Could it be argued that the Plains indians had semi-domesticated the buffalo? They herded the buffalo, and migrated with the buffalo. The horses (introduced by the spanish) enabled the indians to migrate long distances-maybe they were farmers who abandoned their sedentary life to become hunters-and they increased the range of the buffalo, by burning down the trees.
No. North American Bison are very difficult to domesticate. They’re stupid and when fully grown very testy, especially the males. They were NOT domesticated by the Plains Indians; the reference to “herding” in the citations above is to herds of horses, not herds of bison. The Indians did not “herd” the buffalo in the sense of keeping them together in groups and intentionally moving them from place to place. The would stampede them over cliffs or chase them into thickets to trap and kill them (in the dog days), or wheel them to the right or left from horseback (once they had horses), but that hardly counts as herding. They migrated with the buffalo only in the sense that they loosely followed the buffalo, but they didn’t really have to even do that, since there were an estimated 50 to 60 billion bison on the Great Plains prior to white incursion. (Cite)
For a hunter, increasing the range of your prey doesn’t make any sense. It increases the distance you have to follow it and the range you must hunt over. The only reason to intentionally increase a prey-animal’s range would be to encourage further population growth: increased range leading to increased prey population to fill it. This was not an issue for most of those tribes whose culture and life were dependent on the buffalo. There was almost always enough buffalo. The Blackfeet collective tribal history (oral, mythologic, and so-called “winter counts,” which were illustrated bison skins) does not reference any times of remarkable hunger or disease until after the whites came. The Tribe was decimated by small pox repeatedly starting in the mid-18th century, and suffered its first Starving Winter in 1861, when they could not find the buffalo. By the 1880’s the buffalo were completely gone, and the Tribes were therefore almost completely dependent on the U.S. and Canadian governments for food. The buffalo were decimated in such a short time – only 50 years or so – that there was no time to implement a strategy of increasing the herd numbers by increasing range.
And the advent of the horse did not increase the Tribes’ migratory range significantly. The camps still had to be moved by striking the tents and pulling travois which, although pulled by horses instead of dogs, still made for slow going. And although the men rode horses, most of the women and children walked. Further, although the territory of various tribes was fluid and ever-changing through wars and alliances, any attempts to push into the territory of a neighboring tribe – and such attempts were made all the time – would be met with a repulse unless one tribe was significantly stronger than another. (Such an upset in the balance of power existed after firearms were introduced to some tribes but before they had been desseminated to all tribes, for example. And the firearm was known to the Indians before the horse was.) Moreover, until the whites came and started shoving all the Tribes westward, there was not necessarily any need to increase the tribe’s range. Broadly speaking, there was enough land for each tribe to dwell in the land of its ancestors.
and as a side issue you might address why the Great Plains were deforested by agricultural indians while the east wasn’t.
Almost certainly due to precipitation. You only need to glance at an isohyet map to see that the Great Plains receive significantly less rainfall than the east coast or the Northwest. Although the full picture would be somewhat more complex no further explanation is required at this juncture.
I have to disagree very strongly with that comment. We have irrefutable evidence from both archaeology and oral tradition that shows that the advent of the horse increased the migratory range of several tribes, and led to the extinction of several more. Several agricultural groups gave up farming altogether and took up full time buffalo hunting because horses allowed them to do so. In the process they expanded their range enormously and exterminated the local tribes that were still hunting buffalo on foot.
Merely having horses made one tribe significantly stronger than another. Cavalry provides a massive advantage in battle. A fact of which the plains Indians were very well aware. In addition horses increased hunting effectiveness and allowed higher population densities and provided a year-round source of protein.
That figure is considered to be highly debatable. It is based primarily on the fact that buffalo were seen in great herds by later European settlers. However earlier Europeans reported no such large herds. Current thinking is that prior to the dissemination of European disease which freed the buffalo from hunting pressure buffalo numbers were kept in check by the Indians themselves.
