History of the Buffalo

Before the white man came to the plains the buffalo roamed peacefully with the Plains Indians who used them for their basic needs. As the Transcontinental railroad was built there was a rapid decrease of the population of buffalo. The Transcontinental railroad was moving west and pushed the Plains Indians and the buffalo out of their homeland. The Plains Indians did not like this so they decided to fight back. General Philip H. Sheridan was the commander of the United States forces at that time and he had plans of exterminating the buffalo. He thought this would kill the Plains Indians. "Kill the buffalo and you kill the Indians" he said.

The buffalo lived a hard life during the 1800's. They were always being killed whether it for basic needs or sport. It became obvious that Indians and whites viewed the buffalo from differing points of view. Plains Indians had learned to hunt the buffalo skillfully with a bow and arrow, while the white professional hunter used a rifle of long distance accuracy. The Plains Indians became dependent upon the buffalo, they had developed their cultures, communities and way of life around the buffalo. About 24 to 28 Plains tribes had figured out how to use the buffalo in 52 different ways for food, supplies, and war and hunting implements. For example, the hooves were boiled and used like glue and the hump on the back of the buffalo is really sturdy so they used that for making shields. Even the hide was used for making teepees. They had used the buffalo for just about everything they needed. However, when the white man came to the west with the Transcontinental railroad everything changed. There were constant deaths of buffalo and with all the deaths on the plains the Plains Indians and the buffalo caught diseases. The buffalo were always being killed.

The loss of buffalo affected the whole scheme of life of the Plains Indians, and understanding of their universe. The Plains Indians saw that their life was being taken away from them. Plains Indians began to realize that they were going to have to do something and to fight for their lands, in a way to fight for the buffalo. They're trying to defend their lands. Buffalo were mostly destroyed by waves of technology involving the railroad, mining for gold and silver, changing the habits of the buffalo, and a change of the white settlements. Many of these new things ended up in the destruction of the buffalo. All of these factors did not occur at once, but in an overlapping pattern and movement of American expansion in the West had changed the lives of buffalo tremendously.
For the buffalo nothing was good. They were constantly being hunted. And at one point the buffalo were almost extinct with a low population of about one thousand, this however was after the Transcontinental railroad was built. Before the Transcontinental railroad, there were about fifteen to sixty million buffalo roaming peacefully on the plains. That's about a sixty million difference. As the buffalo started to disappear the Plains Indians were not able to feed their families.

With the arrival of the Transcontinental railroad there came many deaths of both the buffalo and the Plains Indians. Although many suffered during this time it helped lead to the growth of the nation. Without this the world would be very different. The Transcontinental railroad was a very helpful invention in linking the east to the west forming the United States.