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Of the Great Plains Before European Settlement Rangelands of the Great Plains Before European Settlement Item Type text; Article Authors Hart, Richard H.; Hart, James A. Citation Hart, R. H., & Hart, J. A. (1997). Rangelands of the Great Plains before European settlement. Rangelands, 19(1), 4-11. Publisher Society for Range Management Journal Rangelands Rights Copyright © Society for Range Management. Download date 28/09/2021 08:07:54 Item License http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ Version Final published version Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/640443 4 RANGELANDS 19(1), February 1997 Rangelands of the Great Plains Before European Settlement Richard H. Hart and James A. Hart "Elysian Fields" or "Barrenness, in a paraphrase or synthesis of their Canadian River (Figure 1). He Inhospitality, and Despair"? comments. Here, in those early trav- described a village of "More than ellers' own words (and their own twelve hundred houses.. .surrounded couple from the East stopped at spelling), is what they saw. on all sides by fields of maize...in our Central Plains Experimental many places the grass was high ARange near Nunn, Colorado enough to conceal a horse" (Bolton and asked one of our technicians, It's Been Shortgrass for a Long Time 1916). "What did this country look like before But the early explorers of the Great the white man came?" He grinned and Plains that, then as Grass to a horse's belly or taller was agreed now, they answered "You mean before or after were dominated by short grasses; blue the 6 million buffalo came characteristic, not of the Great Plains, through?" but of the grama and buffalograss in the north, These two illustrate two dis- tallgrass prairie to the east. questions In Oñate crossed the Plains to mesquite or galleta grass in the south. parate views of the Great Plains 1601, the tallgrass prairie on the lower Coronado, in 1540—42, led the first before European settlement, before party of Europeans to penetrate the the pioneers and the trail herds. Much of the conflict over what the Plains Souris R. should look like now is rooted in dis- agreement over what they looked like then. The first European impressions of the Plains were recorded in journals of trappers, traders, explorers, and natu- ralists from the late 16th to the mid- 19th centuries. What were the Plains like when they saw them? Were they "Elysian fields of tremendous areas of luxuriant grass" (Fremont 1845) or were they "enormous plains which in winterare white with snow and in sum- mer are gray with a saline alkali dust [which] preserve the common charac- teristics of barrenness, inhospitality, and despair" (Doyle 1930)? Were they covered with grass up to a horse's belly or higher, or were they covered with short grass showing the effects of centuries of uncontrolled grazing by bison, elk and other native herbivores? The question will not be settled by appeals to ecological theory or special pleading by the friends or foes of the livestock industry. We must turn to first-hand eyewitness accounts of those early travellers on the Plains. Frequently,we will quote directly from their journals and official reports, to avoid any possible appearance of bias Ag. 1. The riversof the GreatPlains were pathways for exploration. RANGELANDS 19(1), February 1997 5 John C. Fremont (1845) was on the Republican in 1843, 8 days' travel above the mouth of the Smoky Hill at about the present-day Kansas- Colorado border, and reported "Among a variety of grasses which today made their first appearance, I noticed...buffalograss....", and later mentions "...the short sward of the buf- falo grass..." William Franklin (1979), on the Platte in 1845 with Col. Stephen Kearny's expedition, wrote "...there was scarcely any grass on the hills but the buffalo grass and that was parched by the sun." Phillip St. George Cooke and Henry Carleton also accompanied Kearny up the Platte and down the Arkansas in 1845. Cooke commented "the buffalo Fig. 2. The originalcaption of this illustration reads "Coronado and his band ofcoura- (1857) has been before but we have geous followers wandering over the burning sands of the great Southwest Desert us, found some scant in search of fabled cities and gold and gems" (Barker et a!. 1934).However, the grazing;—it is but- expedition's journal of 1541 recorded notdeserts but grasslands where "The grass falograss,—very backward, and looks grows tall near the lakes; away from them it is very short, a span or less..." like curled gray horsehair..." and echoes (Castaneda 1966). Pattie "...its sod is a near approach to woodenpavements." shortgrass country of the Great Plains lages on the Missouri just below pre- Randolph Marcy (1850), in the Texas (Castañeda 1966); De Vaca (Bandelier sent-day Lake Sakakawea. From the Panhandle