<h2 class="sc"><SPAN name="viii_value_of_the_buffalo_to_man" id="viii_value_of_the_buffalo_to_man"></SPAN>VIII. Value of the Buffalo to MAN.</h2>
<p>It may fairly be supposed that if the people of this country could have
been made to realize the immense money value of the great buffalo herds
as they existed in 1870, a vigorous and successful effort would have
been made to regulate and restrict the slaughter. The fur <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="page_435"></SPAN></span>seal of
Alaska, of which about 100,000 are killed annually for their skins,
yield an annual revenue to the Government of $100,000 and add $900,000
more to the actual wealth of the United States. It pays to protect those
seals, and we mean to protect them against all comers who seek their
unrestricted slaughter, no matter whether the poachers be American,
English, Russian, or Canadian. It would be folly to do otherwise, and if
those who would exterminate the fur seal by shooting them in the water
will not desist for the telling, then they must by the compelling.</p>
<p>The fur seal is a good investment for the United States, and their
number is not diminishing. As the buffalo herds existed in 1870, 500,000
head of bulls, young and old, could have been killed every year for a
score of years without sensibly diminishing the size of the herds. At a
low estimate these could easily have been made to yield various products
worth $5 each, as follows: Kobe, $2.50; tongue, 20 cents; meat of
hindquarters, $2; bones, horns, and hoofs, 25 cents; total, $5. And the
amount annually added to the wealth of the United States would have been
$2,500,000.</p>
<p>On all the robes taken for the market, say, 200,000, the Government
could have collected a tax of 50 cents each, which would have yielded a
sum doubly sufficient to have maintained a force of mounted police fully
competent to enforce the laws regulating the slaughter. Had a contract
for the protection of the buffalo been offered at $50,000 per annum, ay,
or even half that sum, an army of competent men would have competed for
it every year, and it could have been carried out to the letter. But, as
yet, the American people have not learned to spend money for the
protection of valuable game; and by the time they do learn it, there
will be no game to protect.</p>
<p>Even despite the enormous waste of raw material that ensued in the
utilization of the buffalo product, the total cash value of all the
material derived from this source, if it could only be reckoned up,
would certainly amount to many millions of dollars—perhaps twenty
millions, all told. This estimate may, to some, seem high, but when we
stop to consider that in eight years, from 1876 to 1884, a single firm,
that of Messrs. J. & A. Boskowitz, 105 Greene street, New York, paid out
the enormous sum of $923,070 (nearly one million) for robes and hides,
and that in a single year (1882) another firm, that of Joseph Ullman,
165 Mercer street, New York, paid out $216,250 for robes and hides, it
may not seem so incredible.</p>
<p>Had there been a deliberate plan for the suppression of all statistics
relating to the slaughter of buffalo in the United States, and what it
yielded, the result could not have been more complete barrenness than
exists to-day in regard to this subject. There is only one railway
company which kept its books in such a manner as to show the kind and
quantity of its business at that time. Excepting this, nothing is known
definitely.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="page_436"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>Fortunately, enough facts and figures were recorded during the hunting
operations of the Red River half-breeds to enable us, by bringing them
all together, to calculate with sufficient exactitude the value of the
buffalo to them from 1820 to 1840. The result ought to be of interest to
all who think it is not worth while to spend money in preserving our
characteristic game animals.</p>
<p>In Ross’s “Red River Settlement,” pp. 242-273, and Schoolcraft’s “North
American Indians,” Part iv, pp. 101-110, are given detailed accounts of
the conduct and results of two hunting expeditions by the half-breeds,
with many valuable statistics. On this data we base our calculation.</p>
<p>Taking the result of one particular day’s slaughter as an index to the
methods of the hunters in utilizing the products of the chase, we find
that while “not less than 2,500 animals were killed,” out of that number
only 375 bags of pemmican and 240 bales of dried meat were made. “Now,”
says Mr. Ross,” making all due allowance for waste, 750 animals would
have been ample for such a result. What, then, we might ask, became of
the remaining 1,750! * * * Scarcely one-third in number of the animals
killed is turned to account.”</p>
<p>A bundle of dried meat weighs 60 to 70 pounds, and a bag of pemmican 100
to 110 pounds. If economically worked up, a whole buffalo cow yields
half a bag of pemmican (about 55 pounds) and three-fourths of a bundle
of dried meat (say 45 pounds). The most economical calculate that from
eight to ten cows are required to load a single Red River cart. The
proceeds of 1,776 cows once formed 228 bags of pemmican, 1,213 bales of
dried meat, 166 sacks of tallow, each weighing 200 pounds, 556 bladders
of marrow weighing 12 pounds each, and the value of the whole was
$8,160. The total of the above statement is 132,057 pounds of buffalo
product for 1,776 cows, or within a fraction of 75 pounds to each cow.
