144 



THE AMERICAN ElSOISrS. 



very soon after left the whole valley of the Red River^ being rapidly slaugh- 



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tered and pressed westward by the incursions of the Red River half-breed 



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hunters, who are reported to have killed annually^ at about this time^ twenty 



\ 



thousand buffaloes south of the United States and British Boundary.* A 

 few lingered in the southwestern part of the State till within a very few 

 years, or occurred there rather as stragglers from the herds west of the Big 

 Sioux River, in Southwestern Dakota. 



From the foregoing it hence appears that the buffalo was more or less 

 abundant over large portions of the States of Arkansas and Missouri as late 

 as 1812 to 1815, but that few remained in either State later than 1820. At 

 about this date they seem to have also disappeared from Eastern and South- 

 ern Iowa, but were quite numerous in the northwestern part of the State, 



and adjoining parts of Mimiesota, as late as 1840 to 1845, where occasionally 

 an old bull was met with as late as 1869. As already stated, they disap- 

 peared in Minnesota east of the Mississippi River prior to 1832;t and they 

 appear to have been exterminated over the whole region east of the Red 

 River as early as 1850, and to have survived later elsewhere in the State 

 only in the extreme southwestern counties^ where a few lingered till about 

 1869. 



of the Buffalo 



Northern Boundary of 



Platte River. 



As is well known to those who have given much attention to 



the subject, the great buflflilo herd that once extended continuously from the 

 plains of the Saskatchewan to the Rio Grande \Yas divided about 1849 into 

 two bands by the California overland immigration^ and that since that time 

 the two herds have never united. The great overland route, as is well 

 known, followed up the Kansas and Platte Rivers, and thence w^estward by 

 the North Platte, crossing the Rocky Mountains by way of the South Pass. 

 The buffaloes were all soon driven from the vicinity of this line of travel, 

 thousands being annually slaughtered, a large proportion of them being 

 killed wantonly.t The increase of travel, and finally the construction of 



r 



* nice (H. M.), Pope's Keport (of.), P- 4. 



f See antea, p. 117. 



X Respecting the influence of the overland emigration upon the buffalo, wo find Captain Stansbury, 

 T/lio passed over the emigrant trail in the summer of 1849, speaking as follows: Under date of June 27, 

 he says, *' To-day the hunters killed their first buffalo, but iti order to obtain it had to diverge some four 

 or five miles from the road and to pass back of the bluffs, the instinct or experience of these sagacious ani- 

 mals having rendered them shy of approaching the line of travel. This has always been the case, for it is 



f 



4 







