University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln

Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for

Spring 2001

The First Phase Of Destruction Killing The Southern Plains Buffalo, 1790-1840

Pekka Hamalainen University of Helsinki

Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly

Part of the Other International and Area Studies Commons

Hamalainen, Pekka, "The First Phase Of Destruction Killing The Southern Plains Buffalo, 1790-1840" (2001). Great Plains Quarterly. 2227. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/2227

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. THE FIRST PHASE OF DESTRUCTION KILLING THE SOUTHERN PLAINS BUFFALO, 1790~1840

PEKKA HAMALAINEN

The eradication of the vast bison herds from on the Southern Plains, Dan Flores has con­ the North American Great Plains is one of the cluded that large-scale dying may have begun oldest topics in western history and, recently, as early as 1840, when a peace among also one of the most popular. Drawing ideas Comanche, Kiowa, Plains Apache, Cheyenne, and methodologies from ecology and zoology, and Arapahoe opened the previously contested historians have revealed in the 1990s an en­ hunting grounds for Native hunters. A severe tirely new anatomy of the destruction. Ac­ drought in 1846, along with exotic bovine cording to the new interpretation, the great diseases and Euro-American disturbance, slaughter of the 1870s merely delivered a brought about a full-blown crisis by mid-cen­ clinching blow to herds that had already been tury. Following Flores's lead, Elliott West has weakened in a number of ways. Concentrating revealed a similar development on the Cen­ tral Plains, although he argued that the prin­ cipal catalyst of the crisis was a zoological phenomenon known as "species packing." In KEY WORDS: American bison, bison hunting, the 1840s, thousands of white overlanders and Comanche, environmental history, Native American history, Southern Plains their horses, oxen, cattle, and sheep swarmed onto the already crowded Central Plains, throwing off the delicate ecological equilib­ Pekka Hiimiiliiinen earned his Ph.D. from the rium. Basically, there were not enough re­ University of Helsinki. During the academic year 2001- sources for everyone-the Euro-Americans, 02 he will be a visiting scholar at the Clements Center for Southwest Studies. He is the author of"The Western Indians, domestic herds, and bison.! Comanche Trade Center: Rethinking the Plains Indian By now, these revisionist studies have be­ Trade System" (Western Historical Quarterly 29, come the new canon of bison ecology, which Winter 1998), the winner of the Bert M. Fireman is not necessarily what the authors had had in Prize of the Western History Association. mind. Both Flores and West intended their essays to be broadly conceived, at least partly [GPQ 21 (Spring 2001): 101-141 hypothetical works that would encourage us

101 102 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2001

FIG . 1. Carl Bodmer (1809-1893), Indians Hunting the Bison, 1845, engraving, 6 1/8 X 7 15/16 in. Courtesy of Great Plains Art Collection, University of Nebraska. Gift of Leon McGoogan, M.D.

to rethink some of the fixed notions about sin, and West's study concentrates to the ar­ the buffalo's demise. 2 However, New West­ eas immediately to the north. Both are thus ern historians, eager to promote studies sup­ essentially geographically focused case stud­ porting their theses, hurried to sanction the ies, models for more inclusive further research. two essays. Touching upon such themes as The second question involves timing, the tem­ complexity of Euro-American takeover and poral trajectory of destruction. Flores and West interrelatedness of environmental and eco­ designated the 1840s as the critical period, nomic processes, Flores and West's writing witnessing the expansion of indigenous hunt­ resonated so perfectly with the core paradigms ing following the 1840 detente, swelling over­ of the New Western History movement that land traffic, and a prolonged dry spell. Both few had the patience to wait for affirmative emphasize that starvation was Widespread by studies.3 This impatience is problematic be­ 1850, suggesting that the bison populations cause Flores and West's studies contain a num­ had declined by several hundred thousand, if ber of unresolved questions that have to be not by millions, by that time. But is such a answered before they can be accepted as the drastic decline conceivable in a mere decade? new standard of bison ecology. After all, drought did not begin until 1846, The first question involves geographic and the five Native groups involved in the scope. Flores's essay focuses on the regions 1840 detente can be documented as killing immediately south of the upper Arkansas Ba- only slightly more than 100,000 animals a year. THE FIRST PHASE OF DESTRUCTION 103

According to John W. Whitfield, the agent of wild horses-were at work already in the late the upper Arkansas, the 11,470 Comanche, eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Kiowa, Plains Apache, Cheyenne, and Arapa­ the early diminution of the Southern Plains hoe living on the river basin were killing bison population was primarily the result of about 112,000 bison annually.4 Clearly, there excessive human utilization. Finally, I present seems to be a component missing in the Flores­ a modified geographic dynamic. The decline West modeL of bison did not begin in the Arkansas Basin This component, I believe, is a longer time but on the Texas Plains, at the center of perspective: the bison decline began on the Comancherfa. There, the Comanche fashioned Southern Plains much earlier than has been in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth previously thought. It is possible that the herds centuries an attractive but inherently fragile began shrinking there as early as the late 1780s economic regime that rested on a large-scale, or early 1790s, leading into a perceptible re­ and ultimately excessive, exploitation of the duction by the 1810s. When David G. Burnet, bison. later the president of the Republic of Texas, visited the Comanche in the Brazos River val­ HUMAN PREDATION AND THE SOUTHERN ley in 1818, he reported that "It has been re­ PLAINS BUFFALO marked that the number of Buffaloes that annually reach the regions inhabited by the A central postulate still influencing the Comanchees [sic], has sensibly diminished thinking of many Plains historians is the idea within a few years." By the 1820s, the that the Indians lived in a hunter's paradise Comanche and Kiowa increased their raiding where enormous buffalo herds formed a virtu­ in Texas, New Mexico, and northern Mexico, ally bottomless pool of protein, fat, hides, and apparently because declining hunting oppor­ other crucial resources. So vast were the herds, tunities forced them to diversify their econo­ the argument goes, that Indians could harvest mies. Finally, by the early 1830s, the herds them without the slightest concern for were vanishing at an alarming rate all across overhunting or ecological mismanagement. To the Texas Plains. Writing in 1833 at Fort be sure, scholars have chronicled and scruti­ Gibson on the Arkansas River, about thirty nized the momentous effects of climatic shifts, miles to the west of the present-day Arkansas­ droughts, and killer winters on bison popula­ Oklahoma border, one observer stated that tions,6 but few have paused to consider the the bison "have receded, it would seem, one fundamental, underlying question: why exactly hundred miles westward in the last ten years; were the environmental changes so detrimen­ and it may be safely assured that thirty or forty tal to the bison? Is it possible that the safe years hence, they will not be found nearer to margin for human exploitation, the difference us than the spurs of the Rocky Mountains."5 between the bison's ability to propagate and I suggest in this essay, besides a new tempo­ humans' potential to kill, was narrower than ral trajectory, a causality that differs signifi­ has been assumed, making the herds vulner­ cantly from Flores and West's ecological 'able to environmental shifts? models. Not the result of environmental deg­ A closer look suggests that the Plains Indi­ radation alone, the early decline of bison was ans' celebrated bison-hunting economy rested triggered by large-scale overhunting, which on a rather shaky ecological foundation. The stemmed from indigenous population growth, basic problem was a precarious balance be­ intensified subsistence and market hunting, tween the bison's reproduction rate and hu­ and rapid commercial expansion. Although man exploitation; the Plains may have been a some of the ecological factors that Flores and hunter's paradise, but only for so many people. West discuss-particularly grazing competi­ In a seminal study, William Brown has esti­ tion from growing herds of domesticated and mated that the roughly 240,000 square miles 104 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2001

