Interesting stuff. My grandfather lived most of his life in Dakota Terr., then Montana and Wyoming.
Worked in Cody’s Wild West Show. Wore a copper bracelet given to him by an Indian friend. Did not marry until age. 40.
My father, his younger son, taught us to catch or shoot only what you could eat.
That was the respectful way of the frontier in America.
That was a long time before the environmental movement in this country. Back in the day it was called conservation, a relative of conservatism.
He went to the grave deeply regretting the role he played in greatly reducing the buffalo herds. The government, railroads and other commercial interests paid young bucks like him to wantonly slaughter buffalo in the belief that loss of those herds which sustained the Sioux and other Plains Tribes would drive them to the reservations sooner.
Not a few of those young bucks were of Indian stock. What went on in the Dakotas, Nebraska, Wyoming and Montana was just a fraction of the total.
The worst carnage was in Comanche Territory, especially the Texas panhandle, where the army not only wantonly killed buffalo, but also Comanche horses to break them.
Much of that area has since reverted to dryland farming, marginal ranching and the like whereas it used to be grassland plains which sustained millions of buffalo and 40,000 odd Comanche.