This photo represents a historic moment for wildlife protection in the US.
Four US cavalry soldiers posing with eight severed bison heads.
In Yellowstone National Park.
It was taken in 1894, after the capture of a notorious poacher in the park, Ed Howell.
Soldiers caught him in the act of skinning the animals to sell their hides, surrounded
by the carcasses of bison he’d killed.
Yellowstone had just been established around 20 years earlier, and was a refuge for the American
bison, or buffalo.
Whose population, numbering in the hundreds, was on the brink of extinction.
Howell’s capture led directly to the first US federal law protecting wildlife.
And the photo of the confiscated heads was meant to depict the soldiers as heroic defenders
an endangered and beloved American icon.
But it also shows what drove the bison to near-extinction in the first place:
the US government itself.
This was the bison’s approximate range before 1800, covering a significant amount of North
America.
By 1870, the population had been reduced to these two great herds.
By 1889, American bison numbered in the hundreds, down from tens of millions at the beginning
of the century.
And the reason for their destruction becomes clear when you add this to the map: the tribal
lands of the Plains Indians.
DINA GILIO-WHITAKER: You cannot overstate the importance of the buffalo to the people
of the northern and southern plains.
Dina Gilio-Whitaker is a lecturer on American Indian studies whose research focuses on issues
of environmental justice throughout US history.
GILIO-WHITAKER: The buffalo has been central to these cultures for hundreds of years.
And the buffalo provides everything.
And it's not just food, but it's everything needed for everyday life.
Plains Tribes constructed dwellings from bison hides,
used bison blankets for warmth,
and the bones for tools.
Most important of all was bison meat.
The crucial food source for the Indigenous Peoples of the Great Plains.
GILIO-WHITAKER: There is absolutely everything about the buffalo that makes this animal central
to these cultures.
Which is why the US government wanted them wiped out completely.
White settlers in North America adhered to a cultural belief known as “manifest destiny.”
The idea that white people were destined to expand west on the continent, conquer the
landscape, and develop it.
Manifest destiny is most famously depicted in this 1872 painting called “American Progress.”
Which shows the expanding railroad following a steady stream of settlers westward
and the land’s native inhabitants, including the bison, fleeing into darkness.
Imagery like this depicts the transformation of the land as a natural one,
rather than the brutal reality of native people’s forced removal.
GILIO-WHITAKER: By the time it gets a name to it, Manifest Destiny in the 1840s,
the US is engaging in very violent processes of pushing native people off their lands
to make those lands available for settlers.
And native people resisted it, which meant war.
For the US, a key part of that war was eliminating the bison population.
GILIO-WHITAKER: The extermination of the buffalo was central to manifest destiny.
They knew that you go after the buffalo and you can subjugate the people.
You can see clear evidence of this plan in statements made by army officials at the time.
Like General Philip Sheridan, who said:
And in a letter to Sheridan, fellow US general William Tecumseh Sherman suggested a way to
accomplish that:
“It would be wise to invite all the sportsmen of England and America for a Grand Buffalo
hunt,
and make one grand sweep of them all.”
Throughout the rest of the 19th century, that’s exactly what happened.
The bison was hunted excessively for entertainment and competition,
both by the US Cavalry and amateur hunters.
Bison hunting parties would shoot at herds from passing trains
in what was called “a sport that is peculiarly American.”
Bison were also killed for commercial profit.
To satisfy an enormous desire for their skins and bones in eastern cities.
These hunters would kill bison by the dozens for their skins alone,
leaving the carcasses behind to rot.
By the end of the 1800s, there were almost no bison left.
GILIO-WHITAKER: By the time that happens, native people are confined to reservations.
This forced submission means that they have to rely on the federal government for food
as part of a program of forced assimilation.
Once native people had been confined to reservations, the government set aside some of the cleared
land for a national park —
and Yellowstone was established in 1872.
The Yellowstone Park Act designated the land as a pleasuring-ground for the benefit and
enjoyment of the people.”
GILIO-WHITAKER: All of these parks are predicated upon the disappearance of native people.
It's about preserving it and making these destination places for the well-to-do white
settlers.
Preserving the so-called “natural wonders” of the park included protecting the few remaining
bison roaming there.
The same US government that had driven the animal to near-extinction in the first place
now positioned itself as the guardian of the endangered species.
And the US army, who occupied Yellowstone in its early years,
patrolled the park in search of bison hunters.
Which is where this photo comes in.
It was taken by Frank Jay Haynes, the official Yellowstone photographer at the time.
Who encountered the soldiers bringing Ed Howell into custody, and photographed them
posing with the bison heads they found in bags hanging from a tree.
The story of Howell’s dramatic capture put the issue of poaching in Yellowstone into
the national spotlight.
Less than 60 days later, a federal law made hunting in the park illegal.
Marking the beginning of wildlife protection legislation in the US.
American bison are no longer endangered.
And Yellowstone’s website describes the photo as having “saved the bison in Yellowstone.”
But the staging of this photo also perpetuates the idea of manifest destiny.
It portrays agents of the US government as virtuous guardians of the environment, choosing
to overwrite their own role in destroying it.
GILIO-WHITAKER: There's no better representation for this highly romanticized story about what
America is.
It's not the reality of the incredible violence of of this historic process toward
native people and toward other species.
One thing that’s super interesting about initial article detailing Ed Howell’s capture,
which published in Forest and Stream Magazine in 1894,
was the photos they used.
Three photos showing groups of slaughtered bison – each one captioned “The Butcher’s
Work.”
Paired with the story, the implication here is that the “butcher” is Howell, and these
are the bison that he killed.
But there’s no photo credit attached.
Probably because these photos weren’t taken in Yellowstone,
And they were published 7 years earlier, in an 1887 Smithsonian survey called
“The Extermination of the American Bison,” by William T. Hornaday.
Hornady was an early American conservationist.
And his research is also where the data for the map at the beginning of the episode, showing
the destruction of the bison population, came from.
There’s a link to the full survey in the description of this video.
And if you want to read about this story in more detail, including how photography and
fine art
played a role in shaping our memory the origins of US National Parks and wildlife protection,
check out “Poaching Pictures” by Alan Braddock.
It’s a fascinating read, and interviewing Professor Braddock was a big part of the research
for this episode.
So keep an eye out for more Darkroom to come, and thanks for watching.