Bison and People on the North American Great Plains: A Deep Environmental History

by Geoff Cunfer (Editor), Bill Waiser (Editor)

Overview

The near disappearance of the American bison in the nineteenth century is commonly understood to be the result of over-hunting, capitalist greed, and all but genocidal military policy. This interpretation remains seductive because of its simplicity; there are villains and victims in this familiar cautionary tale of the American frontier. But as this volume of groundbreaking scholarship shows, the story of the bison’s demise is actually quite nuanced.

Bison and People on the North American Great Plains brings together voices from several disciplines to offer new insights on the relationship between humans and animals that approached extinction. The essays here transcend the border between the United States and Canada to provide a continental context. Contributors include historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, paleontologists, and Native American perspectives.

This book explores the deep past and examines the latest knowledge on bison anatomy and physiology, how bison responded to climate change (especially drought), and early bison hunters and pre-contact trade. It also focuses on the era of European contact, in particular the arrival of the horse, and some of the first known instances of over-hunting. By the nineteenth century bison reached a “tipping point” as a result of new tanning practices, an early attempt at protective legislation, and ventures to introducing cattle as a replacement stock. The book concludes with a Lakota perspective featuring new ethnohistorical research.

Bison and People on the North American Great Plains is a major contribution to environmental history, western history, and the growing field of transnational history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781623494759
Publisher:	Texas A&M University Press
Publication date:	10/04/2016
Series:	Connecting the Greater West Series
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	344
File size:	26 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

GEOFF CUNFER is associate professor of history at the University of Saskatchewan and the author of On the Great Plains: Agriculture and Environment, winner of the Agricultural History Society’s Theodore Saloutos Book Award. BILL WAISER is distinguished professor emeritus of history at the University of Saskatchewan. A specialist in western and northern Canadian history, he is the author or editor of fourteen books, including Saskatchewan: A New History and Park Prisoners: The Untold Story of Western Canada’s National Parks, 1915–1946.

Table of Contents

Foreword Sterling Evans vii

Preface Geoff Cunfer Bill Waiser ix

1 Overview: The Decline and Fall of the Bison Empire Geoff Cunfer 1

2 Reviewing an Iconic Story: Environmental History and the Demise of the Bison Dan Flores 30

… People and Bison in the Ancient Past

3 A Bison's View of Landscape and the Paleoenvironment Alwynne B. Beaudoin 51

4 A Hunter's Quest for Fat Bison Jack W. Brink 90

5 An Overview of Prehistoric Communal Bison Hunting on the Great Plains Ernest G. Walker 122

… Acceleration European Contact and the Horse Revolution

6 A Fur Trade Historian's View of Seasonal Bison Movements on the Northern Plains Ted Binnema 159

7 A Horse-Man's View of a Grassland Revolution Elliott West 178

8 A Métis View of the Summer Market Hunt on the Northern Plains George Colpitis 201

… Tipping Point Nineteenth-Century Cataclysm

9 A Tanner's View of the Bison Hunt: Global Tanning and Industrial Leather Jennifer Hansen 227

10 A Legislator's View of Bison Collapse: The 1877 North-West Territories Bison Protection Ordinance Bill Waiser 245

11 A Rancher's View of the Post-Bison West: Filling the Vacuum Matt Todd 263

12 A Lakota View of Pté Oyáte (Buffalo Nation) David C. Posthumus 278

Contributors 311

Index 315

Interviews

Saskatchewan

Editorial Reviews

Full of wonderful insights, thoughtful ideas, and fresh concepts.”—Paul H. Carlson, author of Deep Time and the Texas High Plains and The Plains Indians
 

Paul H. Carlson

Cunfer and Waiser’s collection of essays, Bison and People on the North American Great Plains models what a true “deep” environmental history should accomplish. Deliberately interdisciplinary, yet connected thematically and logically, Bison and People brings together decades of research and writing into a highly comprehensive and convincing — living, breathing and snorting — depiction of the long history of bison and people from pre-history to the present. This is a work of both synthesis, in structure and in substance, and new research that is especially satisfying for historians of environmental history.”—Canadian Journal of History

Candian Journal of History

"Is the controversy of who is responsible for the demise of the bison resolved? Historians and ecologists will say yes. Some Native Americans will say no. The fascinating essays in Bison and People reveal new and reinterpreted evidence to help readers unravel America's greatest mystery."— Rosalyn LaPier, Author of Invisible Reality: Storytellers, Storytakers, and the Supernatural World of the Blackfeet

Rosalyn LaPier

The story of the iconic bison and its catastrophic decline from tens of millions to the precipice of extinction is well known. However, this innovative and well-argued essay collection by twelve scholars from several different academic disciplines following a deep environmental approach and utilizing different methods, breathes fresh air into our understanding of the complex interactions among wildlife, people, and environment on the Great Plains.” —Kansas History

Kansas History

Geoff Cunfer and Bill Waiser have edited a useful volume that helps historians better understand the dynamic relationships that governed this transborder region throughout its deep history. . . a new look at the myriad environmental and human interactions of the Northern Plains through history, showing a continued pattern of competition, contingency, and complexity.” —Journal of the Southern Illinois State Historical Society
 

Journal of the Southern Illinois State Historical Society