of luscious mid- and shortgrass steppe that maintained a relatively stable population comprised Comancherfa could support about base until the 1840s, when diseases, habitat 7 million bison. Derived from range-use effi­ destruction, and starvation finally began to ciency calculations and United States census cut into their numbers.9 In addition to the data for livestock, this number is notably estimated 8,000 Comanche, the Southern smaller than most earlier estimates that were Plains accommodated some 1,800 Kiowa and based on anecdotal historical documents. Even Plains Apache, who in the 1780s pushed south more challenging is Brown's estimate on the of the Arkansas and gradually forged an alli­ maximum number of animals the Indians could ance with the Comanche, who had been mo­ kill annually without depleting the herds. mentarily weakened by smallpox and needed Assuming a balanced sex ratio, with breeding allies to bolster their military power. 1O In ef­ cows amounting to 45 percent of the total, he fect, the Comanche opened their northern projected that the herds increased by 567,000 border to gain strength to block the Osage in a year; he then estimated the annual loss to the east and the Spanish and Apache in the nonhuman causes-natural mortality, diseases, west and south. accidents, fire, and wolves-at 7.5 percent, or In all, then, there were approximately 525,000 animals. The crucial difference-the 10,000 full-time hunters drawing on approxi­ safe yearly margin for human exploitation-is mately 7 million bison on the Southern Plains thus 42,000 animals. 7 This figure is strikingly between 1790 and 1840. Fully mounted, they low, and it suggests a provocative possibility: were able to exploit the herds to the maxi­ the Southern Plains Indians may have been mum, employing a new and remarkably effi­ killing buffalo at an unsustainable rate for fifty cient killing method: the mounted bison years before the troubled 1840s began.s chase. In a typical chase, the hunters sur­ The eighteenth century was one of the most rounded a bison herd on horseback, riding chaotic periods in the history of the Southern alongside the animals to keep them in place, Plains, witnessing the great Comanche on­ and firing arrows into selected young cows. A slaught from the Rocky Mountains and the skillful hunter could easily kill three animals subsequent decline of the Apache, who had on a single chase, and a communal hunt could previously dominated the region. This tur­ yield as many as 300 carcasses in one day. 11 bulence makes estimates of Native popula­ Indeed, so productive was the mounted chase tions virtually impossible; the contemporary that all Southern Plains hunters developed a observers were simply too busy keeping track singular dependency on the bison. They re­ of the rapidly shifting tribal map to make reli­ lied on the buffalo for clothing, shelter, and able population estimates. It is relatively food and eschewed farming, preferring to bar­ clear, however, that the Comanche steadily ter surplus meat and hides with neighboring increased their numbers until, by the 1780s, horticulturists for corn and vegetables. It has there were at least 8,000 of them along and been estimated that specialized hunters south of the Arkansas Basin. In 1786, for ex­ needed a yearly average of six bison per per­ ample, Spanish officials estimated that the son to meet their subsistence demands of meat Western Comanche, that is, the Comanche (about five pounds per person a day) and bands living near New Mexico, numbered be­ hides,12 which suggests that the late-eigh­ tween 6,000 and 7,000. This figure does not teenth- and early-nineteenth-century South­ include the Eastern Comanche, who were es­ ern Plains hunters were consuming about timated in 1785 to comprise ten or twelve 60,000 animals a year-18,000 above the rancherfas, each of which probably contained safe margin. Since this deficit kept accumu­ a few hundred people. Eager to muster enough lating year after year, the Comanche and their warriors to fend off the Apache and the en­ Kiowa and Plains Apache allies may have croaching Spanish and Osage, the Comanche drained the Southern Plains bison population THE FIRST PHASE OF DESTRUCTION 105

FIG. 2. William de la Montagne Cary (1840-1922), Indians Killing Buffaloes in the Missouri River, 1874, engraving, 9 x 13 9/ /6 in. Courtesy of Great Plains Art Collection, University of Nebraska. Gift of Vivian Kiechel.

by almost 1 million by 1840, the supposed tury, they controlled an imposing commercial outset of the great dying. network, which featured distinctive trade cen­ Subsistence hunting was the primary cause ters and multiple links that mantled the en­ of the early diminution of the Southern Plains tire lower mid-continent. Although horses and bison population, but commercial hunting guns would later become principal items in dramatically expedited the decline. Conven­ Comanche trade, the early exchange revolved tional wisdom asserts that the eighteenth­ heavily around subsistence goods: suffering and early-nineteenth-century Southern Plains from a chronic carbohydrate deficiency, the was not a major trading region-historians hunting-oriented Comanche purchased large have been much more impressed with the quantities of corn, vegetables, and bread with Northern Plains commercial systems, particu­ bison products. Consequently, they provided larly the great Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara substantial amounts of hides, meat, and tal­ trade center on the upper Missouri River­ low for a multitude of groups-Wichita, but this portrayal is now coming under in­ Kansa, Iowa, Pawnee, French, British, Ameri­ creasing criticism. According to the new cans, Spaniards, and comancheros (New Mexi­ interpretation, the Comanche, far from being can traders operating on the Llano Estacado). the one-dimensional warrior society depicted Commercial hunting intensified further in the in the early studies, relied in their foreign 1830s, when Americans and Anglo-Texans policy more on trade and diplomacy than on erected several trading posts on the Southern war and raiding. By the late eighteenth cen- Plains. 13 106 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2001