The bulls and young animals killed were not accounted for.</p>
<p>The expedition described by Mr. Ross contained 1,210 carts and 620
hunters, and returned with 1,089,000 pounds of meat, making 900 pounds
for each cart, and 200 pounds for each individual in the expedition, of
all ages and both sexes. Allowing, as already ascertained, that of the
above quantity of product every 75 pounds represents one cow saved and
two and one third buffaloes wasted, it means that 14,520 buffaloes were
killed and utilized and 33,250 buffaloes were killed and eaten fresh or
wasted, and 47,770 buffaloes were killed by 620 hunters, or an average
of 77 buffaloes to each hunter. The total number of buffaloes killed for
each cart was 39.</p>
<p>Allowing, what was actually the case, that every buffalo killed would,
if properly cared for, have yielded meat, fat, and robe worth at least
$5, the total value of the buffaloes slaughtered by that expedition
amounted to $258,850, and of which the various products actually <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="page_437"></SPAN></span>
utilized represented a cash value of $72,001 added to the wealth of the
Red River half-breeds.</p>
<p>In 1820 there went 540 carts to the buffalo plains; in 1825, 680; in
1830, 820; in 1835, 970; in 1840, 1,210.</p>
<p>From 1820 to 1825 the average for each year was 610; from 1825 to 1830,
750; from 1830 to 1835, 895; from 1835 to 1840, 1,000.</p>
<p>Accepting the statements of eye-witnesses that for every buffalo killed
two and one-third buffaloes are wasted or eaten on the spot, and that
every loaded cart represented thirty-nine dead buffaloes which were
worth when utilized $5 each, we have the following series of totals:</p>
<p>From 1820 to 1825 five expeditions, of 610 carts each, killed 118,950
buffaloes, worth $594,750.</p>
<p>From 1825 to 1830 five expeditions, of 750 carts each, killed 146,250
buffaloes, worth $731,250.</p>
<p>From 1830 to 1835 five expeditions, of 895 carts each, killed 174,525
buffaloes, worth $872,625.</p>
<p>From 1835 to 1840 five expeditions, of 1,090 carts each, killed 212,550
buffaloes, worth $1,062,750.</p>
<p>Total number of buffaloes killed in twenty years,<SPAN name="fnanchor_43_43" id="fnanchor_43_43"></SPAN><SPAN href="#footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</SPAN> $652,275; total
value of buffaloes killed in twenty years,<SPAN href="#footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</SPAN> $3,261,375; total value
of the product utilized<SPAN href="#footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</SPAN> and added to the wealth of the settlements,
$978,412.</p>
<p>The Eskimo has his seal, which yields nearly everything that he
requires; the Korak of Siberia depends for his very existence upon his
reindeer; the Ceylon native has the cocoa-nut palm, which leaves him
little else to desire, and the North American Indian had the American,
bison. If any animal was ever designed by the hand of nature for the
express purpose of supplying, at one stroke, nearly all the wants of an
entire race, surely the buffalo was intended for the Indian.</p>
<p>And right well was this gift of the gods utilized by the children of
nature to whom it came. Up to the time when the United States Government
began to support our Western Indians by the payment of annuities and
furnishing quarterly supplies of food, clothing, blankets, cloth, tents,
etc., the buffalo had been the main dependence of more than 50,000
Indians who inhabited the buffalo range and its environs. Of the many
different uses to which the buffalo and his various parts were, put by
the red man, the following were the principal ones:</p>
<p>The body of the buffalo yielded fresh meat, of which thousands of tons
were consumed; dried meat, prepared in summer for winter use; pemmican
(also prepared in summer), of meat, fat, and berries; tallow, made up
into large balls or sacks, and kept in store; marrow, preserved in
bladders; and tongues, dried and smoked, and eaten as a delicacy.</p>
<p>The skin of the buffalo yielded a robe, dressed with the hair on, for
clothing and bedding; a hide, dressed without the hair, which made a
teepee cover, when a number were sewn together; boats, when sewn
together in a green state, over a wooden framework. Shields, made <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="page_438"></SPAN></span>from
