Quote:QuestionableMaynard8130 wrote on May 8
th, 2007 at 9:36am:
The gvmt simply and purely wanted the buffalo dead dead dead. Exterminating the buffalo was a national strategic policy. If they could have poisoned them off they'd have done it. they wanted the economic props kicked out from under the Indians and the land freed from Indians and roaming buffalo herds for settlers.
Actually, this is pretty much internet and PC-legend. A scholarly investigation of the issue failed to find any evidence of this as an official government policy in any way. It was economics and technology (the developed need for belting for industrial machining and tanning techniques) that doomed the bison. The govt. may have been quite happy with the side effects but they were not actively engaged in causing this to happen for this end in and of itself.
There is a heck of a lot of myth about bison hunters in general and a bit of research will show a lot of deviations from accepted gospel. You might look into the work of Dan Flores, a well regarded historian, Chair of the Dept of History at Montana State U. and ex-gunwriter as a starting point. There has been lots of interest in estimating the numbers of bison killed as well. The more rational and defensible estimates are a fair bit under the accepted guesses in the 60 million range.
Brent
This is more than Internet mythology and Political correctness.
The Buffalo weren't exterminated by the Buffalo Hunters... If you will look into books, with verified counts on the amount of hides shipped, from the normal shipping collection points. The numbers of the hides shipped will not match the normal annual increase in a ten-million buffalo herd, not even considering a sixty-Million buffalo herd, at all.
What decimated the Buffalo herds was diseases from introduced cattle, such as Hoof and Mouth disease and Brucellosis, which the Buffalo did not have native immunities to.
There were never enough Buffalo Hunters, to make a dent in the buffalo herds population...
Don't buy the missinformation liberals and anti-hunters are putting out.
Bill