Extermination of the American Bison — Part II Chapter 3: The Progress of the Extermination, continued

6. _Statistics of the slaughter.

_--The most careful and reliable estimate ever made of results of the slaughter of the southern buffalo herd is that of Col. Richard Irving Dodge, and it is the only one I know of which furnishes a good index of the former size of that herd.

Inasmuch as this calculation was based on actual statistics, supplemented by personal observations and inquiries made in that region during the great slaughter, I can do no better than to quote Colonel Dodge almost in full.

[66] [Note 66: Plains of the Great West, pp. 139-144. ] The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé Railroad furnished the following statistics of the buffalo product carried by it during the years 1872, 1873, and 1874: +----------------------------------------------------+ | _Buffalo product.

_ | +----------------------------------------------------+ | | No. of skins | | | |Year.

| carried.

| Meat carried.

| Bone carried.

| +----------------------------------------------------+ | | | Pounds.

| Pounds.

| |1872 | 165,721 | ...

| 1,135,300 | |1873 | 251,443 | 1,617,600 | 2,743,100 | |1874 | 42,289 | 632,800 | 6,914,950 | +------|--------------|---------------|--------------+ |Total | 459,453 | 2,250,400 | 10,793,350 | +----------------------------------------------------+ The officials of the Kansas Pacific and Union Pacific railroads either could not or would not furnish any statistics of the amount of the buffalo product carried by their lines during this period, and it became necessary to proceed without the actual figures in both cases.

Inasmuch as the Kansas Pacific road cuts through a portion of the buffalo country which was in every respect as thickly inhabited by those animals as the region traversed by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé, it seemed absolutely certain that the former road hauled out fully as many hides as the latter, if not more, and its quota is so set down.

The Union Pacific line handled a much smaller number of buffalo hides than either of its southern rivals, but Colonel Dodge believes that this, "with the smaller roads which touch the buffalo region, taken together, carried about as much as either of the two principal buffalo roads."

Colonel Dodge considers it reasonably certain that the statistics furnished by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé road represent only one-third of the entire buffalo product, and there certainly appears to be good ground for this belief.

It is therefore in order to base further calculations upon these figures.

According to evidence gathered on the spot by Colonel Dodge during the period of the great slaughter, one hide sent to market in 1872 represented three dead buffaloes, in 1873 two, and in 1874 one hundred skins delivered represented one hundred and twenty-five dead animals.

The total slaughter by white men was therefore about as below: +---------------------------------------------------------------+ |Year.

|Hides |Hides |Total |Total |Total | | |shipped |shipped |number of |number |of buffaloes| | |by A. , T.

|by other |buffaloes |killed and|slaughtered | | |and S. F.

|roads, |utilized.

|wasted.

|by whites.

| | |railway.

|same | | | | | | |period.

| | | | | | |(estimated)| | | | +-----+---------+-----------+-----------+----------+------------+ |1872 | 165,721 | 331,442 | 497,163 | 994,326| 1,491,489 | |1873 | 251,443 | 502,886 | 754,329 | 754,329| 1,508,658 | |1874 | 42,289 | 84,578 | 126,867 | 31,716| 158,583 | |Total| 459,453 | 918,906 |1,378,359 | 1,780,481| 3,158,730 | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ During all this time the Indians of all tribes within striking distance of the herds killed an immense number of buffaloes every year.

In the summer they killed for the hairless hides to use for lodges and for leather, and in the autumn they slaughtered for robes and meat, but particularly robes, which were all they could offer the white trader in exchange for his goods.

They were too lazy and shiftless to cure much buffalo meat, and besides it was not necessary, for the Government fed them.

In regard to the number of buffaloes of the southern herd killed by the Indians, Colonel Dodge arrives at an estimate, as follows: "It is much more difficult to estimate the number of dead buffalo represented by the Indian-tanned skins or robes sent to market.

This number varies with the different tribes, and their greater or less contact with the whites.

Thus, the Cheyennes, Arapahoes, and Kiowas of the southern plains, having less contact with whites, use skins for their lodges, clothing, bedding, par-fléches, saddles, lariats, for almost everything.

The number of robes sent to market represent only what we may call the foreign exchange of these tribes, and is really not more than one-tenth of the skins taken.

To be well within bounds I will assume that one robe sent to market by these Indians represents six dead buffaloes.

"Those bands of Sioux who live at the agencies, and whose peltries are taken to market by the Union Pacific Railroad, live in lodges of cotton cloth furnished by the Indian Bureau.

They use much civilized clothing, bedding, boxes, ropes, etc. For these luxuries they must pay in robes, and as the buffalo range is far from wide, and their yearly 'crop' small, more than half of it goes to market."

Leaving out of the account at this point all consideration of the killing done north of the Union Pacific Railroad, Colonel Dodge's figures are as follows: _Southern buffaloes slaughtered by southern Indians.

_ +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ | |Sent to |No. of dead | | Indians.

|market.

|buffaloes | | | |represented.

| +-----------------------------------------+----------+------------+ | | | | |Kiowas, Comanches, Cheyennes, Arapahoes, | | | |and other Indians whose robes go over the| | | |Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé Railroad | 19,000 | 114,000 | |Sioux at agencies, Union Pacific Railroad| 10,000 | 16,000 | | +----------+------------+ |Total slaughtered per annum | 29,000 | 130,000 | |Total for the three years 1872-1874 | ...

| 390,000 | +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ Reference has already been made to the fact that during those years an immense number of buffaloes were killed by the farmers of eastern Kansas and Nebraska for their meat.