By a rough estimate, the Comanche and rupt the delicate equilibrium, all the killing Kiowa produced in the late eighteenth and done by ciboleros, Wichita, and Comanche and early nineteenth centuries only a few thou­ Kiowa commercial hunters can be classified as sand hides a year for exchange.14 Although overhunting. With an estimated yearly killing the overall volume of market-oriented bison rate of 20,000, they may have depleted the hunting was limited, the hunting practices of bison population by 1 million by 1840, bring­ the Indians aggravated the damage. When ing the total reduction close to 2 million. engaged in commercial hide and robe pro­ After allowing this influx of hunters into duction, most Plains Indians preferred killing their territory, the Comanche began to pro­ two- to five-year-old cows for their more pal­ tect their herds against external pressure. They atable meat and thinner and more easily pro­ permitted a few Lipan bands to travel and hunt cessed skins. Moreover, the Indians did most within Comancherfa in the 1810s, and their of their market hunting in winter when the western boundary remained porous, making it robes were the thickest and most valuable. possible for Eastern Shoshone and Ute to hunt Because bison cows produce their first calves periodically on the Southern Plains. However, at the age of three or four and their gestation all the others-the Cheyenne, Arapahoe, and period usually extends from mid-July to early Osage-were kept out by force. This defen­ April, the commercial hunting centered sive policy had implications for the bison as heavily on pregnant cows, critically impairing well, because it created buffer zones, contested the herds' ability to maintain their numbers. 15 areas where Native hunters only reluctantly Commerce and markets accelerated the followed their prey. Because of the low level bison decline also in a more indirect way: in of exploitation, the buffer zones functioned as the late eighteenth and early nineteenth cen­ effective animal preserves, shelters from hu­ turies, the Comanchs allowed several groups man predation. Comancherfa was skirted by to enter and hunt in their territory. In ex­ two major neutral zones. One bordered the change, the various Comanche bands and di­ region's northern perimeter, keeping the visions received extensive trading privileges. Cheyenne and Arapahoe from pushing south This process began with the famous 1786 of the Arkansas, and the second dissected Comanche-Spanish accord, in which the Comancherfa's eastern flank, blocking the Western Comanche-the J upe, Yamparika, Osage and the immigrant tribes of Indian T er­ and Kotsoteka-received unlimited access to ritoryY New Mexico's markets and in return opened This eastern preserve vanished with a single their bison range for New Mexican bison diplomatic move in 1835 at Camp Holmes, hunters, or ciboleros. In the early nineteenth when the Comanche granted the Osage and century, ciboleros made annual hunting expe­ immigrant tribes access to their hunting ditions to the Llano Estacado, harvesting, ac­ grounds, again in exchange for trading privi­ cording to some estimates, at least 10,000 leges. Although the Osage were traditionally animals a season. At about the same time, the semihorticultural people, external pressure Eastern Comanche-the Kotsoteka -formed had disrupted their farming cycle, forcing a trade relationship with the Wichita, who them to rely increasingly on the hunt. Appar­ secured hunting privileges in Comancherfa as ently numbering between 4,000 and 5,000, a part of the accord. Numbering between 3,000 the Osage needed at least 20,000 bison a year, and 4,000 in the early nineteenth century, the and since their own hunting grounds had be­ Wichita took several thousand animals dur­ come badly depleted by the 1830s, they prob­ ing their annual hunting expeditions, which ably harvested the bulk of their bison from continued into the late 1830s.1 6 Since subsis­ Comancherfa. The Osage principal hunting tence hunting alone had been enough to dis- territory lay between the upper Canadian and THE FIRST PHASE OF DESTRUCTION 107

