1 14 Till". AMERICAN BISONS. 



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

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



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 tbe State till within a very few 

 years, or occurred there rather a- Btragglers 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, hut were quite numerous in the northwestern part of the State, 

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

 an old hull 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 18-30, and to have survived later elsewhere in the State 

 only in the extreme southwestern counties, when' a few lingered till about 

 18G9. 



/• maneni Division of ihr Buffalo into two distinct Herds, and their Extermination 

 over the greater Part of the Region between tht Northern Boundary of Tuns and the 

 Platte River. — As is well known to those who have given much attention to 

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

 plains of the Saskatchewan to the Rio Grande was 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 i< well 

 known, followed up the Kansas and Platte Rivers, and thence westward 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 huge proportion of them being 

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



* Rice ill. M >. Pope's Repot (cf.), p 1. 



■'. 117. 



the influence <>f tin- overland emigration upon the buffalo, we find Captain Stansbury, 

 who pasted over the emigrant trail in the rammer of 184 ° ( speaking a* follows: Under date of June 27, 

 I I da) the hunters killed ilnir lir-i bufla'o, but in order to obtain it had to divi 

 or five miles from the road and t" pass back "f the bluffs, the instinct or cxporiew f il agacious ant- 

 ing rendered Ihem «li\ of approaching the line o( tratn 1 Thia liai always been the case, for it is 