the thickest portions, as rawhide; ropes, made up as rawhide; clothing
of many kinds; bags for use in traveling; coffins, or winding sheets for
the dead, etc.</p>
<p>Other portions utilized were sinews, which furnished fiber for ropes,
thread, bow-strings, snow-shoe webs, etc.; hair, which was sometimes
made into belts and ornaments; “buffalo chips,” which formed a valuable
and highly-prized fuel; bones, from which many articles of use and
ornament were made; horns, which were made into spoons, drinking
vessels, etc.</p>
<p>After the United States Government began to support the buffalo-hunting
Indians with annuities and supplies, the woolen blanket and canvas tent
took the place of the buffalo robe and the skin-covered teepee, and
“Government beef” took the place of buffalo meat. But the slaughter of
buffaloes went on just the same, and the robes and hides taken were
traded for useless and often harmful luxuries, such as canned
provisions, fancy knickknacks, whisky, fire-arms of the most approved
pattern, and quantities of fixed ammunition. During the last ten years
of the existence of the herds it is an open question whether the buffalo
did not do our Indians more harm than good. Amongst the Crows, who were
liberally provided for by the Government, horse racing was a common
pastime, and the stakes were usually dressed buffalo robes.<SPAN name="fnanchor_44_44" id="fnanchor_44_44"></SPAN><SPAN href="#footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</SPAN></p>
<p>The total disappearance of the buffalo has made no perceptible
difference in the annual cost of the Indians to the Government. During
the years when buffaloes were numerous and robes for the purchase of
fire-arms and cartridges were plentiful, Indian wars were frequent, and
always costly to the Government. The Indians were then quite
independent, because they could take the war path at any time and live
on buffalo indefinitely. Now, the case is very different. The last time
Sitting Bull went on the war-path and was driven up into Manitoba, he
had the doubtful pleasure of living on his ponies and dogs until he
became utterly starved out. Since his last escapade, the Sioux have been
compelled to admit that the game is up and the war-path is open to them
no longer. Should they wish to do otherwise they know that they could
survive only by killing cattle, and cattle that are guarded by cowboys
and ranchmen are no man’s game. Therefore, while we no longer have to
pay for an annual campaign in force against hostile Indians, the total
absence of the buffalo brings upon the nation the entire support of the
Indian, and the cash outlay each year is as great as ever.</p>
<p>The value of the American bison to civilized man can never be
calculated, nor even fairly estimated. It may with safety be said,
however, that it has been probably tenfold greater than most persons
have <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="page_439"></SPAN></span>ever supposed. It would be a work of years to gather statistics of
the immense bulk of robes and hides, undoubtedly amounting to millions
in the aggregate; the thousands of tons of meat, and the train-loads of
bones which have been actually utilized by man. Nor can the effect of
the bison’s presence upon the general development of the great West ever
be calculated. It has sunk into the great sum total of our progress, and
well nigh lost to sight forever.</p>
<p>As a mere suggestion of the immense value of “the buffalo product” at
the time when it had an existence, I have obtained from two of our
leading fur houses in New York City, with branches elsewhere, a detailed
statement of their business in buffalo robes and hides during the last
few years of the trade. They not only serve to show the great value of
the share of the annual crop that passed through their hands, but that
of Messrs. J. & A. Boskowitz is of especial value, because, being
carefully itemized throughout, it shows the decline and final failure of
the trade in exact figures. I am under many obligations to both these
firms for their kindness in furnishing the facts I desired, and
especially to the Messrs. Boskowitz, who devoted considerable time and
labor to the careful compilation of the annexed statement of their
business in buffalo skins.</p>
<h4><i>Memorandum of buffalo robes and hides bought by Messrs J. & A.
