Bison Herds in the 1800s - Primary Sources
These primary sources provide first-hand descriptions of bison herds in the 1800s.
The history of the American frontier is filled with many legendary figures. Names like Jim Bridger, Charles Goodnight, Crazy Horse, Wild Bill, Kit Carson, and Quanah Parker are just a few that commonly appear in history books. People from all nations are recorded doing great deeds, helping their people, and surviving the difficult life on the frontier. However, not all the legendary figures are humans. In fact, some of the most remembered tales of the west are focused on animals such as grizzly bears, horses, and, of course, bison.
Sometimes called, “The Monarch of the Plains,” the American Bison was certainly a prominent figure in the Great Plains, but in fact, their range extended well beyond the Plains. Bison (in one form or another) have been a force on the North American continent for a long, long, time. Perhaps 700,000 years according to one source. During that time they played a role in shaping physical geography, as well as impacting human geography. Entire cultures were formed almost completely dependent on this one animal. It’s a fairly well-known tale and not one we should forget.
READ NOW: HOW NATIVE AMERICANS USED THE BUFFALO
If you get to researching bison herds of the 1800s, you’ll likely end up hearing about some of the massive herds. These legends have been passed down through the generations. When researching the history of bison, the 1800s give us a great insight into the historic bison herds for two reasons. First, people who had developed written language came to the Plains and wrote down what they saw. Secondly, the first Americans who encountered the bison saw them before improved technology allowed for the devastation of the bison population. As a result, the descriptions frontiersmen left us with can paint a great picture of what the bison herds of the 1800s used to look like.
Below are 8 primary sources from over six decades describing some massive bison herds of the 1800s. The primary sources have been arranged in chronological order.
Corp of Discovery
The Corp of Discovery, or the Lewis and Clark Expedition, was one of the first large units of Americans to head west. Of course, their epic two-year and 8,000-mile journey has gone down as of the great achievements in our nation’s history. While the expedition did achieve many notable accomplishments, they also documented bison herds they saw along the way. During the trip, those members who kept journals often mentioned bison and their interactions with them. Below is the entry from their journal where they describe the largest herd they saw on their journey.
“I assended to the high Country and from an eminance, I had a view of the plains for a great distance. from this eminance I had a view of a greater number of buffalow than I had ever Seen before at one time. I must have Seen near 20,000 of those animals feeding on this plain.” - Captain Clark
Zenas Leonard
After Lewis and Clark, trappers spearheaded the next major phase of American exploration. These trappers were after beaver pelts, but their travels greatly helped map much of the West’s interior. Zenas Leonard was one of those Rocky Mountain trappers in the early 1830s. The journal he left describes his adventures from St. Louis to the Pacific Ocean and many places in between. One day while near the Laramie River, he recorded the following. Note that Leonard’s description not only records the buffalo but many other species as well.
“Found the prairies or plains in this direction very extensive — unobstructed with timber or brush — handsomely situated, with here and there a small creek passing through them, and in some places literally covered with game, such as Buffaloe, White and Black tailed Deer, Grizzly, Red, and White Bear, Elk, Prairie Dog, wild Goat, Big horned mountain Sheep, Antelope, &c.”
He also captures how intimidating a large herd of bison could be when he wrote;
“To see a drove of perhaps a thousand buffaloe driving through a level plain as fast as their strength will permit them, is a most frightful spectacle; and then, when our horses started in advance, pitching and the scene was beyond description.”
Captain Bonneville
Around the same time as Zenas Leonard was out west, Captain Bonneville was also on his well-documented expedition. Captain Benjamin Bonneville was a military officer who took a leave of absence to go and travel the West in 1832. Eventually, his travels were recorded by Washington Irving. In this book, Bonneville left us with his description of a large herd he saw in the North Platte River Valley.
“As far as his eye could reach, the country seemed absolutely blackened by innumerable herds. No language, he says, could convey an adequate idea of the vast living mass thus presented to his eye.”
George Catlin
Around the same time, an artist by the name of George Catlin traveled west to chronicle what he saw. Catlin’s main goal was to capture the culture of the Native American people. Although we often think of primary sources as journals, Catlin’s paintings serve as a visual primary source to show us what he saw. Enjoy two of his paintings that illustrate scenes he witnessed while on the Plains.
Notice the unbroken lines of bison from edge to edge.
An American and a Native hunter work together on a hunt. Bison appear to cover the entire horizon from end to end.
