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127-565: William Frederick Cody (February 26, 1846 – January 10, 1917), known as Buffalo Bill , was an American soldier, bison hunter , and showman . One of the most famous and well-known figures of the American Old West , Cody started his legend at the young age of 23. Shortly thereafter he started performing in shows that displayed cowboy themes and episodes from the frontier and Indian Wars. He founded Buffalo Bill's Wild West in 1883, taking his large company on tours in

254-433: A Cheyenne warrior. In 1883, in the area of North Platte, Nebraska , Cody founded Buffalo Bill's Wild West , a circus-like attraction that toured annually. (Contrary to the popular misconception, the word Show was not a part of the title.) In 1886, Cody and Nate Salsbury, his theatrical manager, entered into partnership with Evelyn Booth (1860–1901), a big-game hunter and scion of the aristocratic Booth family . It

381-659: A touring show which traveled around the United States, Great Britain, and Continental Europe. Audiences were enthusiastic about seeing a piece of the American West . Emilio Salgari , a noted Italian writer of adventure stories, met Buffalo Bill when he came to Italy and saw his show; Salgari later featured Cody as a hero in some of his novels. In December 1872, Cody traveled to Chicago to make his stage debut with his friend Texas Jack Omohundro in The Scouts of

508-652: A wagon train and deliver messages between the drivers and workmen. Next, he joined Johnston's Army as an unofficial member of the scouts assigned to guide the United States Army to Utah , to put down a rumored rebellion by the Mormon population of Salt Lake City . According to Cody's account in Buffalo Bill's Own Story , the Utah War was where he began his career as an "Indian fighter": Presently

635-405: A captain. In reality, a captain had limited authority. His role was largely confined to getting everyone moving in the morning and selecting when and where to camp at night. Membership of wagon trains was generally fluid and wagons frequently joined or left trains depending on the needs and wishes of their owners. An accident or illness, for instance, might force someone to fall behind and wait for

762-418: A cliff. A successful drive could give 700 animals. In the dog days, the women of a Blackfoot camp made a curved fence of travois tied together, front end up. Runners drove the game towards the enclosure, where hunters waited with lances , as well as bows and arrows . Henry Kelsey described a hunt on the northern plains in 1691. First, the tribe surrounded a herd. Then they would "gather themselves into

889-437: A corral called a buffalo pound , and then slaughtered or stampeded over cliffs, called buffalo jumps . Both pound and jump archaeological sites are found in several places in the U.S. and Canada. In the case of a jump, large groups of people would herd the bison for several miles, forcing them into a stampede that drove the herd over a cliff. The earliest evidence for buffalo jumps dates to around 1400. Working on foot,

1016-708: A deliberate policy by settler governments to destroy the food source of the Indigenous peoples during times of conflict. Long before the arrival of humans in the Americas, bison hunting had been practiced by archaic humans in Eurasia, like Neanderthals . Bison hunting has been practiced in North America since shortly after the first arrival of humans in the region. At Jake Bluff in northern Oklahoma, Clovis points are associated with numerous butchered bones of

1143-494: A description of this from Harper's Weekly noted: "The train is 'slowed' to a speed about equal to that of the herd; the passengers get out fire-arms which are provided for the defense of the train against the Indians, and open from the windows and platforms of the cars a fire that resembles a brisk skirmish." The railroad industry also wanted bison herds culled or eliminated. Herds of bison on tracks could damage locomotives when

1270-547: A far larger impact on the decline of the bison population. Officers stationed in Fort Hays and Wallace even had bets in their "buffalo shooting championship of the world", between "Medicine Bill" Comstock and " Buffalo Bill " Cody. Some of these hunters would engage in mass bison slaughter to make a living. The US Army sanctioned and actively endorsed the wholesale slaughter of bison herds. The federal government promoted bison hunting for various reasons, primarily to pressure

1397-458: A few groups of Native Americans at times used fires to channel an entire herd of buffalo over a cliff, sometimes killing far more than they could use. A Crow historian has related some ways to get bison. With the help of songs, hazers, drive lines of stones (cf. desert kites ), and a medicine man pointing down the line with a pair of hindquarters in his hands, the Crows drove many bison over

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1524-611: A fight. The lack of horses owing to raids reduced the chances of securing an ample amount of meat on the hunts. In 1860, the Ponca lost 100 horses, while the Mandan and Hidatsa saw the enemy disappear with 175 horses in a single raid in 1861. Conflicts between the bison-hunting tribes ranged from raids to massacres . Camps were left without leaders. In the course of a battle, tipis and hides could be cut to pieces and tipi poles broken. Organized bison hunts and camp moves were stopped by