Boskowitz,<br/> 101-105 Greene Street, New York, and 202 Lake street,
Chicago, from 1876 to 1884.</i></h4>
<div class="center">
<table border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary="hides">
<tr><td align="center" rowspan="2">Year</td><td align="center" colspan="2">Buffalo robes.</td><td align="center" colspan="2">Buffalo hides.</td></tr>
<tr><td align="center">Number.</td><td align="center">Cost.</td><td align="center">Number.</td><td align="center">Cost.</td></tr>
<tr><td align="center"><tt>1876</tt></td><td align="right"><tt>31,838</tt></td><td align="right"><tt>$39,620</tt></td><td align="right">None.</td><td align="right">…</td></tr>
<tr><td align="center"><tt>1877</tt></td><td align="right"><tt>9,353</tt></td><td align="right"><tt>35,560</tt></td><td align="right">None.</td><td align="right">…</td></tr>
<tr><td align="center"><tt>1878</tt></td><td align="right"><tt>41,268</tt></td><td align="right"><tt>150,600</tt></td><td align="right">None.</td><td align="right">…</td></tr>
<tr><td align="center"><tt>1879</tt></td><td align="right"><tt>28,613</tt></td><td align="right"><tt>110,420</tt></td><td align="right">None.</td><td align="right">…</td></tr>
<tr><td align="center"><tt>1880</tt></td><td align="right"><tt>34,901</tt></td><td align="right"><tt>176,200</tt></td><td align="right"><tt>4,570</tt></td><td align="right"><tt>$13,140</tt></td></tr>
<tr><td align="center"><tt>1881</tt></td><td align="right"><tt>23,355</tt></td><td align="right"><tt>151,800</tt></td><td align="right"><tt>26,601</tt></td><td align="right"><tt>89,030</tt></td></tr>
<tr><td align="center"><tt>1882</tt></td><td align="right"><tt>2,124</tt></td><td align="right"><tt>15,600</tt></td><td align="right"><tt>15,464</tt></td><td align="right"><tt>44,140</tt></td></tr>
<tr><td align="center"><tt>1883</tt></td><td align="right"><tt>6,690</tt></td><td align="right"><tt>29,770</tt></td><td align="right"><tt>21,869</tt></td><td align="right"><tt>67,190</tt></td></tr>
<tr><td align="center"><tt>1884</tt></td><td align="right">None.</td><td align="right">…</td><td align="right"><tt>529</tt></td><td align="right"><tt>1,720</tt></td></tr>
<tr><td align="center">Total</td><td align="right"><tt>177,142</tt></td><td align="right"><tt>$709,570</tt></td><td align="right"><tt>69,033</tt></td><td align="right"><tt>215,220</tt></td></tr>
</table></div>
<h4>Total number of buffalo skins handled in nine years, 246,175; total
cost, $924,790.</h4>
<p>I have also been favored with some very interesting facts and figures
regarding the business done in buffalo skins by the firm of Mr. Joseph
Ullman, exporter and importer of furs and robes, of 165-107 Mercer
street, New York, and also 353 Jackson street, St. Paul, Minnesota. The
following letter was written me by Mr. Joseph Ullman on November 12,
1887, for which I am greatly indebted:</p>
<p>“Inasmuch as you particularly desire the figures for the years 1880-’86,
I have gone through my buffalo robe and hide accounts of those years,
and herewith give you approximate figures, as there are a good many
things to be considered which make it difficult to give exact figures.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="page_440"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>“In 1881 we handled about 14,000 hides, average cost about $3.50, and
12,000 robes, average cost about $7.50.</p>
<p>“In 1882 we purchased between 35,000 and 40,000 hides, at an average
cost of about $3.50, and about 10,000 robes, at an average cost of about
$8.50.</p>
<p>“In 1883 we purchased from 6,000 to 7,000 hides and about 1,500 to 2,000
robes at a slight advance in price against the year previous.</p>
<p>“In 1884 we purchased less than 2,500 hides, and in my opinion these
were such as were carried over from the previous season in the
Northwest, and were not fresh-slaughtered skins. The collection of robes
this season was also comparatively small, and nominally robes carried
over from 1883.</p>
<p>“In 1885 the collection of hides amounted to little or nothing.</p>
<p>“The aforesaid goods were all purchased direct in the Northwest, that is
to say, principally in Montana, and shipped in care of our branch house
at St. Paul, Minnesota, to Joseph Ullman, Chicago. The robes mentioned
above were Indian-tanned robes and were mainly disposed of to the
jobbing trade both East and West.</p>
