Wild West Podcast

Buffalos and Bloodshed in the Wild West: An In-depth Exploration of Bison extinction and the Rise of the Frontier City

December 18, 2019 Michael King/Brad Smalley
Wild West Podcast
Buffalos and Bloodshed in the Wild West: An In-depth Exploration of Bison extinction and the Rise of the Frontier City
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Prepare for a journey of discovery as we trace the footprints of the majestic buffalo across the American plains, and how their fate was intrinsically tied to the westward expansion of settlers post the Civil War. We'll recount the profound bond between the buffalo and the Plains Indians, and how the end of the Civil War ignited a push in the American economy, setting the stage for a dramatic shift in this narrative. Witness the rise of military posts, buffalo hunts for feeding troops, settlers, railroad workers, and trading posts like the American Fur Company. We'll share the chilling account of the massacre at Walnut Creek and the escalating tensions between Indians and White Settlers.

Then, brace yourselves as we delve into the stories of the frontier entrepreneurs who gave life to Dodge City amidst these growing tensions and the extermination of buffalo herds. Feel the passion and determination of those who braved the frontier, their conquests, and their part in the haunting slaughter of bison herds. We'll explore critical events from the establishment of the Butterfield Overland Dispatch, the negotiation of the Medicine Lodge Treaty to the role of railroads in the decline of the buffalo population. This episode offers an intimate view into a pivotal era in American history filled with personal tales, conflict, and transformative change. Be ready to feel, learn, and understand history like never before!

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Speaker 1:

Music, conquering an unsettled land. The great western buffalo migration Music Buffaloes once ranged much of the continent, from the east to west coasts and from Canada's northwest territories in the north and Mexico in the south. The centre of the population was the great western grasslands. Before the civil war, settlers and significant numbers began to push into the vast west and an estimated 60 million buffalo roamed freely on the great American plains. The Indians were the first to hunt the buffalo. For thousands of plains Indians, people like the Comanche and others, the buffalo was unquestionably supreme. To them, the buffalo was a purposeful beast fulfilling food need and other necessities. In these early days, a harmony existed between native and creature. It was real food and they consumed an incredible variety of bison parts meat, fat, organs, testicles, nose, gristle, nipples, blood, milk, marrow and fetuses. They had broadly defined canons of edibility, but preferred cows over bulls and much desired humps, tongues and fetuses. A sense of respect prevailed between the plains Indians and the buffalo Before the civil war ended. In April of 1865, settlers were being challenged by the Cheyenne on the South Platt. Indian hostility on the whites increased with raids on settlers. The tribes of the Sioux and Arapaho joined the Cheyenne in an all-out war against the pioneers.

Speaker 1:

The after effects of the great civil war changed the outlook on the American economy, forcing an expansion westward. This expansion would bring with it the establishment of the military post. These military posts were spread out across the westward trails for protection as towns came into existence. The settlers in these towns needed food supply. Local frontiersmen were contracted to hunt the buffalo to feed the troops, supply food for the settlers and later for railroad workers. The Indians were not the only ones who hunted buffalo in this area. The American fur company, as early as the 1840s, started purchasing thousands of buffalo robes per year. Then, in 1859, a gold strike at Cherry Creek and the Rocky Mountains brought more people through Kansas.

Speaker 1:

It was about this time when Charles Wrath came west to establish trading contacts with some Indian tribes, including the Southern Cheyenne, kayawe and Northern Comanche bands. Wrath strengthened these alliances when he married a Cheyenne woman in 1860. In that same year, the frontier merchant Wrath took over the trading post of George Peacock on Walnut Creek after Peacock and five others were massacred. The massacre happened on September 9th 1860, when Satank and three others of the Kayawe tribes scouted around Peacock's ranch. Once, given the opportunity, they fired on Peacock one ball, entering his left temple, killing him instantly. They then fired upon a man named Myers, a German from Independence, and wounded him so that he died in a short time. There was another man in the house laying sick, but he was not molested. The Indians then loaded themselves with much loot and left Charles Wrath then age 24, took over the Walnut Creek ranch. Within a matter of weeks after Peacock's murder. The location of the trading post was near present-day Great Bend. In 1863, tensions between the Indians and the White Settlers continued and even though Wrath had done his best to maintain peaceful relationships with the tribes, his Walnut Creek trading post was raided several times. For his own safety, his Cheyenne wife convinced him to divorce her Travel Routes.