Mr. William Mitchell, of Wabaunsee, Kansas, stated to the writer that "in those days, when buffaloes were plentiful in western Kansas, pretty much everybody made a trip West in the fall and brought back a load of buffalo meat.

Everybody had it in abundance as long as buffaloes remained in any considerable number.

Very few skins were saved; in fact, hardly any, for the reason that nobody knew how to tan them, and they always spoiled.

At first a great many farmers tried to dress the green hides that they brought back, but they could not succeed, and finally gave up trying.

Of course, a great deal of the meat killed was wasted, for only the best parts were brought back."

The Wichita (Kansas) _World_ of February 9, 1889, contains the following reference: "In 1871 and 1872 the buffalo ranged within 10 miles of Wichita, and could be counted by the thousands.

The town, then in its infancy, was the headquarters for a vast number of buffalo-hunters, who plied their occupation vigorously during the winter.

The buffalo were killed principally for their hides, and daily wagon trains arrived in town loaded with them.

Meat was very cheap in those days; fine, tender buffalo steak selling from 1 to 2 cents per pound.

* * * The business was quite profitable for a time, but a sudden drop in the price of hides brought them down as low as 25 and 50 cents each.

* * * It was a very common thing in those days for people living in Wichita to start out in the morning and return by evening with a wagon load of buffalo meat."

Unquestionably a great many thousand buffaloes were killed annually by the settlers of Kansas, Nebraska, Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado, and the mountain Indians living west of the great range.

The number so slain can only be guessed at, for there is absolutely no data on which to found an estimate.

Judging merely from the number of people within reach of the range, it may safely be estimated that the total number of buffaloes slaughtered annually to satisfy the wants of this heterogeneous element could not have been less than fifty thousand, and probably was a much higher number.

This, for the three years, would make one hundred and fifty thousand, and the grand total would therefore be about as follows: +------------------------------------------------------+ | _The slaughter of the southern herd.

_ | +------------------------------------------------------+ |Killed by "professional" white hunters in | | | 1872, 1873, and 1874 | 3,158,730 | |Killed by Indians, same period | 390,000 | |Killed by settlers and mountain Indians | 150,000 | | | --------- | | Total slaughter in three years | 3,098,730 | +------------------------------------------------------+ These figures seem incredible, but unfortunately there is not the slightest reason for believing they are too high.

There are many men now living who declare that during the great slaughter they each killed from twenty-five hundred to three thousand buffaloes every year.

With thousands of hunters on the range, and such possibilities of slaughter before each, it is, after all, no wonder that an average of nearly a million and a quarter of buffaloes fell each year during that bloody period.

By the close of the hunting season of 1875 the great southern herd had ceased to exist.

As a body, it had been utterly annihilated.

The main body of the survivors, numbering about ten thousand head, fled southwest, and dispersed through that great tract of wild, desolate, and inhospitable country stretching southward from the Cimarron country across the "Public Land Strip," the Pan-handle of Texas, and the Llano Estacado, or Staked Plain, to the Pecos River.

A few small bands of stragglers maintained a precarious existence for a few years longer on the headwaters of the Republican River and in southwestern Nebraska, near Ogalalla, where calves were caught alive as late as 1885. Wild buffaloes were seen in southwestern Kansas for the last time in 1886, and the two or three score of individuals still living in the Canadian River country of the Texas Pan-handle are the last wild survivors of the great Southern herd.

The main body of the fugitives which survived the great slaughter of 1871-'74 continued to attract hunters who were very "hard up," who pursued them, often at the risk of their own lives, even into the terrible Llano Estacado.

In Montana in 1886 I met on a cattle ranch an ex-buffalo-hunter from Texas, named Harry Andrews, who from 1874 to 1876 continued in pursuit of the scattered remnants of the great southern herd through the Pan-handle of Texas and on into the Staked Plain itself.

By that time the market had become completely overstocked with robes, and the prices received by Andrews and other hunters was only 65 cents each for cow robes and . 15 each for bull robes, delivered on the range, the purchaser providing for their transportation to the railway.

But even at those prices, which were so low as to make buffalo killing seem like downright murder, Mr. Andrews assured me that he "made big money."

On one occasion, when he "got a stand" on a large bunch of buffalo, he fired one hundred and fifteen shots from one spot, and killed sixty-three buffaloes in about an hour.

In 1880 buffalo hunting as a business ceased forever in the Southwest, and so far as can be ascertained, but one successful hunt for robes has been made in that region since that time.

That occurred in the fall and winter of 1887, about 100 miles north of Tascosa, Texas, when two parties, one of which was under the leadership of Lee Howard, attacked the only band of buffaloes left alive in the Southwest, and which at that time numbered about two hundred head.

The two parties killed fifty-two buffaloes, of which ten skins were preserved entire for mounting.

Of the remaining forty-two, the heads were cut off and preserved for mounting and the skins were prepared as robes.

The mountable skins were finally sold at the following prices: Young cows, to ; adult cows, to ; adult bull, . The unmounted heads sold as follows: Young bulls, to ; adult bulls, ; young cows, to ; adult cows, to . A few of the choicest robes sold at each, and the remainder, a lot of twenty eight, of prime quality and in excellent condition, were purchased by the Hudson's Bay Fur Company for .