Brazos Rivers, just west of their own core ter­ shaved off an additional 2 million, there is ritory. The greatest pressure on Comancherfa's still a loss of between 1.5 and 2.5 million that bison herds, however, was applied by the im­ has to be accounted for. The standard expla­ migrant Indians. Not only did the most popu­ nation is that most of these animals perished lous groups-the Cherokee, Chickasaw, during the "big die-up" of 1867, when an in­ Choctaw, Creek, Delaware, and Seminole­ tense drought scarred the region between the remain active hunters after the removal, but Brazos and Conchos Rivers, causing wide­ they also were located in the western parts of spread starvation. 19 The problem with this Indian Territory, adjacent to Comancherfa. interpretation is that the enormo.us magni­ In the late 1830s, they all hunted extensively tude of the 1867 die-up has never been veri­ in Comanche territory and many maintained fied-and probably never will be. Perhaps the permanent encampments on their principal bulk of the supposed losses had occurred well hunting range between the upper Canadian before 1867 and from a different cause: chronic and Brazos Rivers. Moreover, some of the overhunting that had continued from the pre­ immigrant groups, particularly the Delawares vious century. Kickapoo, and Shawnee, were rapidly trans­ forming themselves into specialized bison DIMINISHED RANGELAND AND GRAZING hunters. Given their large population, com­ COMPETITION mitment to the hunt, and geographical prox­ imity, the immigrant groups probably drained Overhunting alone did not kill the South­ Comancherfa's bison population by several ern Plains buffalo. Two powerful and interre­ thousand animals a year. IS As noted earlier, lated factors hastened the bison's demise: the subsistence and commercial hunting activ­ reduction of their range and competition from ities of the Comanche, Kiowa, Plains Apache, exotic species. On the surface, it would seem Wichita, and ciboleros may have depleted the that the rate of decline should have slowed Southern Plains bison population by almost down in time, because the diminution of the 2 million by 1840. The additional hunting herds left more resources for the remaining done by the Osage and immigrant Indians af­ animals, increasing their fertility and repro­ ter the Camp Holmes treaty may have brought duction rate and allowing them to compen­ the total reduction well above 2 million by sate for the intensified human predation. 1840, when, according to the standard view, However, as ecologists point out, an organism's the large-scale bison destruction was only be­ maintenance and reproduction are not deter­ ginning. mined by the abundance of essential resources This is a staggering figure that invites skep­ but by their minimum availability.20 It was ticism. However, one should bear in mind that this "rule of scarcity" that sealed the Southern my purpose is not to present exact calcula­ Plains bison's fate: the overall abundance of tions but to prove a more general point; that resources may have been increasing, but this there was a substantial, historically significant failed to abate the decline because the mini­ decline in bison numbers well before the 1840s. mum availability was collapsing at the same Moreover, the figure matches other broad cal­ time. culations on bison numbers. The prevailing The main problem was winter survival. In view today is that the bison numbers peaked order to make it through the cold months, at 7 or 8 million animals on the Southern bison habitually retreated into river valleys, Plains. Of this, white professional hunters which provided crucial elements of survival: eliminated about 3.5 million animals during reliable water, shelter against freezing winds the great slaughter of the 1870s. If we assume and blizzards, and cottonwood for emergency that the hardships of the 1840s and 1850s foodY By the early nineteenth century, how- 108 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2001 ever, suitable riverine habitats were becom­ THE CONFLICTING MOTIVES OF THE ing increasingly scarce. From the early 1820s COMANCHE on, the Santa Fe traders took thousands of horses, oxen, and cattle through the upper The early diminution of the Southern Plains Arkansas and Cimarron corridors each year, bison herds was first and foremost an economic exhausting the river valleys of grass and other process. The depletion began with more in­ resources. In the 1830s the removed eastern tense subsistence hunting, which in turn was tribes of Indian Territory began pushing to­ propelled by the Comanche desire to main­ ward Comancherfa, clearing the Canadian, tain a large population. The decline was pre­ Washita, and Red Rivers of the bison. In 1841 cipitated by the influx of new hunting groups, the Osage agent reported that the valleys were many of which had gained access to the South­ so depleted that Osage hunters had to push ern Plains bison by granting trading privileges deep into Comanche territory. Even more se­ to the Comanche. The bison's fate was sealed rious was that the bison had to compete with by the dramatic growth of the Indians' domes­ some 2 million wild mustangs for sustenance tic horse herds, which competed with bison and shelter. With an 80 percent dietary over­ for grass and water in riverine habitats. In­ lap and similar water requirements, bison and variably, this development, too, stemmed from mustangs competed fiercely for the shrinking commercial considerations: the Comanche riverine resources, critically weakening each needed large horse and mule herds to supply other's chances to maintain their numbers.22 thriving livestock trade. This conclusion de­ However, the most serious threat to the viates from the dominant ecological interpre­ bison's winter survival was posed by the Indi­ tations and is more in line with Andrew ans' rapidly growing domestic horse herds. Isenberg's recent argument that the near-ex­ While the Comanche had possessed between termination of the bison by the 1880s was a two and three horses per person in the 1770s by-product of Euro-American economic and and 1780s, the estimates by the early-nine­ ecological invasion. According to Isenberg, teenth-century observers ranged between three the encounter between Indians and Euro­ and eight animals per capita.23 To support all Americans in the western Plains created his­ these animals-most of which were destined torical agents and institutions-equestrian for the growing Anglo-American livestock Native hunters, professional white hide hunt­ trade-the Comanche turned more and more ers, market-oriented robe trade-that proved bottomland niches into herding range. Bio­ detrimental to the bison's survival. 25 logically, horses had no decisive advantage Yet it would be an oversimplification to over bison in grazing competition, but with say that the Comanche sacrificed the bison the help of their human partners they tri­ for shortsighted commercial and economic umphed. By simply scaring off or killing the gain. Rather, their failure to adopt conserva­ buffaloes, the Indians reserved a growing share tionist strategies stemmed from a complex of the bottomlands for themselves and their conflict of motives involving ecological, eco­ herds. In such key sites as the upper Arkansas, nomic, military, and religious interests. It is Canadian, Red, and Brazos Rivers huge horse difficult to determine whether the Comanche herds and winter camps stretched for miles, were aware that their actions-granting hunt­ covering all the prime locales and coercing ing privileges, increasing their horse herd the bison to retreat to poorer areas with re­ sizes, maintaining a large population base­ duced carrying capaci ty. 24 Already under stress were depressing the bison's numbers. Since from human predation and now denied vital the Comanche spent most of the year divided resources, the Southern Plains buffalo popu­ into small bands, they could not compare lation lost its ability to maintain its numbers. their hunting experiences and conceive a co- THE FIRST PHASE OF DESTRUCTION 109