in 1849, reported "Not a 1905), De Soto (Hudson 1993), and La Mandan villages, Larocque travelled tree, shrub, or any other object, either Salle (Joutel 1962) had only skirted the up the Little Missouri and the Powder, animate or inanimate, relieved.. .the southern fringes of the Plains. along the front of the Bighorn dreaded 'Llano Estacado'. ...The only Coronado's party may have travelled Mountains to the present site of herbage upon these barren plains is a as far as Kansas from the Spanishset- Billings, Montana, then returned down very short buffalo grass." In 1852, tlements in New Mexico, although the Yellowstone and the Missouri to Marcy (1938) wrote "The grass upon Donoghue (1929) maintains Coronado the villages. He complained "It is the Staked Plain is generally a very never got out of Texas. Castaneda amazing how very barren the ground short variety of mezquite, called buffa- wrote 'The country we passed through is between the Powder River and the lo-grass, from one to two inches in is and spacious level. The grass grows lesser Missouri...Our horsesare nearly length." He concluded "The range of tall near the lakes; away from them it is starved" (Wood and Thiessen 1985). the grama grass, so far as observa- a or less..." my very short, span (Figure 2). James Pattie (1833), a traveler and tions have extended, is bounded...on he is the southern teller of Although describing tall tales from Kentucky, grum- the east by about the meridian of 98° Plains, the aspect was very much the bled about the hard surface of the west longitude Marcythought well of same from north to south. On the Platte in shortgrass prairie. the nutritional qualities of short Trudeau, a trader on the upper 1824, he wrote "The are cov- grass, plains describing it as "most excellent forage Missouri in 1803—1805, described ered with a short, fine grass, about "Vast and from four inches for animals" and describing "...a luxuri- high prairie, separated high, of such a kind, as to ant sward of the river low and humid be to the hoofs of ani- nutritious mezquite grass, by plains, pre- very injurious which sent to the eye a monotonous mals Pattie also told of of affords the very best pasturage packs for animals expanse...small arid hills, the greater hundreds of wolves, "white as snow along the Washita River in 1852 part bare or covered with short grass- and big as sheep," and reported about (Marcy 1938). George who was to es" (Abel 1921). In 1805, Francois- three horrendous Indian fights per McClellan, command the Antoine Larocque, Charles McKenzie, week. In 1839,a Swisstraveler named Army of the Potomac in the Civil War David Thompson, and Alexander Wislizenus (1912) found "...butfalo- until he exhausted Lincoln's patience Henry, who we'll encounter later, were grass...a very short, delicate grass, (twice), accompaniedMarcy, who later fur traders with the Northwest growing in isolated bunches ..." as far became his chiefof staff and father-in- Company, stationed at the Mandan vil- east as Grand Island. law. 6 RANGELANDS 19(1), February 1997 The military types seldom had the (1965) wrote of the country west of regarded as indicators of mismanage- knowledge needed for extensive Salina, Kansas; "...as settlers ment, but in the 19th century indicated botanizing,and tended to mention only advance, and domestic herds take the heavy grazing by bison or rodent dis- the showier forbs to the neglect of the place of the big game, the coarser, turbance. grasses. James MaIm (1961), geogra- more vigorous, and deeper-rooted and at the of grasses destroy buffalograss and take pher ecologist University There Were a Lot of Bison Kansas, snickered at Fremont's com- its place." ment about Prickly pear cactus is sometimes "...hunting plants among There were a lot of bison; regarded as an indicator of overgraz- certainly the grass" (Fremont 1845). The terms not the 60 million often cited, but prob- ing by livestock, but it was present buffalograss, grama, and mezquite ably 15 or 20 million (Cushman and were used before a cow or a sheep ever saw the grass quite interchangeably Jones 1988, Shaw 1995) or as many for the short differ- Great Plains. Prickly pearwas record- grasses. Finally, ed and down the Plains from 1804 as 28 to 30 million (Flores 1991). ences in the grass species recorded up Travellers' tales of the herds are by Larocque (Wood and Thiessen great by the various expeditions may reflect so well known it is to 1985) to 1849 by Stansbury (1852). unnecessary differences in location and season, as Lewis and Clark on the repeat them here (Figure 4). well as differences in botanical knowl- (1983), upper on Missouri in 1805, recorded "The prick- Bison, occasion, grazed the and G.K. into the edge. Stephen Long Warren, ly pear is now in full blume and forms prairie vegetation right ground.
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