[Vision2020] Buffalo:Cruel Joke Relates to Cruel History!

[Tbertruss at aol.com]

L. Falen et. al.

There are disagreements as to how much the destruction of the huge buffalo 
herds in the 1800s was due to a desire for use of the animals in commerce, sport 
or for food, or how much the destruction was due to deliberate attempts to 
wipe them out as a tactic to destroy the cultures of the Native Americans who 
depended on them.  But there is no doubt there was a campaign carried out by the 
US military to systematically kill buffalo to remove the support the buffalo 
provided to native cultures.  As to whether it was the "official" policy of 
the US government to wipe out the buffalo there is debate, wink, wink!  And 
regardless, the current scholarship on the treatment of the native population by 
the invading European forces here in North America does not shrink from use of 
the term "genocide."  The quotes at the bottom are from this link:

http://www.american.edu/TED/ice/buffalo.htm

And for info on native cultures and "Turtle Island," which is a myth or image 
used by some native cultures to refer to North America, go to the link below. 
 North America does kind of look like a turtle, though how could native 
cultures long ago have known this without modern map making or views from space?  
Turtle Island is also the title of a book of poetry by Gary Snyder, for which 
he won the Pulitzer in 1975.  His use of this image is deliberately drawn from 
native myth.

http://www.turtleisland.org

"In 1874, Secretary of the Interior Delano testified before Congress, "The 
buffalo are disappearing rapidly, but not faster than I desire. I regard the 
destruction of such game as Indians subsist upon as facilitating the policy of 
the Government, of destroying their hunting habits, coercing them on 
reservations, and compelling them to begin to adopt the habits of civilization." (The 
Military and United States Indian Policy, p. 171) Two years later, reporter John 
F. Finerty wrote that the government's Indian allies "killed the animals in 
sheer wantonness, and when reproached by the officers said: ‘better kill buffalo 
than have him feed the Sioux.'" Although Sheridan added that "if I could 
learn that every buffalo in the the northern herd were killed I would be glad," 
some indications point to a groundswell of military opposition to the killing. (
The Military and United States Indian Policy, p. 172) In 1873, the Secretary 
of War was forwarded a letter from Major R.J. Dodge, endorsed by [General] Pope 
and Sheridan, that addressed the problem. The Secretary of War also approved 
Sheridan's request which seemed to indicate the general's own ambivalence on 
the subject, to authorize Col. De L. Floyd Jones "to put a stop to their 
wholesale destruction." Several officers protested the wanton destruction to Henry 
Bergh, president of the America Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to 
Animals. The army, while anxious to strike against the Indians' ability to continue 
their resistance, did not make the virtual extermination of the American bison 
part of its official policy; in some cases, individual officers took it upon 
themselves to try and end the slaughter. (The Military and United States 
Indian Policy, p. 171)

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V2020 Post by Ted Moffett


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