ordinated resource strategy. Moreover, there admittedly secondhand, all Plains Indians was no way to assess how badly their numer­ "firmly believed that the buffalo were produced ous allies were depleting Comancherfa's herds in countless numbers in a country under the during their frequent hunting expeditions. ground; that every spring the surplus swarmed, Finally, it would have been virtually impos­ like bees from a hive, out of great cave-like sible to determine whether the scarcity of bi­ openings to this country, which were situated son reflected a profound, permanent decline somewhere in the great 'Llano Estacado,' or or normal seasonal fluctuations. On the other Staked Plain of Texas."28 There is no direct hand, at least some Comanche bands did com­ evidence of the existence of such a belief plain that the increasing hunting pressure that among the Comanche, but Ernest Wallace and followed the Camp Holmes treaty compro­ E. Adamson Hoebel describe a comparable mised their hunting success, exhibiting an idea in their 1952 ethnology. The Comanche, acute understanding of the dynamic that was they report, believed that buffaloes would al­ eradicating the foundation of their way of ways be available if the proper rituals were life. 26 performed: However, whatever ecological concerns the Comanche had, they were overshadowed by Out on the prairie might be seen the skulls compelling economic and military imperatives. of buffalo turned so as to face the main In the early nineteenth century, pressure on camp, the idea being that the guardian spirit Comancherfa was rapidly increasing. Anglo­ would direct the herd to move in the direc­ Texans, Cheyenne, Arapahoe, immigrant tion the skulls were facing. Sometimes when tribes, Osage, and Santa Fe traders all gravi­ they were ceremoniously smoking, after tated toward the Southern Plains, making it puffs had been blown to the Great Spirit, critical for the Comanche to increase their Sun, and Earth, a puff was blown to a near­ economic, commercial, and military power. by buffalo skull with a prayer that it pro­ The Comanche needed the bison's meat and vide the people with meat to eat and skins hides for long-term survival, but in the short for their lodges and clothing. At times they run it was more important for them to have prayed to the buffalo in general to range several allies, large numbers of warriors, and where hunting would be good. 29 secure trade that yielded metal weapons, guns, powder, and ammunitionY Faced with a criti­ If such a belief existed, it may have had far­ cal strategic crisis, the Comanche had no other reaching consequences for how the Comanche option but to allow unsustainable exploita­ reacted to the bison decline. While the tion of the bison. Comanche undoubtedly understood the dy­ It is also possible that the Comanche spiri­ namics of wildlife populations and the eco­ tual worldview prevented them from working logical and economic causes of bison mortality, out an ecological balance. It has been argued it is entirely plausible that they also believed that the Plains Indians shared a common be­ in the supernatural origin of the bison. Thus, lief that the bison's well-being was less a mat­ even if they realized that the bison herds were ter of human predation than a sort of ritualistic shrinking, they could have been convinced at herd management: if the Indians performed the same time that there would always be buf­ the proper bison-calling ceremonies the herds faloes as long as there were Indians who knew would be renewed and the bison would return. and executed the necessary rituals. This kind An integral part of this belief was a convic­ of belief in nature's infinite abundance would tion that buffaloes were supernatural in origin explain why the Comanche gradually depleted and infinite in numbers. According to Colo­ the bison herds and undermined the founda­ nel Richard Dodge, whose information was tion of their traditional way of life. Unable to 110 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2001 foresee the bison's extinction, they were also the peace was not a starting point but rather a unable to adopt a conservationist policy.30 key event in a long and complex development that led to the demise of the Southern Plains How does this model of bison decline fit bison. As conditions on the Texas Plains be­ the Flores-West model? At first glance, there came increasingly dangerous for bison in the seems to be no connection, for all the basic early nineteenth century, the geographic fo­ components-interpretations of timing, spa­ cus of bison populations gradually shifted to­ tial dynamic, and causes of the devastation­ ward the Arkansas Basin, which remained a are different. According to Flores' and West's contested tribal zone-and thus an animal ecologically based models, large-scale decline refuge-until the Great Peace.3! The Arkan­ began on the upper Arkansas Basin in the sas valley, previously designated as the start­ 1840s, while my contention is that a mixture ing point of bison decline, was rather the last of indigenous population growth, overkill, true sanctuary for the Southern Plains buffalo. and ascendance of market forces had eroded This also explains why the 1840 peace be­ the herds on the Texas Plains since the 1790s. came so decisive. When the detente unlocked The decline centered on the Texas Plains for the Arkansas, the bison had nowhere to go, a number of reasons. To begin, all the groups for all other spots were swarming with Native that gained access to Comancherfa's bison and Euro-American hunters. The Great Peace range in the late eighteenth and early nine­ sounded the death knell for the Southern teenth centuries-the ciboleros, Wichita, Os­ Plains bison by aggravating a crisis that had age, and immigrant tribes of Indian Territory been slowly brewing for half a century. -focused their hunting activities on a rela­ The early diminution of bison had a pro­ tively narrow strip between the upper Cana­ found impact on the Southern Plains Indians' dian and Brazos Rivers. Second, the 1,800 way of life. Unable to draw stable sustenance Kiowa and Plains Apache who made the from the dwindling herds, the Comanche Southern Plains their home in the late eigh­ geared their economies toward pastoralism, teenth century esrablished their core territory the only other option available for them be­ between the Canadian and Red Rivers. Third, sides hunting. The Comanche had adopted Comanche commercial hunting was most in­ pastoralist customs and strategies since the late tense on the Texas Plains, which were in­ eighteenth century, when they had become fringed in the late 1830s and 1840s with several large-scale horse owners. The maintenance of trading posts specializing in robe trade. Con­ vast horse herds had forced them to modify currently, the Comanche were intensifying their annual cycle, settlement patterns, and their subsistence hunting on the Texas Plains. labor organization, which had given a distinc­ Pressed by a powerful Cheyenne-Arapaho bloc, tive pastoral quality to their culture and the populous Yamparika and Jupe bands aban­ economy.3Z However, it was only in the 1820s doned the Arkansas valley in the late 1820s, and 1830s that the Comanche embraced the after which they concentrated their hunting defining characteristic of pastoralism-the activities farther south on the already crowded extensive use of herds for food and subsistence. Texas Plains. The systematic subsistence utilization began On closer inspection, however, the seem­ in the 1820s, when the Comanche escalated ingly unconnected models merge to form a their raiding operations in New Mexico, Texas, single causal continuum, the focal point of northern Mexico, and along the Santa Fe Trail. which was the Great Peace of 1840. Both Flores The principal objective of these raids was to and West argue that the diminution was set steal horses and mules. Some of the stolen off by the peace, which opened the previously livestock were eaten; although bison meat re­ uncontested upper Arkansas Basin for the five mained the staple of Comanche diet, horseflesh Native groups. Now, though, it appears that became an important emergency food that THE FIRST PHASE OF DESTRUCTION 111 helped the Comanche survive short famines. 