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186 



THE AMEEICAN" BISONS. 



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j/mr^ and during that part of tlie 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 ccjualled eighteen hundred 

 thousand ( 1,800,000). Allowing a slight addition for the relatively greater 

 number killed during the Avarmer 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- 



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tion continued for several decades, we need no longer be surprised at the 



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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 Pur 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 w^earing jipparel 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 Bed 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 II, p. 125. 



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