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Notes on video lecture:
Indian Wars and Mass Slaughter of Bison
Notes taken by Edward Tanguay on February 11, 2017 (go to class or lectures)
Choose from these words to fill the blanks below:
commodity, Plains, Comanches, belts, bovine, machines, West, doubled, extinct, industrial, mass, bison, Europeans, indigenous, Chicago, felled, photographia, herds, land, vacant, perforate, Elliot, bore, slaughtered, Jungle, hides, longer, Peace, Arizona, global, 1890
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after the U.S. Civil War resolved the conflict between the South and the North
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United States turned its sights to the         
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1867 Indian            Commission
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under the leadership of Major Joel             
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signed treaties with the Cheyennes,              Apaches, Comanches, Arapahos, and Kiowas
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major reservations were established in present-day South Dakota, Oklahoma, and               
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1860 to          reservation lands came under extreme pressure from white settlers, leading to increased conflict
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at the edge of this pressure were
•
the cattlemen
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         speculators
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moved into and used these perceived-to-be              territories
•
bison
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newly arriving Americans and                    moved into the West
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bison were important for sustenance for meat and            for the indigenous survival
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Comanche populations
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the arrival of                          captured images of Comancheria
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not just military pressure on the                   
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ecological pressure as well
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the effect on the bison would in turn have an effect on the                      people
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the Comanches would have decreasing access to this important ingredient for their own survival
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a clash between                      peoples and nomadic peoples
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the assault on the            took on industrial proportions for industrial ends
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became a war of humans against animals fought with industrial weapons
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conducted on a          scale
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because there was rising demand for hides for industrial consumption
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hides were important because it was out of hides that you got leather           
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not the kind of leather belts that people wear, but leather belts to drive large                 
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between 1850 and 1900 the price of leather               
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and while the demand for leather rose, so did the supply, since the large          rifle was developed during this time
•
delivered greater accuracy and ballistic impact from a              distance
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so that you could                    the thick hide of a bison and bring the animal down
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hunting expeditions, if you can call them that, were systematically organized, and bison were                        in the millions
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hunters took down as many bison as they could
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left them lying in the fields to die
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and continue following the            to take down as many as he could
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1878: 40,000 buffalo hides
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Orlando Brown              6,000 bison in two months
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small armies of men would move out into the plain pursuing the animals
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by the 1880s the bison were almost               
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Indians waged mostly futile resistance
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Cherokee faced starvation
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cities would emerge on the Great Plains to transform them
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               became gateway to the American West
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cattle ranching took the place of the bison
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                   production
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shipped to meat slaughter houses in Chicago
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1906 "The             " - Upton Sinclair
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the land was being inducted into a more              system
•
Chicago became the              capital of the world

Vocabulary:

feral, adj. in a wild state, especially after escape from captivity or domestication ⇒ "There was a careful, managed balance of forces between Indian peoples and native, feral herds"
equipoise, n. balance of forces or interests ⇒ "As the bison were slaughtered and removed from the Great Plains, they were replaced by cattle and cattle ranching, and cities began to emerge on the plains to induct them into a national economic system, Chicago becoming in a sense the bovine capital of the world defining a new balance in the relationship between the city and the country each specializing in a task in relationship to other regions. Humans had coexisted with this macrofauna for centuries if not millennia, but the intensification of land use for commodity production upset this delicate equipoise."

Spelling Corrections:

perferate ⇒ perforate
indiginous ⇒ indigenous
Camanches ⇒ Comanches
millenia ⇒ millennia

Ideas and Concepts:

Lost American empires, via tonight's History Since 1300 class:

"Comancheria is the name commonly given to the region of New Mexico, west Texas and nearby areas occupied by the Comanche before the 1860s. Before the Comanche expanded out of present-day Wyoming in the early eighteenth century, the lands now known as Comancheria was home to a multitude of tribes—most notably the Apaches. Much of the region had previously been known as Apachería. But from the 1750s to the 1850s, the Comanches gradually became the dominant group in the Southwest.

Confronted with Spanish, Mexican, and American outposts on their periphery in New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, and Mexico, they worked to increase their own safety, prosperity and power. The Comanches used their military power to obtain supplies and labor from the Americans, Mexicans, and Indians through thievery, tribute, and kidnappings.

Although powered by violence, the Comanche empire was primarily an economic construction, rooted in an extensive commercial network that facilitated long-distance trade. Dealing with subordinate Indians, the Comanche spread their language and culture across the region. Their empire collapsed when their villages were repeatedly decimated by epidemics of smallpox and cholera in the late 1840s, after which the population plunged from 20,000 to just a few thousand by the 1870s."
19th century industrial warfare on animals, via this morning's History Since 1300 course:

"As the 19th century progressed, the assault on the bison took on industrial proportions for industrial ends. It became a war of humans against animals fought with industrial weapons for industrial purposes, conducted on an industrial scale.

While the decimation of these animals also happened to achieve the political aim for the United States to expand westward by decreasing access of the bison to the Native Americans, the primary driving force of this war was the rising demand for leather.

Hides were needed for industrial consumption because it was from hides that you got leather belts, not the kind of leather belts that people wear, but the kind of leather belts that drive large machines. Between 1850 and 1900 the price of leather doubled for this reason.

Not only demand for leather rose, but so did the supply, since the large bore rifle was developed during this time which delivered greater accuracy and ballistic impact from a longer distance so that one could much more easily perforate the thick hide of a bison from a safe distance and bring the animal down.

Hunting expeditions, if you can call them that, were systematically organized, and American bison living in their natural habitat were slaughtered by the millions."
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The Second Industrial Revolution
The Closing of the American Frontier
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Early 20th Century American Imperialism
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1929 Economic Collapse
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