1992): 235; Paul H. Carlson, The Plains Indians However, most of the extra horses and mules (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1998), pp. 18-19,40. Richard White, by contrast, were exchanged for various necessities. As has been more reserved when referring to Flores's the hunting opportunities deteriorated, the thesis. See Richard White, "Animals and Enter­ Comanche bought increasing amounts of corn, prise," in The Oxford History of the American West, bread, blankets, tools, and other subsistence ed. Clyde A. Milner II, Carol A. O'Connor, and goods from comancheros and indigenous farm­ Martha A. Sandweiss (New York: Oxford Univer­ sity Press, 1994), p. 249. ers. In a word, the Comanche began evolving 4. John W. Whitfield to C. E. Mix, 5 January into horse pastoralists who relied heavily on 1856, Letters Received by the Office of Indian Af­ domestic herds for subsistence.33 fairs from the Upper Arkansas Agency, National On a larger scale, the early diminution of Archives Microfilm Publication, M234, 878:102. bison ushered in a new era. As the herds de­ Whitfield also provided a tribe-by-tribe breakdown of killing rates: clined, the Indians were forced to reevaluate their economic strategies and their relations Comanches Kiowas Apaches Cheyennes Arapahoes with their neighbors. In 1790 the Southern Plains had been a relatively safe place where Population 3,200 2,400 320 3,150 2,400 plentiful game had supported sound subsis­ Buffaloes 30,000 20,000 2,000 40,000 20,000 killed tence economies; a generation later the re­ gion had become a volatile place, marked by a 5. Ernest Wallace, comp., "David G. Burnet's deteriorating bison ecology, shifting Native Letters Describing the Comanche Indians," West economies, stiffening competition for dimin­ Texas Historical Association Year Book 30 (1954): 136; Morris W. Foster, Being Comanche: A Social ishing resources, and increasing intercultural History of an American Indian Community (Tucson: violence. In Plains Indian history the period University of Arizona Press, 1991), pp. 44-45; Tho­ between 1800 and 1850 is often referred to as mas W. Kavanagh, Comanche Political History, the classic era, the time of the formidable 1706-1875 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, mounted bison hunters, unforeseen material 1996), pp. 199-203; Rupert Norval Richardson, The Comanche Barrier to South Plains Settlement: A prosperity, and thriving social and ritual life. Century and a Half of Savage Resistance to the Ad­ On the Southern Plains, the nineteenth cen­ vancing White Frontier (Glendale: Arthur H. Clark, tury started promisingly, but a deepening eco­ 1933), pp. 173-74, quote on p. 173. Gary Clay logical and economic crisis interrupted the Anderson has recently argued that the southern favorable development long before mid-cen­ Plains bison population may have dropped by as much as 50 percent between 1780 and 1820, but he tury. Alarming signs were increasingly fre­ offers no evidence for this claim. He tries to ex­ quent, foreshadowing the full-blown crisis that plain the dramatic (but unverified) decline by a would soon follow. prolonged dry spell in the early nineteenth cen­ tury, but there is very little evidence of the effects NOTES of the drought on the bison herds. See Gary Clayton Anderson, The Indian Southwest, 1580-1830: I would like to thank the Editor and anonymous Ethnogenesis and Reinvention (Norman: University readers for their insightful comments and useful qf Oklahoma Press, 1999), p. 252. criticism. 6. Perhaps the most authoritative proponent 1. Dan Flores, "Bison Ecology and Bison Diplo­ of the idea of the Plains as a hunter's paradise was macy: The Southern Plains from 1800 to 1850," Frank Gilbert Roe, the author of the classic The Journal of American History 78 (September 1991): North American Buffalo: A Critical Study of the Spe­ 465-85; Elliott West, The Way to the West: Essays cies in Its Wild State (Toronto: University of Toronto on the Central Plains (Albuquerque: University of Press, 1951). Flores, too, has endorsed the idea New Mexico Press, 1995), pp. 51-83. that overhunting was not an issue under normal 2. See Flores, ibid., pp. 480-84; West, ibid., weather conditions. Assuming that the Southern p.82. Plains bison produced more than 1 million calves a 3. See, for example, Andrew Isenberg, "Toward year, he argued that the region could support the a Policy of Destruction: Buffaloes, Law, and the subsistence needs of as many as 60,000 full-time Market, 1803-83," Great Plains Quarterly 12 (fall hunters-about twice the number of Indians that 112 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2001 actually lived in the region before Euro-American cussed in this study. For droughts, see Anderson, takeover. Flores, however, may have overestimated Indian Southwest (note 5 above), pp. 185-86, 199- the bison's reproductive capacity. He asserts the 200,252. bison's rate of increase at 18 percent of the total 9. "List of Comanches Who Came to Make population, whereas Roe and William Brown argue Peace in New Mexico, 1786," in Forgotten Fron­ that the reproduction rate was in fact 18 percent of tiers: A Study of the Spanish Indian Policy of Don the total female aggregate. See Flores, "Bison Ecol­ Juan Bautista de Anza, Governor of New Mexico, ogy" (note 1 above), p. 480; Roe, ibid., p. 505; 1777-1787, ed. and trans. Alfred Barnaby Thomas William R. Brown Jr., "Comancheria Demography, (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1932), 1805-1803," Panhandle-Plains Historical Review 59 pp. 325-27; Pedro Vial and Francisco Xavier de (1986): 10. For studies that discuss the environ­ Chavez, "Diary of Trip from San Antonio to the mental shifts that contributed to the diminution of Comanche Villages to Treat For Peace," 15 No­ the bison, see Douglas B. Bamforth, Ecology and vember 1785, Archivo General de Indias, Seville, Human Organization on the Great Plains (New York: Guadalajara, legajo 286, roll 10, available at West­ Plenum Press, 1988); John R. Bozell, "Culture, ern History Collections, University of Oklahoma, Environment, and Bison Populations on the Late Norman, Okla. Most early-nineteenth-century es­ Prehistoric and Early Historic Central Plains," timates of Comanche population range between Plains Anthropologist 40 (May 1995): 145-63; Rich­ 7,000 and 12,000, suggesting a recurrent cycle be­ mond Clow, "Bison Ecology, Brule and Yankton tween sharp population declines (probably triggered Winter Hunting, and the Starving Winter of 1832- by epidemic diseases) and spurts of intense, com­ 33," Great Plains Quarterly 15 (fall 1995): 259-70. pensatory growth. See Jean Louis Berlander, The 7. Brown, ibid., pp. 9-12. By using somewhat Indians of Texas in 1830, ed. John C. Ewers, trans. different figures, Andrew Isenberg has recently Patricia Reading Leclercq (Washington, D.C.: come to a similar conclusion. In his view, the bison Smithsonian Institution Press, 1969), p. 121; Albert were vulnerable to depletion by overhunting, be­ Pike to John Cass, 16 March 1833, Letters Re­ cause the "combination of wolf predation, compe­ ceived by the Office of Indian Affairs from the tition from other grazers, and accidents raised the Western Superintendency, National Archives Mi­ natural mortality of the bison to the point that in crofilm Publication, M234, 921:166, Charles Bent some years it may have exceeded its natural in­ to William Medill, Commissioner of Indian Af­ crease." See Andrew C. Isenberg, The Destruction fairs, 10 November 1846, in The Official Correspon­ of the Bison: An Environmental History, 1750-1920 dence of James S. Calhoun, ed. Annie Heloise Abel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), (Washington, D.C.: US Government Printing Of­ p. 28. Brown's argument for lower bison numbers is fice, 1915), pp. 6-9; Pierce Butler to William backed by at least two other scholars. Tom McHugh Medill, 4 March 1846, Miscellaneous Letters Re­ has shown that sections of Yellowstone National ceived by the Office of Indian Affairs, National Park can support twenty-six bison per square mile, Archives Microfilm Publication, M234, 444:44; which translates to 6.2 million in an area of Brown, "Comanche ria Demography" (note 6 Comancherfa's size. Flores, using the 1910 Census above), p. 8. for cattle, horses, and mules, has estimated that the 10. Michael G. Davis, Ecology, Sociopolitical Or­ pre-horse southern Plains might have supported ganization, and Cultural Change on the Southern just over 8 million bison. Because horses competed Plains: A Critical Treatise in the Sociocultural An­ with the bison for forage and water, the horse-era thropology (Kirksville, Missouri: Thomas Jefferson figure would have been notably smaller. See Tom University Press, 1996), p. 134. n. 17; Kavanaugh, McHugh, The Time of the Buffalo (Lincoln: Uni­ Comanche Political History (note 5 above), pp. versity of Nebraska Press, 1972), pp. 16-17; Flores, 147-48. "Bison Ecology" (note 1 above), pp. 470-71. 11. Isenberg, Destruction of the Bison (note 7 8. It should be noted that the Southern Plains above), p. 88. bison benefitted in the late eighteenth and early 12. Brown, "Comancheria Demography" (note nineteenth centuries from what has been called 6 above), pp. 10-11; Shepard Krech III, The Eco­ the Little lee Age, a global cooling period that logical Indian: Myth and History (New York: W. W. began in the fourteenth century and lasted until Norton, 1999), p. 136. In reality, the Indians were the middle of the nineteenth. However, frequent probably killing even more than the minimum of droughts in the late eighteenth and early nine­ six buffaloes per person, because all Plains nomads teenth centuries-particularly in the 1780s and indulged in occasional wasteful acts during summer between 1806 and the early 1820s-nullified any hunts, such as taking only the choicest parts of the positive effects that Little lee Age may have had fattest cows. See Isenberg, Destruction of the Bison on the bison populations during the period dis- (note 7 above), p. 85; Krech, ibid., pp. 142-43. THE FIRST PHASE OF DESTRUCTION 113