Speaker 1:

The Butterfield Overland dispatch started freight service to Denver, which caused several forts to be established by the fall of 1865. Previous stage lines had not been successful due to a scarcity of water and frequent Indian attacks. However, david Butterfield determined that it could be profitable. On June 4, 1865, the smooth-talking businessman David Butterfield obtained capital for the Butterfield Overland dispatch. The first stagecoach left Atchison on June 4, 1865, arriving in Denver on September 23. Relay stations were constructed every 12 miles along the 592 mile route. These stations provided passengers with rest, food and the changing of horses. The first line was a success, providing tri-weekly express service between Atchison, kansas, and Denver, colorado, in only 8 to 12 days. Soldiers were also posted along the pathway at Fort Downer, fort Harker, fort Monument, fort Wallace and other stops, to protect the stations and the travelers from Indian attacks. The soldiers could not keep up with the furious Indians who felt their land was being invaded. The Butterfield Overland Dispatch operated until 1870, when the first transcontinental railroad line, direct from the Missouri River to Sacramento, california, was completed, thus ending the BOD. This happened on May 10, 1869 at Promontory Point, utah, with the driving of the Golden Spike at that location and the meeting of the two lines, one coming from the east and the other coming from the west.

Speaker 1:

Medicine Lodge Treaty. The Civil War Beginning shortly after the Civil War, westward expansion created friction between settlers and central plains tribes. There were numerous reports of Indian attacks on white settlers. The Hancock Expedition in the spring of 1867 was meant to silence the attacks by holding counsel with the tribes. The tribes agreed to meet but backed out and ran from the military expedition, leaving everything behind. Hancock's men burned the village and pursued the Indians but never reached them.

Speaker 1:

Senator John Henderson of Missouri led the Medicine Lodge Council. At the time, he was the chair for the Senate Committee of Indian Affairs. In middle October of 1867, henderson began negotiating the terms of a potential treaty with members of the different tribal nations. The proposal put forward by Henderson was for the tribes to transition from nomadism to a sedentary life of farming. The treaty offered a 2.9-million-acre tract to the Comanches and Cuyahwas and a 4.3-million-acre tract for a Cheyenne-Irapaho Reservation. Both of these settlements would include the implements for farming and building houses and schools, and the land would be guaranteed as a native territory. The tribes were also permitted to continue hunting buffalo populations for as long as they existed, which wasn't destined to be long, as activities that led to their near-complete extermination were already underway. Many of the tribes resisted the proposal, but signed the treaty on October 21st, and then, on October 28th, they took the proffered gifts the American negotiators brought with them—beads, buttons, iron pans, knives, bolts of cloth, clothes and pistols, and ammunition—and departed for their territories.

Speaker 1:

At the Medicine Lodge Council of 1867, the Cuyahwa chief, satanta, known as White Bear, spoke against the treaty by saying I have heard that you intend to settle us on a reservation near the mountains. When we settle down, we grow pale and die. A long time ago this land belonged to our fathers. But when I go up the river I see camps of soldiers on its banks. These soldiers cut down my timber, they kill my buffalo and when I see that my heart feels like bursting. I am sorry I have spoken White Bear's words fell on deaf ears. The lands of the Kiowas and those of dozens of other tribes passed into federal hands between 1840 and 1870, under pressures fair and foul. From 1853 to 1857, the peak period of the acquisition included 174 million acres.

Speaker 1:

The Railroads. It did not take long before the railroad began to creep across the nation's frontier, bringing with it construction crews who were fed by buffalo hunters. These were the buffalo hunters hired by the railroad for their exceptional skills as hunters and marksmen their job to feed thousands of settlers who were pouring in and expanding the west. In 1867, the first of five railroads split the herd in the heart of Buffalo Range, a process repeated again and again. The railroads moved across the Kansas Plains deep into Buffalo Country. The herds were large and unmanageable and at times three-mile-long buffalo herds caused delays in travel. The buffalo herds were so large that the Kansas Pacific Railway began advertising excursions west of Kansas City. The rapid growth of railroads after the Civil War was both a response to a real need and an attempt to meet the challenge of future development. The frontier was pushing across the Kansas Plains and the 49ers had begun. The settlement of Colorado and other areas of the mountains west and the Pacific Coast was already a significant and growing market.

Speaker 1:

En Andrews boards one of these ventures in October of 1868. Andrews is among 300 church party members who board five passenger coaches out of Lawrence, kansas, to see the many herds migrating across the plains. By the time the 30 women and 250-man passenger train reached the destination west of Kansas City, the herds closed in on the moving train. En Andrews, a passenger on the train, gives the following description of his accounts at the 365-mile post, three bowls were on the left of the track, though nearly all that we had seen were on the right or north of that barrier, while now on their southward course, feeding in their slow advance, they kept pace with the train for at least a quarter of a mile, while the boys blazed away at them without effect. It was their design to get ahead of the train and cross over to the main body of their fellows, they finally accomplished their object. The cow catcher, however, became almost a bull catcher, for it seemed to graze one as he passed on the jump. As soon as the three were well over upon the right, they turned backward, at a small angle away from the train, and then it was that the powder and ball were brought into requisition Shots. Enough were fired to rout a regiment of men. Ha See that bull in advance. There he has stopped a second. He turns a kind of reproachful look up towards the train. He starts again on the lope, a step or two, he hesitates. Poises on the right legs, a pale full of blood gushes warm from his nostrils. He falls flat upon the right side, dead.

