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In the New World, Europeans looked for ways so bring wealth. The source of wealth came from many different trades, the fishing aspect, oil, gold, slavery, and most of all land. Coming with the land wild animals that could be hunted, for sport, food, and most important fur. The fur that came from these animals was largely used in the world for clothing, leather for protection in the army, and to make the finest clothes from.
The discovery of the buffalo help the fur trade really take off in the 1400. The first Europeans thought to discover the buffalo were the Portuguese in Africa in 1415. The buffalo hides were carried home and sold at premium prices all over Europe. The move westward to North America by the Portuguese found another kind of buffalo. The beast was an annormous creature weighing over a ton and measuring 12 feet in length. The buffalo roamed most of the continent of North America at this time.
At about the year 1500, the buffalo were believed to have numbered more than 70 million individuals and were perhaps the most numerous, large mammalian species on the planet. This brought about the great fur trade in the new world, the English, Spanish, and French sought the fur of the buffalo and were in heavy competition for the animal. With the early colonization of the eastern sea board of America nearly wiped out the eastern buffalo. By 1720, the eastern buffalo consisted of a few small herds that had been by-passed and over looked in the mountainous areas. In 1790, according to a New York Zoological Society report, those hidden in the mountainous region had been reduced to 1 herd numbering 3 to 400 animals. In 1815, a bull was killed near Charleston, West Virginia.
In 1825, a cow and her calf were killed in the Alleghenies. This was the last of not only the eastern buffalo but also the buffalo east of the Mississippi River. By the 1800 s, according to the assessment of naturalist-writer Ernest Thompson Seton, some 40 million buffalo remained alive in North America, almost all of them west of the Mississippi Valley. The Plains and the wood buffalo were destroyed because of three interlinked modify. The first was to destroy the western Indian nations. The Indians of the plains could not live without the buffalo, they provided food, clothing, and they were very sacred to the Native Americans of the plains region.
The second reason, because of the profits made from the killings of the buffaloes. The hides of the buffalo were turned into the finest robes, leather of all kinds, and were used as belts for many manufacturing machines. The third reason was for pleasure. Hunters and games-men sought after the buffalo as a means of recreation and manliness. Between 1870 - 1874, two men were credited to the slaying of 3, 158, 730 buffaloes. One sportsman, a Dr.
Carver, boasted of having killed forty buffalo in a twenty minute run on horseback and of having slaughtered 5, 000 during a single summer. In the 1850 s, the railroad companies used buffaloes to feed its work gangs. Buffalo Bill, whom the Kansas Pacific Railway, to gain much of his fame from having butchered 4, 280 buffalo in a single eighteen-month period hired as a meat hunter. The Railroad Companies also used buffalo for entertainment purposes. As a personal means of entertainment, whenever the train passed a nearby herd of buffalo's, they would stop and let the passengers engage in a shooting-range of buffaloes. With the enormous killings of buffaloes, the species declined quickly from unnecessary killing of these rare and precious animals.
Due to this, these species are endangered and have been preserved to be able to show all Americans this once large and magnificent beasts beauty and history! Bibliography:
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Research essay sample on Fur Trade Railroad Companies
