Pile of buffalo skulls, all killed by the American government in 1871
A U.S army member once said, "kill every buffalo you can! Every buffalo dead is an Indian gone."
For thousands of years, Native Americans hunted buffalo for food, clothing, weapons, jewelry, and
toys. They used every part of the animal to show that they respected nature and didn't believe in waste.
By the late 1800s, the American government had already been established and native people were being
forced to relocate, were enslaved, and died of disease and warfare. The government saw how valuable
buffalo were to native people, so they decided to kill nearly all the buffalo they could find. By the end
of the 1800s, the buffalo population went from several million to less than 1,000.
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