13. For a classic portrayal of the Upper Missouri Augustin, 1951), pp. 63-72; Wallace and Hoebel, trade center, see John C. Ewers, "The Indian Trade Comanches, ibid., p. 291; Kavanagh, Comanche Po­ of the Upper Missouri before Lewis and Clark," in litical History (note 5 above), p. 235. For instruc­ Indian Life on the Upper Missouri, John C. Ewers tive analyses of buffer zones, see West, Way to the (1954; reprint, Norman: University of Oklahoma West (note 1 above), pp. 61-62; Richard White, Press, 1968), pp. 14-33. For new interpretations The Roots of Dependency: Subsistence, Environment, of Comanche trade and economy, see Pekka and Social Change among the Choctaws, Pawnees, Hamalainen, "The Western Comanche Trade Cen­ and Navajos (Lincoln: U ni versi ty of Nebraska Press, ter: Rethinking the Plains Indian Trade System," 1983), p. 67. Western Historical Quarterly 29 (winter 1998): 485- 18. Willard H. Rollings, The Osage: An Ethno­ 513; Kavanagh, Comanche Political History (note 5 historical Study of Hegemony on the Prairie-Plains above), pp. 163-386; Martha McCullough, "Three (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1992), Analytical Approaches to Comanche and Caddoan pp. 20-21, 257-85; David LaVere, Contrary Neigh­ Histories During Spain's Colonial Occupation of bors: Southern Plains and Removed Indians in Indian the Southern Plains" (Ph.D. diss., University of Territory (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, Oklahoma, 1996). 2000), pp. 62-116; Dianna Everett, The Texas 14. Data on Comanche and Kiowa hide trade is Cherokees: A People Between Two Fires, 1819-1840 extremely scarce. According to Flores, the South­ (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990), p. ern Plains Indians produced between 6,000 and 114; Stan Hoig, Tribal Wars of the Southern Plains 10,000 bison for New Mexican and comanchero (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993), markets, but it is impossible to verify his estimate. pp. 118-35. The volume of the Comanches' and Kiowas' trade 19. Brown, "Comancheria Demography" (note with their other allies, most of which were active 6 above), pp. 9-10; Flores, "Bison Ecology" (note 1 hunters, was probably only a fraction of the vol­ above), p. 485; Richard White, "It's Your Misfor­ ume of the New Mexican trade. See Brown, tune and None of My Own": A New History of the "Comanche ria Demography" (note 6 above), n. 75. American West (Norman: University of Oklahoma 15. William A. Dobak, "Killing the Canadian Press, 1994), p. 216. Buffalo: 1821-1881," Western Historical Quarterly 20. Generally known as Liebig's law of the mini­ 27 (spring 1996): 46; Flores, "Bison Ecology" (note mum, this principle has enjoyed wide popularity 1 above), pp. 479-80; Bamforth, Ecology (note 6 among the scholars of the American West and above), p. 81. Plains Indians. See, for example, Alan J. Osborn, 16. H. Bailey Carroll and J. Villasana Haggard, "Ecological Aspects of Equestrian Adaptations in trans. and ed., Three New Mexico Chronicles (Albu­ Aboriginal North America," American Anthropolo­ querque: The Quivira Society, 1942), pp. 101-2; gist 85 (September 1983): 563-91; West, Way to the Charles L. Kenner, A History of New Mexican-Plains West (note 1 above), pp. 49-50, 78-79. Indian Relations (Norman: University of Oklahoma 21. Wallace and Hoebel, Comanches (note 16 Press, 1969), pp. 100-107; Elizabeth Ann Harper, above), p. 14; West, Way to the West (note 1 above), "The Taovayas in Frontier Trade and Diplomacy, pp. 19-26. 1769-1779," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 57 22. West, Way to the West (note 1 above), pp. (October 1953): 198-99; Elizabeth A. H. John, 31-32,77-79; Flores, "Bison Ecology" (note 1 Storms Brewed in Other Men's Worlds: The Confron­ above), p. 481; Richardson, Comanche Barrier (note tation of Indians, Spanish, and French in the South­ 5 above), p. 174. west, 1540-1795 (Norman: University of Oklahoma 23. Charles Wilson Hackett, ed. and trans., Press, 1975), p. 459; Ernest Wallace and E. Charmion Clair Shelby, trans., Pichardo's Treatise Adamson Hoebel, The Comanches: Lords of the South on the Limits of Texas and Lousiana, 4 vols. (Austin: Plains (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, University of Texas Press, 1931-46),3:348; Pedro 1952), p. 287; Dan L. Flores, ed., Journal of an Fermin de Mendinueta to Antonio Marfa de Indian Trader: Anthony Glass and the Texas Trading Bucareli y Ursua, 20 October 1774, in The Plains Frontier, 1790-1810 (College Station: Texas A&M Indians and New Mexico, 1751-1778: A Collection University Press, 1985), pp. 70- 79. of Documents Illustrative of the History of the Eastern 17. Hamalainen, "Western Comanche Trade Frontier of New Mexico, ed. Alfred Barnaby Tho­ Center" (note 13 above), p. 507; Elizabeth A. H. mas (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, John, "An Earlier Chapter of Kiowa History," New 1940), p. 175; Juan Bautista de Anza, "Diary" and Mexico Historical Review 60 (1985): 393-94; Joseph Francisco Xavier Ortiz to Anza, 20 May 1786, in Jablow, "The Cheyenne in Plains Indian Trade Forgotten Frontiers (note 9 above), pp. 139, 323; Relations, 