In addition the herds were far more diffuse prior to the introduction of the horse. Once Indians began using horses and expanding their hunting range they forced the buffaloes into massive herds on the edge of hunting territories. That was further compounded by European hunting, once again from horseback. That explains why reports of huge herds actually increased markedly after European settlement. And yes, that takes into account that more observers will lead to more reports. Early reports of buffalo herds just don’t mention the massive herds of later days.
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Which is our first clue that we are missing something. “Children-of-nature” mythology aside people are like any other animal. We expand our population to the limit allowed by environment. If there were always sufficient buffalo to provide food we have to ask why the Indian population of the Great Plains remained so low.
The best evidence suggests that the plains Indians frequently starved due to shortage of buffalo. Only after the population was first decimated by disease and then allowed to fully exploit buffalo through the use of horses did these frequent famines cease. It wasn’t the historical norm, it was entirely the result of changed conditions, just as the Europeans at the time didn’t have any shortage of buffalo. However neither situation was sustainable.
What the …?
:: Shrug :: My information is limited to the Western plains Indians of Montana and Alberta – Blackfeet, Kutenai, Shoshone, Crow. I have no information of any oral tradition of any disappeared (exterminated) Plains tribes. The number I gave for pre-contact bison herds is the generally given number, and I don’t see you giving another one. You have a lot to say on “current thinking;” perhaps my information is not current enough. In short, you have a lot of information that doesn’t jibe with what I have; this is not Great Debates; and you provide no cites. So we will have to agree to disagree, and anyone who cares enough about such an esoteric subject can do their own reading and reach their own conclusions.
With such eloquence I can’t quite work out what is apparently puzzling you. I’m assuming that you are struggling to understand that different rainfall regimes alter the efficacy of different plant control methods… but I’m not quite sure.
in answer to my question about why eastern indian agriculture didn’t result in deforestation your answer was “Almost certainly due to precipitation.”
In answer to CalMeacham’s statement that the prairies were where the rainfall was lower, I read your answer as saying that no, meager rainfall isn’t the reason.
These seem contradictory, or do I misunderstand what you are saying in the two instances?
I still can’t see what you see as being contradictory. Rainfall doesn’t explain why trees don’t survive ion the Great Plains. Rainfall does explain why Indians couldn’t completely burn out the rainforests of the Pacific Northwest or Florida. The two statements aren’t even related, much less contradictory.
They’re not really domesticated now, either, or at least no more so than are the zebras you can visit at the zoo. The only really significant difference between “domesticated” and wild bison populations is which side of the fence they graze on.
And whether or not they were domesticated, they were grazing animals inhabiting the Great Plains in substantial numbers. I’m not disagreeing with your general argument here, but I’m baffled as to your dismissal of the bison as a significant element of the Great Plains ecosystem.
Not really. Bison are now contained. Their breeding is totally controlled, they are harvested at will. They are as domesticated as cattle in every practical respect.
I’m baffled that you think I dismissed of the bison as a significant element of the Great Plains ecosystem. Can you possibly quote where wrote that?
Errr. Certainly not every practical respect, as anyone foolish enough to use cattle handling facilities to deal with bison could tell you. Their breeding is totally controlled only insofar as you can sort which animals are in which pastures prior to breeding season. From that point it’s entirely up to the bison to sort out which bulls will breed which cows. Unlike cattle which have their calving times manipulated for greatest profit, bison are left entirely on their own to sort out breeding issues.
I can totally control the breeding of any species on the planet using the same method of forcible separation. You could do the exact same thing with gnus or even herring if you really wanted to go to the effort of constructing the requisite physical barriers. I should have thought that domestication indicates an actual change the gene pool, a process which is certainly beginning with bison, but is only in its infancy.
The behaviour of bison is still that of wild animals, albeit that of wild animals acclimated to human contact. But the same can be said of the black bear at the dump, and no one who isn’t a complete moron would think the bear is domesticated, even if someone were to keep it inside a fence. I’m frankly hard pressed to understand this notion of domestication where building a fence around an animal magically transforms it into a domesticated critter.
