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One fact modern historians tend to ignore:
Before the arrival of Europeans, the North American Native did not have horses.
Between 1800 and 1880 about three-dozen Native North American tribes took up the horse-propelled bison hunting culture that came to represent their much romanticized image to White North Americans but especially to the natives themselves. Many "modern First Nations" peoples think of this era as their ONE REAL claim to glory and the last hara. With the development of their new culture--really the white-man's-- the tribes began extensive migrations and shifting. The Comanche and the Sioux became the most prominent tribes on the US Plains, the Comanche the Southern and the Sioux the Northern up into Canada. The Sioux push westward in search of bison ranges caused tribal displacement throughout the Plains, while the Arapaho and the Cheyenne migrated south in search of more horses and unusually bountiful game.Thus was created tremendous conflict among the tribes, the Comanche, Kiowa, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and several others found themselves at war the tribes found themselves struggling for survival faced against the problems of disease, and their new white enemy and used the bison hunt to assert their cultural notion of manhood as well as combat their dwindling resources in the face of their ever dwindling numbers. I believe it was Sitting Bull or perhaps it was Geronimo who was quoted as saying "there are very few of us left" he was referring to the full blood peoples and the way of life--both.
Through the hunting and never ending quest for bison hides, the Native North Americans became inescapably tied to the white man and his economy.
Thirty years, from the 1830 to the 1860 was the actual life of the horse culture and was the time in which the majority of the bison slaughter took place European traders arrived onto the scene and the tribes were absorbed into INTERNATIONAL trade systems controlled by Europeans and to some small extent the USA. But there was yet, very little money in the USA. so there existed a massive export trade of bison robes to Europe. While fleets of wagons loaded with robes tongues, and selected cuts of bison meat, moved east Bison hunting proved extremely profitable, and a substantial commercial enterprise developed and The North American Native was becoming very wealthy. A hide could bring in anywhere from three to fifty dollars, in an era when a labourer or "cow- puncher" would be very lucky to make fifty cents a day. Hunting systems, put in place by the white man involved "organized teams of one or two professional hunters baked by a team of skinners, gun cleaners, cartridge re-loaders, cooks, wranglers, blacksmiths, security guards, teamsters, and a large number of horses and wagons.
