Ok.so let's say that disease played a pivotal role. It's still hard to argue that the government didn't purposefully slaughter buffalo for the express purpose of defeating Indians so the white man could take thier land. White man did that to the Iroquois. Then the Cherokee, Choctaw and Seminole (and dozens of others) before they even had serious eyes on the west. I could listen to someone making an argument that disease played a role, but to suggest that the white man didn't is asinine.

Don't think peoples are saying there was no intent to harm the Indians with the onslaught on the buffalo. Think the "assumption" is they didn't or couldn't accomplish that.

Im betting three fold-

Indian started buffalo trade due to horses
domestic livestock disease
European/Indian hunting

Biggest probably live stock disease

What do you mean by ^^that one?

There was no better way to defeat the Comanche than take away their food source. I believe it was done on purpose, and have no problem with it.

I understand where you're coming from. Anyone who knows their history knows that the natives in question were brutal and savage and until the federal government became as brutal and savage as the Comanches, they stood no chance against them.

Baby Head got named for a reason.

Here's a perspective given from a buffalo hunter, Hank H. Mayer, from a book he wrote called "The Buffalo Hunter". I have this book somewhere, but here's a link to the text. This might be the complete book online. Very good read from a perspective a-ways back in time. I haven't read the book this century, but I recall he also writes some of the same things that many in this thread are also writing. That includes the federal government's involvement by way of free ammunition to the hunters.

The Buffalo Harvest

Spaniards brought horses well before the eastern front was settled buy Europeans. Two biggest things to shape Indian culture was Spanish Horses and disease. Indian nations had started trade with other nations all the way to Central America. Horses allowed Buffalo to become a commodity for Indians.


for reference horses arrived in NA in 1519, James town was 1607. Louisiana purchase was 1803. Lewis in Clark was 1804. Heavy Western expansion took a longgg time over 300 years

There is no such animal as an American Buffalo.

I am aware of all that.

Domestic horses owned by whites were constantly stolen. Along with the capture of mustangs. Comanches measured wealth in the size of a remuda one owned. Horses were currency to the Comanche. The only Bison product reported to be traded was hides. Only if they had a surplus, after their own usage.

But no other Indian culture embraced the horse like the Comanche. Apaches, enemy of the Comanche, were reported to eat the horse as soon as ride it. They did ride them of course, but did not revere them like the Comanche did. Comanches would eat horse, but as a last resort.

The Comanches defeated the Spanish, the Mexicans, many other Indian tribes, and for a while the whites, because of being expert horsemen. Whites claimed them as the finest light cavalry on the continent and potentially the finest light cavalry to ever exist, in the world. I've not read any reports of Bison bone, meat, or organs being used in trading. Not to say it didn't happen, but it is not highlighted.

Well documented that Comanches traded their share of buffalo hides.


Bovine tuberculosis is what I’ve been reading that really hurt the buffalo herds

this was before whites ever crossed the Mississippi, artifacts and bird feathers from Central America found in NM/CO etc and buffalo bones/ hide etc found in Central America.

surplus?, pre horse they ran the whole herd off cliffs.


Ive also read a theory that Indian populations could of taken 1-4 million dive from Spaniard introduced disease, thus allowing for buffalos to hit the top of their bell cover and then start working back down as horses got embraced, then start sharpley declining with horses. With out Spanish disease Native landscape would of been completely different, but none the less 200 year time frame of horse adaptation with out relevant Europeans numbers

You're right. It's Buffler.

Took me a full day to read, but it was an interesting read.

It's an interesting and plausible theory.

The thinking there is the Indian population and way of life may have been different prior to the Spanish. Spanish come, big Native American die off, then finally when people from the old world started documenting about the native peoples, things were quite a bit different.

I’m not arguing about Native American relations. But “pivotal role” means that disease was a major player.

Major enough to cause a population to crash beyond redemption

The US government slaughtered Indians - very deliberately.

Those that lived were put into internment operations, again very deliberately, and very well documented.

Covid did not kill them, climate change did not kill them, the flu did not kill them, the US government killed them. The US government slaughtered them, men, women, and children. Great Britain, Spain, and France killed Indians too. Cortez the Killer earned his name and should not escape being remembered either.

That is called genocide - the deliberate and systematic destruction of a group of people because of their ethnicity, nationality, religion, or race.

It is sickening. It is unacceptable. It is unforgivable and it must not be erased from history.

The US government also slaughtered - exterminated - the bison - very deliberately.

It is a hard fact of history, well documented by first hand accounts.

Please read this history published in 1887 by William Hornaday.

Click on "view/open" to download the whole document from the Smithsonian's archive.

https://repository.si.edu/handle/10088/29938

Here is a modern historian's review of the military's role, which is a more complex and detailed examination of military policy leading to the extermination of the bison. The bottom line he reaches is that extermination was more Gen. Sherman's personal agenda, along with Gen. Sheridan, than official US Army policy, although carried out with tacit approval. Again, Sherman is a person who should not be forgotten from history's bright light staying focused on him. Please note the source materials for his many of his references - the papers of Sherman and Sheridan.

https://studylib.net/doc/8185838/the-frontier-army-and-the-destruction-of-the-buffalo

Excuses or erasing history only make us vulnerable to history repeating itself and we might be on the receiving end next time. Just a thought to consider.

i read quite a bit of the Buffalo Harvest and many facts can be found in the book. Need to finish reading it.

Thinking here I view this differently than you.

Ok, so what are your thoughts?

what did the sioux do to the pawnee, What did the aztec do their slaves, point is ruthless had no singular race factor

There unquestionably was warring between the different tribes.

Reporting of events was decent in the mid 1800s. Is there any report or 20-30 million (or whatever) buffalo laying dead of disease. I do not think you could miss that.

Yet history wants to exclude slavery, sacrifice and genocide…and only focus in on Europeans.