LIFE ON THE PRAIRIES
In the winter, Native Americans lived in the safety of their village homes but in the summer, they chased buffalo herds across the prairies of the Great Plains of North America.
They were very respectful of the environ ment: buffaloes were hunted not only for their meat, but also for their hides or skins, for their hair, their horns, etc. Some historians estimate that over 70 different items were made from the buffalo.
THE BIG MASSACRE
Until the early 1800s, there were about 60 million buffaloes roaming the vast Great Plains area of North America: they were the lords of the prairies. The inhabitants of the great plains depended on the buffaloes for everything but they seldom killed more buffaloes than they needed to survive and they used every part of the buffaloes they killed.
By 1885, there were only 500 buffaloes left. It was the arrival of large numbers of white settlers that nearly caused their extinction. At first the buffaloes were killed for their meat and hides. But afterwards they were shot down "for fun". Later still, the buffaloes were slaughtered to get rid of the Indians. The government believed that if all the buffaloes were killed then all the Indians would die because they would have nothing to eat, and so the massacre continued.
Today the numbers have increased to about 300,000 and the buffaloes are no longer in danger of becoming extinct.
