Native American Bison Essay

“These soldiers cut down my timber, they kill my buffalo and when I see that, my heart feels like bursting.” Buffalo, or the American bison, populations have become almost extinct in the wild going from several million to just a couple hundred in just a few years. This was caused by the buffalo’s hides sold for high profits making them desirable to the colonials who over hunted them and drove them towards endangerment and even hurt the Native American populations who relied on the buffalo as their main source of food. Because of this the buffalo were a very important part of the 1800s and western expansion and ultimately led to the fate of many Native American tribes.
The buffalo population The buffalo used to be numerous in population in the 1500s there were “An estimated 30

In the early-and mid-1870s, so many robes were produced that prices declined. Nevertheless, native and Metis hunters responded by killing even more of the remaining bison to maintain their livelihoods. By the end of the 1870s, the bison too were mostly gone.” Despite the fact that Buffalo were over hunted and their robes declined in price the hunters’ solution was to hunt and sell more robes to make up for the decline in price. Originally found by the farmers who collected the bones from the carcasses left behind by the hunters.
“Bison bones were used in refining sugar, and in making fertilizer and fine bone china. Bison bones brought from $2.50 to $15.00 a ton. Based on an average price of $8 per ton they brought 2.5 million dollars into Kansas alone between 1868 and 1881. Assuming that about 100 skeletons were required to make one ton of bones, this represented the remains of more than 31 million bison.”
Buffalo bone products quickly became one of the most profitable products made from the buffalo.
Effect of the declining buffalo population on the Native