot to fire.

There were contests: one man killed 120 buffalo in a period of 40 minutes. Buffalo Bill Cody killed 4,000 buffalo in two years.

But one of the worst elements of the Bison Slaughter was this. Soldiers were ordered to kill the buffalo, but not for food. General Sherman advocated the slaughter of the bison thinking (shared by many others) that if you kill off the buffalo you take away the life style of the Indians. He stated that the buffalo hunters did more in five years to defeat the Indian than the Army could have done in 50 years!

"The extermination of the buffalo is likely the first example in history of an attempt ... and a successful one, at that ... to eliminate a species for the purpose of achieving a political objective."

Bryan Hodgson "Buffalo Home on the Range" National Geographic November 1994