J.K. Townsend
Naturalist J.K. Townsend also headed to the frontier in the 1830s. After his trip, he wrote a book Narrative of a Journey across the Rocky Mountains. In this book, he gives this description of a vast herd he encountered.
“(the whole region) was covered with one enormous mass of buffaloes. Our vision, at the least computation, would certainly extend ten miles, and in the whole of this vast space, including about eight miles in width from the bluffs to the river bank, there apparently was no visa in the incalculable multitude.”
Thomas J. Farnham
Another traveler, Thomas J. Farnham traveled the Santa Fe Trail in 1839. If you’re unfamiliar with the historical geography, the Santa Fe Trail was further south than the previous entries. Crossing states like Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico, it linked early America with Mexican trade out of Santa Fe. Thomas Farnham took this trip, and recorded the following on seeing an immense herd of bison:
“The buffalo during the last three days had covered the whole country so completely, that it appeared oftentimes extremely dangerous even for the immense cavalcade of the Santa Fé traders to attempt to break its way through them. We travelled at the rate of fifteen miles a day. The length of sight on either side of the trail, 15 miles; on both sides, 30 miles: 15 × 3 = 45 × 30 = 1,350 square miles of country, so thickly covered with these noble animals, that when viewed from a height, it scarcely afforded a sight of a square league of its surface (*Frontier Life note: A league is 3 miles of land). What a quantity of food for the sustenance of the Indian and the white pilgrim of these plains! It would have been gratifying to have seen the beam kick over the immense frames of some of those bulls. But all that any of us could do, was to ‘guess’ or ‘reckon’ their weight, and contend about the indubitable certainty of our several suppositions. In these disputes, two butchers took the lead; and the substance of their discussions that could interest the reader is, “that many of the large bulls would weigh 3,000 pounds and upwards; and that, as a general rule, the buffalo were much larger and heavier than the domesticated cattle of the States…We were in view of the Arkansas at four o'clock. P. M. The face of the earth was visible again; for the buffalo were now seen in small herds only…”
Rufus Sage
Around the same time, Rufus Sage went west in 1841 to experience life as a Rocky Mountain trapper. Sage kept a detailed and well-written journal of his adventures. Sage was a trapper, explorer, and part poet, and he often recorded his travels in flowering language. When he got to current central Wyoming, near Independence Rock, he described a large bison herd in this way:
“Below, in silent grandeur, arose to view the granitic mass that responds to the day-dawn of a nation's existence, surmounted by its lone pine, and bearing upon its broad register the sculptured names of the audacious disturbers of its solitude; and further yet, the parti-colored peaks of the Black Hills, now white with fresh-fallen snow, now darkened with clustering pines, seemed musing in modest retirement; while far around, in every spot accessible to discriminating vision, dense herds of grazing buffalo covered the prairie with their pall-like mantle of countless numbers.”
Major Richard Irving Dodge
Another source comes from much later in the frontier period from a military man. Major Dodge was a military officer who commanded Fort Dodge on the western frontier. During his life, Dodge was able to see a few remanents of the great herds, and the later decimation of those herds. In 1871, he reported:
“(The whole country) appeared one mass of buffaloes, moving slowly northward. Only when among them could it be ascertained that the apparently solid mass was an agglomeration of innumerable small herds of fifty to two hundred animals…(this herd) was about five days in passing a given point, or not less than fifty miles deep. From the top of Pawnee Rock I could see from six to ten miles in almost every direction. The whole space was covered with buffaloes, looking at a distance like one compact mass, the visual angle not permitting the ground to be seen.”
Conclusion
As you can see, all of these primary sources indicate nearly the same picture. Bison herds in the 1800s could be so thick that they covered the entire surface of the earth as far as the eye could see. Several also mentioned an almost breathless experience. Anyone who has ever been in the presence of a large number of wild animals has probably experienced this to a degree. There is just something about it that can make your skin tingle.
As great as these primary sources are, it might be important to include one final point. While each of these primary sources describes magnificent herds, these selections are not exactly common in their texts. Read any one of them, and there are many cases when there was not an animal to be seen. They each also describe seeing a single buffalo, a pair, or maybe a dozen or so. Although the large herds of bison are fun to read about, imagining they were the norm is probably not accurate. The immense herds were apparently a spectacle, but a sight that does not appear to have been common.
The bison was as large a figure in western history as any. Whether they were in a herd that blackened the land, or a single cow that served as a meal for a hungry hunting party, they were pivotal to human life. While the bison means many things to many people, the role they played was undeniable.