Speaker 1:

The engineer was kind enough to shut off the steam. The train stopped, and such scrambling and screeching was never before heard on the planes, except among the red men. As we rushed forth to see our first game lying in his gore, the rider had the pleasure of first putting hands upon the dark locks of the noble monster who had fallen so bravely. Another distinguished himself by mounting the fallen brave. Then came the ladies. A ring was formed, the cornet band gathered around and, as if to entice the spirits of all the departed buffalo, as well as Indians, played Yankee Doodle. I thought that hail to the chief would have done more honor to the departed. And now butcher knives and butchers were in requisition. Let us eviscerate and carry home this, our first captive, without further mutilation, that we may give our friends the pleasure of seeing the dimensions of the animal. This seemed a good plan and we proceeded to carry it out. After the butchers had done their work, a rope was attached to the horns and the animal, weighing about 1500 pounds, was dragged to the cars and then slifted on board the freight car, a few of our party climbing on top of the car to better pull the rope.

Speaker 1:

To link these widespread regions with one another and with eastern markets, fast and reliable transportation was needed. The railroad was already an obvious answer. Kansas businessmen and political leaders, even before the Civil War, dreamed of rail systems that would connect their infant cities with every place of importance in the nation. However, they soon learned that private enterprise alone could not finance such costly undertakings. Particularly in those areas where the settlement was sparse and investment capital was slow in yielding returns, it was found that governmental assistance was necessary. Port came in the form of land grants and sometimes cash from the federal and state governments and from the city, county and township bond issues which were exchanged for railroad stock and a promise that the company would build their way. Financial problems and physical hazards might easily have discouraged men from less determination.

Speaker 1:

You, you, general Philip Henry Sheridan. In 1869, general Philip Henry Sheridan was put in command of the Army's Department of Missouri, headquartered at Fort Leavenworth, kansas. The division of Missouri encompassed the vast windblown blanket of grass known as the Great Plains. The Great Plains was the home of the Plains Indians whose lives revolved around the Buffalo. General Philip Henry Sheridan's job was to plan and secure the overland routes in the region to make way for the railroad. To prepare the way for the upcoming Plains campaign. Sheridan's division extended from the Dakotas in the north to Texas in the south and extended west to the Rocky Mountains. Within his command were three major overland routes the Santa Fe, the Smoky Hill and the Platt. Here also was the proposed route for the transcontinental railroad. By establishing posts along the travel routes, the military hoped to create a filling of omnipresence among the Indians and thus discourage them from hostile acts. The Smoky Hill trail, along with the other travel routes, played an essential role in development of this plan. These roads were heavily traveled and their protection was an absolute necessity. The idea to protect the trails called for the establishment of three new military posts Fort Harker, fort Hayes and Fort Wallace.

Speaker 1:

Return of the Great Hunters Tales of the Frontier commercial feed. To learn more about the early buffalo trade and the frontiersmen who hunted them, you can purchase the book Return of the Great Hunters Tales of the Frontier. A link to the book has been provided in the notes section of this podcast. Return of the Great Hunters Tales of the Frontier began as a story of buffalo hunters in Kansas, but it is more than that. It is also an account of the pioneers of the plains, the growth of Dodge City and the extermination of the great buffalo herds in southwest Kansas. The book is about buffalo hunters who travel in and out of the Arkansas River Valley between the years of 1868 to 1874. Their stories are entwined with that of the entrepreneurs who built Dodge City, never looking backward and asking only for light enough to show them a tomorrow.

Speaker 1:

Return of the Great Hunters is a contemporary look at the individual beginnings of the legends of Dodge City, kansas. These stories describe a first-person perspective of the individuals who face the hardship of the frontier. It is a collection of individual stories on how these men became legends of their experience, founded at times by luck, but mostly on their skills to survive. These are the personal stories of legends established out of strong character which made them unique to American lore. The stories will take you deep into the adventures of each man's encounters as they conquer the wild grasslands of the southwestern plains. It is about the legends of their actions during a specific time in history. As their stories are manifested here, these are stories beyond the folk heroes that they have been noted to become. It is also the story of the greatest slaughter of any animal in history the great bison herds of America.

Music Buffaloes and the Expansion Westward
Return of the Great Hunters Tales