The Destruction of the Bison: An Environmental History, 1750–1920The Destruction of the Bison, first published in 2000, explains the decline of the North American bison population from an estimated 30 million in 1800 to fewer than a thousand a century later. In this wide-ranging, interdisciplinary study, Andrew C. Isenberg argues that the cultural and ecological encounter between Native Americans and Euroamericans in the Great Plains was the central cause of the near-extinction of the bison. Cultural and ecological interactions created new types of bison hunters on both sides of the encounter: mounted Indian nomads and Euroamerican industrial hidemen. Together with environmental pressures these hunters nearly extinguished the bison. In the early twentieth century, nostalgia about the very cultural strife which first threatened the bison became, ironically, an important impetus to its preservation. |
Contents
The Grassland Environment | |
The Genesis of the Nomads | |
TheNomadicExperiment | |
The Wildandthe Tamed | |
Conclusion | |
Other editions - View all
The Destruction of the Bison: An Environmental History, 1750-1920 Andrew C. Isenberg Limited preview - 2000 |
The Destruction of the Bison: An Environmental History, 1750-1920 Andrew C. Isenberg No preview available - 2000 |
Common terms and phrases
American Bison Society American Fur Company American Indians andthe animals Annual Arapahos Arikaras Assiniboines Atsinas beaver bison hunting bison population Blackfeet Blackfoot Blue grama Buffalo bythe Catlin Cheyennes Comanches Crows cultural Dakota Denig destruction disease Dodge domestic drought ecological economic eighteenth century environment Environmental History epidemic equestrian equestrian nomads Euroamerican European extinction Five Indian forage fromthe frontier fur trader grasslands groups herds Hidatsas hide hunters Hornaday horses Indians and Euroamericans inthe killed Kiowas Lincoln Mandans Mexico midnineteenth migrations Missouri River mixedgrass Montana nearextinction Nebraska Press NewYork nineteenth century nomadic societies North American northern plains ofbison ofthe bison Oglala onthe Park Pawnees plains nomads preservationists preserve ranchers resource River valley semiarid shortgrasses Sioux slaughter smallpox social South Dakota southern species subsistence summer Tabeau territory Texas thatthe thebison theBuffalo theIndians thenomads theplains thousand tothe trade University of Nebraska University of Oklahoma University Press villages West western plains winter wrote Yellowstone York