CHAPTER III THE BUFFALO REPUBLIC RICHES OF THE INDIANS-THE VAST HERDS OF BUFFALO-A BUFFALO HUNT ON THE SHEYENNE-RUNNING THE BUFFALO MAKING PEMMICAN-THE BUFFALO REPUBLIC-THE MISSOURI RIVER BLOCKADED BY BUFFALO-THE LAST GREAT HUNT. "Upon the Michigan, three moons ago, We launched our pirogues for the bison chase, And with the Hurons planted for a space, With true and faithful hands, the olive stalk; But snakes are in the bosoms of their race, And though they held with us a friendly talk, -The Oneida Chief to the Planter-Campbell. RICHES OF THE INDIANS The herds of buffalo afforded the chief means of subsistence of the Indians while the beaver were the main source of emolument. The flesh of the buffalo was dried or put up as pemmican for future use, the sinews furnished them with thread, the skins gave material for tepees, raiment, bedding, carpets, canoes, bullboats, baskets, buckets and cases for pemmican and the fat of bears and other animals, strings for their bows, ropes for tethering animals, lariats for catching the young buffalo, and at the end were used for shroud and coffin. For many years the Indians conserved the buffalo and endeavored to prevent the slaughter of more than was necessary for their own consumption, but the temptations offered by the traders were too great, and they joined in the work of destruction for the means of procuring needed supplies and of gratifying their appetite for intoxicating liquors. THE VAST HERDS OF BUFFALO On nearing the Park River in September, 1800, Alexander Henry found numerous herds of buffalo, sometimes forming one continuous body as far as the eye could reach, passing sometimes within 800 feet of the party. Climbing a tall oak at Park River, he noted the same conditions, and that the small timber had been entirely destroyed by them, and great piles of wool lay at the foot of the trees they had rubbed against. The ground was trampled as it would be in a barnyard, and the grass was entirely destroyed where they had come to the river for water. All the way to Pembina Mountains he found buffalo and in great numbers about Turtle River, Grand Forks, Goose River and the Sheyenne. One morning at Park River they were awakened by the moving herd, which tramped continuously past their camp from before daylight until after 9 o'clock in the forenoon. When the river broke up in the spring of 1801, large numbers were drowned. They floated by the post at Park River for about two days in an unbroken stream, and from Pembina to Grand Forks there was scarcely a rod of the banks where they had not lodged. An early writer claims that in 1795 he counted in the streams and on the shore of the Qu' Appelle River, 7,360 buffalo, drowned by the breaking up of the stream. They were simply in incredible numbers and the prairies were black with them. About their camp in Pembina in 1802, they had so completely destroyed the grass that Henry lost twenty-eight head of horses from starvation, and one day a buffalo actually came within the gates of their fort. In 1803 Mr. Henry went to the Pembina Mountains and thence across the plains to Mouse River and White Earth River, and for upwards of a month was not out of sight of buffalo for a single day. In 1804 a prairie fire swept over the country around Pembina and Mr. Henry reports that in going to the Pembina Mountains he was not out of sight of blind and singed buffalo for a moment. They were wandering about the prairies, their eyes so swollen that they could not see. Their hair was singed, and in many instances the skin shriveled. In one instance he found a whole herd roasted, either dead or dying. In 1805 Lewis and Clark, the explorers, counted fifty-one herds of buffalo from one standpoint on the Missouri River. They found the plains of what is now Emmons, Morton, Burleigh, Oliver, Mercer and McLean counties, North Dakota, supporting herds quite equal in extent to those described by Mr. Henry in the Red River Valley. In 1806 Mr. Henry went to the Mandan villages on the Missouri River, and in the Mouse River country was compelled to barricade his camp at night to prevent being run over by the moving herds. In the narrative of John Tanner, the White Captive, among the Chippewa, it is stated that one night as they lay in their camp near the Red River they could hear the noise of a buffalo herd which proved to be some twenty miles distant. In his words: "A part of the herd was all of the time kept in constant rapid motion by the severe fights of the bulls. To the noise produced by the knocking together of the hoofs when they raised their feet from the ground, and their incessant tramping, was added the loud and furious roar of the bulls, engaged, as they all were, in the terrific and appalling conflicts." To this clamor was added the barking and howling of the packs of wolves, which always followed the herd and preyed upon the calves, and the weak and disabled, or devoured the parts of animals left by the hunters. The Indians killed them with bows and arrows and caught the young with nooses of leather. William H. Keating, the historian of Maj. Stephen H. Long's expedition, spoke of the buffalo as existing in herds of tens of thousands between the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers, and vast numbers in the Red River Valley on both sides of the river. Vol. I 3 Gen. William T. Sherman estimated that the buffalo between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains at the beginning of the construction of the Pacific railroads numbered 9,500,000. The bones of the animals were afterwards gathered by settlers and shipped out of the country by train loads and down the river by ship loads. It was the privilege of the writer in 1887 to examine a pile of buffalo bones at Minot, N. D., brought in from the adjacent prairies. The pile was measured, and the weight of bones belonging to a single animal obtained, and it was found that one pile represented over seven thousand buffalo. Like shipments were being made from other stations, and it was estimated that the bones which had been and were being gathered in North Dakota represented over two million animals. Entire trains were loaded at Bismarck in the early days with buffalo and other hides, from the steamboats that came down the river. When the Indian camps were captured at the battle of White Stone Hills, in Dickey County, in 1863, the fat ran in streams from the dried buffalo meat that was destroyed in the conflagration. In one season Charles Larpenteur, an independent trader, obtained 5,000 buffalo hides at Fort Buford, and in 1845 Gen. John C. Fremont reported that the output of buffalo hides by the trading companies had averaged 90,000 annually for several years, but this covered only the number killed from November to March, when the robes were at their best. During the construction of the Kansas Pacific Railroad William F. Cody (Buffalo Bill) contracted to furnish the men engaged on the work twelve buffalo daily at $500 per month. One day eleven buffalo escaped a party of army officers who were running them, but were all killed by Cody, who fired but twelve shots. William Comstock, a famous buffalo hunter, having disputed Cody's right to the title of "Buffalo Bill," a contest was arranged near Sheridan, Wyo., and starting with equal opportunities, Cody killed thirty-eight, and Comstock twenty before luncheon. In the afternoon two herds were encountered and the contest closed with a score of sixty-nine for Cody and forty for Comstock. Hunting one day with a party of Pawnees, who were glad to have killed twenty-two, Cody begged the privilege of attacking the next herd alone, and killed thirty-six, very much to the astonishment of the Indians. A BUFFALO HUNT ON THE SHEYENNE In 1840 Alexander Ross, a Canadian trader, witnessed a buffalo hunt on the Sheyenne River, of which he gives the following account: "At 8 o'clock the cavalcade made for the buffalo, first at a slow trot, then at a gallop, and lastly at full speed. Their advance was on a dead level, the plains having no hollows, or shelter of any kind, to conceal the approach. When within four or five hundred yards, the buffalo began to curve their tails and paw the ground, and in a moment more to take flight, and the hunters burst in among them and began to fire. "Those who have seen a squadron of horse dash into battle may imagine the scene. The earth seemed to tremble when the horses started, but when the animals fled it was like the shock of an earthquake. The air was darkened, and the rapid firing at last became more faint, and the hunters became more distant. |