1795-1840," in Monographs of the Ameri­ Jiirgen Doring, Kulturwandel bei den nordameri­ can Ethnological Society, no. 19 (New York: J. J. kanischen Plains-indianern: Zur Rolle des Pferdes bei 114 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2001 den Comanchen und den Cheyenne (Berlin: Dietrick 30. Shepard Krech III has pointed out that this Reimer; 1984), pp. 236-37. kind of argument entails construing conservation 24. George E. Hyde, Life of George Bent Written and waste in other than utilitarian, or western, from His Letters, ed. Savoie E. Lottinville (Norman: terms. To the Plains Indians, he argues, conserva­ University of Oklahoma Press, 1968), p. 37; Jacob tion meant maintaining a total relationship with Fowler, The]ournal ofJacob Fowler, ed. Elliott Coues the bison through ceremonies and rituals, not be­ (Minneapolis: Ross and Haines, 1965), pp. 51-59; ing concerned with the actual numbers or densities John Sibley to the Secretary of War, 5 April 1805, of the species. See Krech, Ecological Indian (note Letters Received by the Secretary of War Related 12 above), p. 149. to Indian Affairs, National Archives Microfilm 31. Douglas Bamforth has shown that human pre­ Publication, M271, 1:302; John Sibley, A Report dation could have had profound effects on bison's from Natchitoches in 1807, ed. Annie Heloise Abel migration and settlement patterns. When under (New York: Museum of the American Indian, pressure, the herds could migrate more erratically, 1922), pp. 40-41; Thomas James, Three Years among aggregate into larger and more mobile herds, and the Indians and Mexicans, ed. Milo Milton Quaife even shift their core home range. See Douglas B. (New York: Citadel Press, 1966), pp. 226-43; Bamforth, "Historical Documents and Bison Ecol­ Kavanagh, Comanche Political History (note 5 ogy on the Great Plains," Plains Anthropologist 32 above), pp. 133-39. (February 1987): 1-16. 25. Isenberg, Destruction of the Bison (note 7 32. For Comanche pastoralism, see Gerard Betty, above), pp. 193-98. Isenberg's is a wide-ranging "Comanche Warfare, Pastoralism, and Enforced and broadly conceived study. His main objective is Cooperation," Panhandle-Plains Historical Review 88 to place the destruction of the bison within the (1995): 1-12; Gerard Betty, '''Skillful in the Man­ context of two meta-narratives of eighteenth- and agement of the Horse': The Comanches as South­ nineteenth-century history-European imperial ern Plains Pastoralists," Heritage of the Great Plains expansion, which introduced new economic sys­ 30 (spring/summer 1997): 5-13; Hamalainen, tems and animals to the Great Plains, and the con­ "Western Comanche Trade Center" (note 13 comitant European biological invasion, which led above), p. 498. For a general analysis of Plains In­ to a global decline in ecological diversity. Isenberg dian pastoralism, see Clyde H. Wilson, "An In­ is not particularly concerned with the spatial and quiry into the Nature of Plains Indian Cultural temporal specifics of the bison's decline, and he Development," American Anthropologist (April does not discuss the possibility of the early decline 1963): 355-69. of the bison. 33. Hamalainen, "Western Comanche Trade 26. Isenberg, Destruction of the Bison (note 7 Center" (note 13 above); Kavanagh, Comanche above), p. 84; Montford Stokes and F. W. Political History (note 5 above), pp. 199-203; Fos­ Armstrong to Lewis Cass, 29 December 1835, Let­ ter, Being Comanche (note 5 above), pp. 47-48; ters Received by the Office of Indian Affairs from Frances Levine, "Economic Perspectives on the the Western Superintendency, National Archives Comanchero Trade," in Farmers, Hunters, and Colo­ Microfilm Publication, M234, 921:1069. nists: Interaction between the Southwest and the South­ 27. For the increasing external pressure around ern Plains, ed. Katherine Spielmann (Tucson: Comancherfa, see T. R. Fehrenbach, Comanches: University of Arizona Press, 1991), pp. 158-62. For The Destruction of a People (New York: Alfred A. evidence that Comanches ate horses already in the Knopf, 1974), pp. 305-33; Rollings, Osage (note 18 1820s and 1830s, see Juan Antonio Padilla, "Texas above), pp. 147-48; Kavanagh, Comanche Political in 1820: Report on the Barbarous Indians of the History (note 5 above), pp. 210-21; Hoig, Tribal Province of Texas," Southwestern Historical Quar­ Wars (note 18 above), pp. 108-35. terly 23 (1919): 54; Jose Francisco Rufz, Report on 28. Richard I. Dodge, Our Wild Indians: Thirty­ the Indian Tribes of Texas in 1828, ed. John C. Ew­ three Years' Personal Experience among the Red Men ers, trans. Georgette Dorn (New Haven: Yale Uni­ of the Great West (1883; reprint, New York: Archer versity Press, 1972), p. 8; George Catlin, North House, 1959), p. 286; Flores, "Bison Ecology" (note American Indians, ed. Peter Matthiessen (New York: 1 above), pp. 484-85; Dobak, "Killing the Cana­ Penguin Books, 1989), p. 323; Victor Tixier, Tixier's dian Buffalo" (note 15 above), pp. 49-50. Travels on the Osage Prairies, ed. John Francis 29. Wallace and Hoebel, Comanches (note 16 McDermott, trans. Albert J. Salvan (Norman: above), pp. 199-200. University of Oklahoma Press, 1940), p. 266.