The Geologic Story of The Great Plains. (North Dakota State University)
No, they aren’t. As generally used, “Domesticated” doesn’t just mean “penned,” it means tamed or semi-tamed (in the case of cattle) and dependent on humans for long-term survival. It means put to primary use for the benefit of humans and in many cases changed through breeding or genetics to maximize the usefulness to humans.
Bison are NOT domesticated. They are in fact very difficult to domesticate because they are stupid, stubborn, dangerous, and mean. They are also inveterate wanderers and difficult to keep penned – much more so than domesticated cattle that have most of their roaming instincts bred out of them. Bison meat is lower in fat and cholesterol than beef, and the animals are hardier, longer-lived, and more disease resistant – a resource that certainly would be domesticated and exploited if that were easily done. (And people have been trying to do it since the mid-19th century.) The chief reason that you don’t see wholesale bison ranching in the West is that bison are so difficult to manage and to keep as livestock. They are, in short, NOT domesticated animals, and characteristics inherent in the breed mean they are remarkably resistent to domestication.
And further to David Simmons’ point about whether the Great Plains have been or even could be forested (in the last few thousand years), you might take a look at Bad Land by Jonathan Raban, which refutes the argument that you are making here – i.e., that the natural state of the Great Plains is something other than the grasslands and scrub it appears today. This was the advertising argument made to lure settlers to eastern Montana at the turn of the 19th century – the prairie could be turned to fertile farmland! All it took was hardwork! – and it was completely false, as thousands of credulous farmers found out at their cost.
If there was any way to turn eastern Montana and the Dakotas into fertile farmland or forest, Americans would have done it – would be doing it now, with all the technological and genetic resources at hand. The best argument for the fact that it cannot be done is that it hasn’t been done, because no matter how hard a farmer, rancher, or cattle conglomerate may work or spend, they can’t make it rain.
And neither could the Indians. So unless you’re theorizing a fundamental and permanent shift in precipitation patterns over the Plains (used to support trees, now does not), that just happened to coincide with the Indians burning all the trees down, then your argument doesn’t make much sense.
Just wondering if the patterns of life (that the Plains Indians evolved) may have made things more optimal for the expansion of the bison. For example, the indians buring the mixed grassland/treed areas would have promoted the growth of more grass, which would promote the population increase of the bison. This would have allowed the human population to increase. And the introduction of the horse allowed even greater mobility.
So, perhaps the modification of the great plains ecosystem was primarily human.
i think that’s doubtful. For one thing, prior to the introduction of the horse the indian settlements were relatively stationary. They lived in the river valleys where there was adequate and more or less continuous water and more fertile soild for agriculture. Therefore it just doesn’t seem reasonable that forest clearing activities on their part would strip all of the trees from such a vast area as the great plains. In addition this site on the plains indian wars states that the US government estimated the total indian population in the US as 270000 in 1866. Of course the native population had been decimated by the introduction of new deseases. Even allowing for an increase in population by a factor of 10, 2.7 million distributed over the whole US territory still seems a number that’s inadequate to the task of deforesting a region the size of the great plains.
For a second thing it also seems strange to me that the cite I gave above from North Dakota State University mentions only the relatively scant rainfall in connection with the great plains being grassland with few trees except in river valleys. I would think that if human activities played a large part it would have at least been mentioned, even if only in a footnote.
Lastly, as jodi points out we haven’t practiced forest clearing by wholesale burning for many years now. You would expect that if trees thrived in the great plains weather that by now there would be a least a few small woodsy areas away from the river valleys. Further east on the plains, as in Iowa, the first thing the settlers did when establishing a farmstead was to plant a grove of tees on the north side of the buildings as a windbreak from the prevailing northwest wind. That was not done further west on the great plains and I have to think that was because the trees just plain wouldn’t survive without extensive watering. By the way, it is now the practice at least in Nebraska since we have deep wells and electric power to move the water to the trees.
I think you’re actually overstating the case here. Bison are no more stupid than cattle - and anyways I’m not sure how that’s really relevant. Cattle themselves are less intelligent than pigs, and more intelligent than chickens. All three are indisputably domesticated.
