186 THE AMERICAN BISONS. 
year, and during that part of the year, too, when the smallest number are 
destroyed. Taking the above data as a basis for an estimate, the whole 
number killed annually by the Indians must have equalled eighteen hundred 
thousand (1,800,000). Allowing a slight addition for the relatively greater 
number killed during the warmer parts of the year, we have, in round num- 
bers, the startling total of about two millions as the average annual number 
destroyed by only those tribes of Indians who were accustomed to collect 
robes for the market. These embraced only a small portion of the tribes 
living within or on the borders of the great buffalo range; so that probably 
two millions a year is much less than half the number killed at this time by 
the Indians alone. Besides this, travellers and white hunters killed annually 
hundreds of thousands more. When we consider that this enormous destruc- 
tion continued for several decades, we need no longer be surprised at the 
rapid numerical de¢rease of the buffalo that has marked the last forty or fifty 
years of his history. 
In 1852 Professor Baird wrote: “Mr. Picotte, an experienced partner of the 
American Fur Company, estimated the number of buffalo-robes sent to St. 
Louis in 1850 at one hundred thousand. Supposing each of the sixty thou- 
sand Indians on the Missouri to use ten robes for his wearing apparel every 
year, besides those for new lodges and other purposes, by the calculation of 
Mr. Picotte, we shall have an aggregate of four hundred thousand [sic] 
robes [seven hundred thousand?]. We may suppose one hundred thousand 
as the number killed wantonly or destroyed by fire or other casualties, and 
we will have the grand total of half a million [eight hundred thousand ?] 
of buffalo destroyed every year. This, too, does not include the numbers 
slaughtered on Red River and other gathering points.”* In this estimate 
the important fact is overlooked that the robes are all taken during three 
months of the year, at a season too when the smallest number are killed, and 
that only about one third of those killed during these three months are util- 
ized for robes. If this number should be multiplied by nine, as it evidently 
must be from the above-quoted statements of Mr. Sanford, and which from 
general considerations also seems probable, we should have the immense total 
of from five to seven millions as the number killed yearly by the Indians 
who furnished the one hundred thousand robes for the St. Louis market! 
Ten robes, however, seems to be a large number to be used annually by 
each person. If we reduce the number to three, we shall still have an 
* Pat. Off. Rep, Agricult., 1851-52, Part U, p. 125. 
