The Buffalo Hunters

Part Two

 

by 'RoundUp'

 

During the late 1870's, many Railroad Companies began to spread into The West, but schedules couldn't be maintained because of the many thousands of Buffalo crossing the tracks, following the trails they'd followed for thousands of years. Trains were often held up for more than six to eight hours while the herds, often numbering 170,000 strong, wended their way slowly to their traditional feeding-grounds.   The Railroad Companies then hit upon a way to capitalise on the problem, and so, they began to advertise 'Buffalo-Hunting From The Train'.   Within day's, people from the East equipped with fancy, high-powered rifles began to book 'Excursion's To The West', shooting out of the windows of the trains at anything that moved, just 'for fun', but in particular, the Buffalo herds which crossed the tracks!. The animals they shot were simply left to rot where they died!.   As the slaughter continued, taking on an almost 'Carnival' atmosphere, the Indians became increasingly angry and resentful, watching the main source of their sustainance rapidly dwindling at the hand of the white man!.   This led to an escalation of the antagonism that was already felt towards the 'white-eye's', and a further spreading West of the 'Indian War's' already being waged in the Mid-West by the Sioux and the Cheyanne, and this led to the US Government decree that 'the Indian People shall have area's reserved, where they shall live 'away from civilisation'.   In order to bring this about, the US Army were ordered to 'aggressively pursue a policy of eradicating the Buffalo, with the intention of extinguishing the sustainance of the Indian, thereby forcing them onto the area's reserved for them'.   Many arguments were raised against this, but General Philip Sheridan, (a 'Hero' of the Civil War), and in his support of the Buffalo-Hunters, stated, in Congress...(quote)...   ”These men have done more in the last two years, and will do more in the next year, to settle the vexed Indian question, than the entire regular army has done in the last forty years. They are destroying the Indians' commissary. And it is a well known fact that an army losing its base of supplies is placed at a great disadvantage. Send them powder and lead, if you will; but for a lasting peace, let them kill, skin, and sell until the buffalo is exterminated. Then your prairies can be covered with speckled cattle.”   By the late 1880's the era of the great Buffalo herds was at an end, and little remained on the Great Plains but piles of bones. By that time, the Buffalo population stood at around 1200 animals surviving in the US but, luckily, early Conservation efforts had led to the establishment of the World's first National Park...Yellowstone, and there, a small herd was being preserved, but they were still being killed, 'for sport', so, in 1892, a Senator Lacey chased through Congress a Protection Bill, and in 1894, 'The Lacey Act' became law, protecting the American Buffalo. The American Buffalo populalation, thanks to this Federal Law, currently stands at around 150,000...but never again will the huge swarms of this majestic animal be seen flooding across the plains of the American West!. Return to Part 1

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