Wholesale bison ranching is in fact appearing. I happen to know this because my brother has a small operation. While they are certainly dangerous and aggressive compared to beef, they are containable, and experience has taught bison ranchers various methods for handling bison without causing too much stress. While various early attempts to move bison (for conservation reasons) using techniques common with beef led to the destruction of handling facilities and many injuries to the animals, it is possible to move bison through specially-designed corrals and the like without having them flip out and hurt themselves. The trick is to manipulate their psychology (the same is true of cattle, of course, it’s just much easier to do with cattle) - in the final analysis any fence short of brick walls or the very stoutest of corrals is a psychological barrier which contains the bison by inducing it to choose not to attempt to pass through it.
What is currently preventing significant expansion in bison ranching is the marketplace. For a long time, the supply of bison was so tiny that it could in no way meet the (limited, niche) demand for the meat. This led to breeding stock having immense value, and for many years bison ranching was extremely lucrative due to the high prices of cows. However, the supply of bison has now caught up to the demand for bison as a specialty meat, and the price of live bison is now scarcely higher than that of live beef. Until bison becomes a more mainstream food item (something which is beginning to happen, in rural western Canada at least, them is tasty critters!) we won’t see any huge expansion in bison ranching.
However, I do agree that domestication entails some modification from wild populations, and as I said before the only substantive difference currently between “domesticated” and wild bison populations is which side of the fence they’re on. That will change, and indeed is already starting to, but the process is going to take many generations.
The usual process involved eating the nasty ones first.
I never said bison were stupider than cattle; I never said anything about cattle, much less chickens or pigs. I said bison are stupid, stubborn, dangerous, and mean. These qualities make them difficult to ranch.
I never said bison ranching was impossible, or even that it is not being done. I said bison are not domesticated animals, because they aren’t. But bison ranching is not just now “appearing;” as I said, people have been trying, with various degrees of success, to ranch bison for 150 years. But because they are more difficult to manage than cattle, and because until very recently there was little to no domestic market for their meat, bison ranching remains very much an anomaly – kind of like ostrich ranching in terms of trendiness and scepticism from traditional farmers/ranchers.
That, and the difficulties in ranching bison. There is not yet a sufficient market to make up for the difficulties of raising and slaughtering bison. It is a classic supply and demand problem, but at this point – contrary to your assertion – the problem is not on the demand side.
Although it is true that the the price for live breeder bison stock has fallen and stabilized, it is not correct that the supply of bison meat has caught up with the demand. Bison continues to sell at wholesale market prices significantly higher than those for beef cattle. You can compare the most recent USDA reports for beef (here) and bison (here) and confirm this yourself: Price for lip-on ribeye (beef): $473.78; price for lip-on ribeye (bison): $910.16 – over twice the price for beef. Price for trimmed tenderloin (beef): 974.43; price for tenderloin (bison): 1470.29 – half again as much as for beef. (Note that this isn’t a direct comparison because the bison report comes out once a month while the boxed beef report comes out daily.) If the trend continues – lower breeding costs that formerly, consistently higher prices as compared to beef – no doubt we will see more enterprising ranchers taking up bison raising. But that will be done in spite of the inherent difficulties in husbanding bison, a cantankerous and undomesticated animal.
Well, that depends on what you mean by “huge.” As I said above, as breeding stock becomes cheaper, and assuming that the demand for bison meat continues to outstrip supply, we will inevitably see expansion in the supply market until it stabilizes with demand. The USDA reports make clear this has not happened yet.
Well, that rather makes my point, doesn’t it? They are not domesticated at all. That’s what I said in the first place.
As a blanket statement, this is flatly incorrect. Temperate grasslands typically have a rainfall regime of between 10-35 inches of rain per year. Much of the Great Plains is within this range.
I would like to see a cite for this statement; that is, that temperate areas with annual rainfall of less than 15 inches/40 cm on those continents support extensive areas of woodland as natural vegetation.