The Destruction of the Bison: An Environmental History, 1750-1920 Book

One in a series of studies of the environment and history, The Destruction of the Bison, by Andrew Isenberg, tells the story of how humans and the natural environment contributed to the near-extinction of the bison on the American Great Plains. In his introduction, Isenberg describes how the destruction of the bison appears simple on the surface. Excessive commercial hunting by Plains Indians and American hunters caused the herds to decline to a mere shadow of the roughly thirty million bison that had roamed the Plains in 1750. However, by taking an environmental approach to the history of the bison, Isenberg clearly demonstrates the decisive impact of grassland ecology, horses, smallpox, the fur trade, and gender roles on the destruction of the bison.

Isenberg sets the stage by describing the situation in the 18th Century, when the various Indians tribes bordering the Great Plains first acquired horses. Until the arrival of the horse, most Native Americans bordering the Plains lived in agricultural villages and raised crops. Bison were hunted on foot, and the hunt was conducted seasonally to supplement agriculture. Over a period of thousands of years, Indians had become extraordinarily skilled at hunting bison on foot. However, "the bison, above all, was mobile, indeed, quite unpredictably so," (9) and this fact, more than any other, was the major limitation on how many bison could be killed. The introduction of the horse removed this limitation. It multiplied the ability to follow the herds and kill bison by giving the hunter equal mobility. This allowed for a fundamental change of lifestyle. It was now possible to abandon agriculture and hunt bison exclusively.

Increased mobility was the most obvious benefit conferred by horses. But it was not the only benefit. Now, for the first time, Indians could tap into the most abundant natural resource of the Great Plains, the grass. Two types dominated the High Plains, blue grama and buffalo grass. They were well suited to survive on the Plains because their root systems were shallow but dense, allowing them to capture most rainfall before it evaporated. In addition, these grasses only grew to a height of about two inches. This protected them against the effects of drought because only a small surface area was exposed to heat and sunlight. These grasses were important to the bison. Because of their ability to resist drought, blue grama and buffalo grass were dependable food sources when taller grasses withered and died in years of drought. Horses could feed on these same grasses, however, and this greatly increased the range of the bison hunters.

The acquisition of horses was an important reason for the shift to full time mobile hunting societies, but it was not the only reason. Isenberg cites disease as a second reason for this fundamental change. The deadly diseases, especially smallpox, brought by American and European traders were most devastating to village societies. Because diseases like smallpox are contagious, densely settled areas like villages are most susceptible to their effects. The nomadic tribes that hunted the bison full time were not hit nearly as badly as the village dwellers because the nomadic hunters were more dispersed. This greatly increased the power of the mobile hunters over the agricultural villages. After being decimated by disease, village tribes lacked the manpower to defend themselves against the lightning raids of the mobile hunters on their villages and crops. This fact gave the remaining villagers one more reason to abandon agriculture for a mobile way of life.

Trade provided yet another reason to change to nomadic bison hunting. Initially, the nomadic bison hunters would take the meat from their kills and trade with the village societies for crops to supplement the bison meat. However, with the advent of the fur trade in the early 19th Century, trade began to take on a new role. American and European fur traders wanted bison robes, and the nomadic hunters of the Plains, with their tremendous hunting skills, were the ideal source. Unfortunately for the bison, this new form of trade quickly proved to be extremely exploitative. Before the fur trade, most Indian societies embraced the value of only killing enough bison to fill their needs. But when offered access to European and American trade goods in exchange for bison robes, this quickly changed. "With the onset of the robe trade, the plains nomads, like those Paleoindians who had helped to destroy the large herbivores of the Pleistocene epoch, turned to the destruction of the bison." (92)

Isenberg sees gender as a contributing factor in the move to exploitative bison hunting to feed the bison robe trade. Before the move to the Plains, when the Native Americans were settled in agricultural villages, women played the important economic role of raising crops. However, once the tribes moved to full time nomadic bison hunting, women became unequal in terms of food procurement. Their economic role was reduced to preparing bison robes for trade. This unequal economic arrangement helped lessen social restraints on exploitative trade.

Indian hunters were by no means the sole cause of the decline of the bison. Americans contributed in many ways. Settlers and miners moved over the Great Plains in large numbers beginning in the 1840s. Cattle ranchers would follow in the 1860s. Each of these groups possessed livestock that foraged on the grasses of the Plains. Settlers and ranchers naturally chose to settle the river valleys most endowed with natural resources, namely timber, grass, and water. These were also the areas most favored by the bison, especially in the winter. As the bison lost access to these important areas, their chances of survival diminished. The bison's chance of survival reached its nadir with the appearance of American hide hunters in the 1870s. Hide hunters were men who indiscriminately killed bison using powerful rifles in order to ship the bison hide to Eastern manufacturers. When faced with this new threat, the already declining bison herds had no chance.

This book is an important contribution to the story of the bison for several reasons. Isenberg effectively shows that the decline of the bison is not the simple story it appears to be. He demonstrates the complexity of the destruction of the bison but does not allow that complexity to cloud the telling of this very important story. The details provide key insights into the role of each environmental factor, but the story never gets lost in the details. By integrating environmental and social factors with economic factors, Isenberg paints a convincing picture of the reasons for the bison's decline. In this respect, The Destruction of the Bison is similar to Elliott West's excellent book The Contested Plains. West makes a similar case for the importance of environmental factors in the history of the Great Plains, and both arguments are very powerful.

That being said, Isenberg's arguments could have been even more convincing. The section concerning the importance of gender was not as clearly connected to the story as the descriptions of other factors in the decline of the bison. There are details that describe the role of gender, but they do not drive home the point as clearly as in other sections. More maps would have been helpful as well. There are only two, and they fail to show the location of some of the events Isenberg describes. For an environmental study, not being able to locate certain areas in their environmental context lessened the effectiveness of the description. This is a hindrance to readers not familiar with the geographical features of the Great Plains.