Fact Check: 1894 Bison Heads Photo and the Myth of Yellowstone’s Wildlife Protection

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 refu

for the American Bison or Buffalo whose population numbering in the hundreds was on the brink of Extinction how'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 of 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 [Music]

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 you cannot over State the importance of the Buffalo to the people

of the Northern and Southern Plains Dena jilia Whitaker is a lecturer on American Indian studies whose research focuses on

issues of environmental justice throughout US History the Buffalo has been Central to these cultures for

hundreds of years and the Buffalo provides everything it's not just food but it's everything needed for everyday

life PLS tribes constructed dwellings from bison HIDs 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 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 EXP 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 by the 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 the extermination of the Buffalo was Central

to manifest d to me they knew that you go after the Buffalo 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 the best way

for the government is to now make them poor by the destruction of their stock and then settle them on the lands

allotted to them and in a letter to Sheridan fellow us General William to com of 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 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 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 have 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 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 settl 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 J Haynes

the official Yellowstone photographer at the time who encountered the soldiers bringing Ed how into custody and

photographed them posing with the Bison heads they found in bags hanging from a tree the story of how'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 upholds House's capture by the US Army 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 there's no better representation for this highly romanticized story about what America is it's not the reality of

the incredible viol of this historic process toward native people and toward other

species one thing that's super interesting about the initial article detailing Ed House'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

howl 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 Hornady Hornady was an early American conservationist and his

research is also where the data for the map at the beginning of this 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 of the origins of

US National Parks and Wildlife protection check out poaching pictures by Alan bradic it's a fascinating read

and interviewing Professor bradock was a big part of the research for this episode so keep an eye out for more dark

room to come and thanks for watching