<p>“In 1881 and the years prior, the hides were divided into two kinds,
viz, robe hides, which were such as had a good crop of fur and were
serviceable for robe purposes, and the heavy and short-furred bull
hides. The former were principally sold to the John S. Way Manufacturing
Company, Bridgeport, Connecticut, and to numerous small robe tanners,
while the latter were sold for leather purposes to various hide-tanners
throughout the United States and Canada, and brought 5½ to 8½
cents per pound. A very large proportion of these latter were tanned by
the Wilcox Tanning Company, Wilcox, Pennsylvania.</p>
<p>“About the fall of 1882 we established a tannery for buffalo robes in
Chicago, and from that time forth we tanned all the good hides which we
received into robes and disposed of them in the same manner as the
Indian-tanned robes.</p>
<p>“I don’t know that I am called upon to express an opinion as to the
benefit or disadvantage of the extermination of the buffalo, but
nevertheless take the liberty to say that I think that some proper law
restricting the unpardonable slaughter of the buffalo should have been
enacted at the time. It is a well-known fact that soon after the
Northern Pacific Railroad opened up that portion of the country, thereby
making the transportation of the buffalo hides feasible, that is to say,
reducing the cost of freight, thousands upon thousands of buffaloes were
killed for the sake of the hide alone, while the carcasses were left to
rot on the open plains.</p>
<p>“The average prices paid the buffalo hunters [from 1880 to 1884] was
about as follows: For cow hides [robes!], $3; bull hides, $2.50;
yearlings, $1.50; calves, 75 cents; and the cost of getting the hides to
market brought the cost up to about $3.50 per hide.”</p>
<p>The amount actually paid out by Joseph Ullman, in four years, for <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="page_441"></SPAN></span>
buffalo robes and hides was about $310,000, and this, too, long after
the great southern herd had ceased to exist, and when the northern herd
furnished the sole supply. It thus appears that during the course of
eight years business (leaving out the small sum paid out in 1884), on
the part of the Messrs. Boskowitz, and four years on that of Mr. Joseph
Ullman, these two firms alone paid out the enormous sum of $1,233,070
for buffalo robes and hides which they purchased to sell again at a good
profit. By the time their share of the buffalo product reached the
consumers it must have represented an actual money value of about
$2,000,000.</p>
<p>Besides these two firms there were at that time many others who also
handled great quantities of buffalo skins and hides for which they paid
out immense sums of money. In this country the other leading firms
engaged in this business were I. G. Baker & Co., of Fort Benton; P. B.
Weare & Co., Chicago; Obern, Hoosick & Co., Chicago and Saint Paul;
Martin Bates & Co., and Messrs. Shearer, Nichols & Co. (now Hurlburt,
Shearer & Sanford), of New York. There were also many others whose names
I am now unable to recall.</p>
<p>In the British Possessions and Canada the frontier business was largely
monopolized by the Hudson’s Bay Fur Company, although the annual
“output” of robes and hides was but small in comparison with that
gathered in the United States, where the herds were far more numerous.
Even in their most fruitful locality for robes—the country south of the
Saskatchewan—this company had a very powerful competitor in the firm of
I. G. Baker & Co., of Fort Benton, which secured the lion’s share of the
spoil and sent it down the Missouri River.</p>
<p>It is quite certain that the utilization of the buffalo product, even so
far as it was accomplished, resulted in the addition of several millions
of dollars to the wealth of the people of the United States. That the
total sum, could it be reckoned up, would amount to at least fifteen
millions, seems reasonably certain; and my own impression is that twenty
millions would be nearer the mark. It is much to be regretted that the
exact truth can never be known, for in this age of universal slaughter a
knowledge of the cash value of the wild game of the United States that
has been killed up to date might go far toward bringing about the actual
as well as the theoretical protection of what remains.</p>
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