1651-407: A herd was nearby. The bison provided meat, leather, and sinew for bows. A fast-hunting horse would usually be spared and first mounted near the bison. The hunter rode on a pack horse until then. Hunters with few horses ran beside the mount to the hunting grounds. Accidents, sometimes fatal, happened from time to time to both rider and horse. To avoid disputes, each hunter used arrows marked in

1778-533: A highly qualified status that treated them as valuable military assets without the designation or retirement benefits of officers. Nevertheless, they were treated as high-ranking military officials and had status of officers alongside their native American brethren. The brief argued for retroactive restoration of the Medal of Honor to Buffalo Bill, and the Department of Defense required the appeal to be adjudicated by

1905-453: A hundred animals at a single stand and many thousands in their careers. One professional hunter killed over 20,000 by his count. The average prices paid the buffalo hunters from 1880 to 1884 were about as follows: For cow hides, $ 3; bull hides, $ 2.50; yearlings, $ 1.50; calves, $ 0.75 cents; and the cost of getting the hides to market brought the cost up to about $ 3.50 ($ 89.68 accounting for inflation) per hide. The hunter would customarily locate

2032-504: A large herd of them. In 1889, an essay in a journal of the time observed: Thirty years ago millions of the great unwieldy animals existed on this continent. Innumerable droves roamed, comparatively undisturbed and unmolested ... Many thousands have been ruthlessly and shamefully slain every season for past twenty years or more by white hunters and tourists merely for their robes, and in sheer wanton sport, and their huge carcasses left to fester and rot, and their bleached skeletons to strew

2159-402: A lone dispatch courier from Fort Larned to Fort Zarah (escaping brief capture), Fort Zarah to Fort Hays, Fort Hays to Fort Dodge , Fort Dodge to Fort Larned, and, finally, Fort Larned to Fort Hays, a total of 350 miles in 58 hours through hostile territory, covering the last 35 miles on foot. In response, General Philip Sheridan assigned him Chief of Scouts for the 5th Cavalry Regiment . He

2286-462: A noted hunter, scout, and interpreter, used a fast-shooting Henry repeating rifle , while Cody competed with a larger-caliber Springfield Model 1866 , which he called Lucretia Borgia , after the notorious Italian noblewoman, the subject of a popular contemporary Gaetano Donizetti opera Lucrezia Borgia , based on Victor Hugo 's play of the same name. Cody explained that while his formidable opponent, Comstock, chased after his buffalo, engaging from

2413-487: A parade on horseback, with participants from horse-culture groups that included the US and another military, cowboys , American Indians , and performers from all over the world in their best attire. Turks , gauchos , Arabs , Mongols and Georgians displayed their distinctive horses and colorful costumes. Visitors would see main events, feats of skill, staged races, and sideshows. Many historical western figures participated in

2540-469: A personal way. Lakota hunter Bear Face recognized his arrows by one of three "arrow wings" made of a pelican feather. Castaneda wrote how it was possible to shoot an arrow right through a buffalo. The Pawnees had contests as to how many bison it was possible to kill with just one bowshot. The best result was three. An arrow stuck in the animal was preferred as the most lethal. It would inflict more damage with each jump and move. A white traveler credited

2667-468: A punishing blow to the so-called 'Hostiles', unless they were immobilized in their winter camps, could, however, strike at a more accessible target, namely, the buffalo. That tactic also made curious sense, for in soldiers' minds the buffalo and the Plains Indian were virtually inseparable." According to Finnish historian Pekka Hämäläinen , a few Native American tribes also partly contributed to

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2794-658: A regular supply of munitions. In the 18th century, organized commissary and quartermaster departments were developed to centralize delivery of supplies. The delivery took the form of "baggage trains", large groups of wagons that traveled at the rear of the main army. Westward-bound collective treks are reflected in numerous books, films, and television programs about the journeys. Examples include: Emerson Hough 's 1922 novel and James Cruze 's silent film based on it, The Covered Wagon (1923); Raoul Walsh 's film The Big Trail (1930); Robert North Bradbury 's film Westward Ho (1935); John Ford 's Wagon Master (1950) and

2921-582: A scout. Cody enlisted as a scout himself at Fort Ellsworth and scouted between there and Fort Fletcher (later renamed and moved to Fort Hays ). He was attached as a scout, variously, to Captain George Augustus Armes ( Battle of the Saline River ) and Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer (guide and impromptu horse race to Fort Larned ). It was during this service at Fort Ellsworth that he met William Rose, with whom he would found

3048-432: A smaller Compass Keeping ye Beast still in ye middle". The hunters killed as many as they could before the animals broke through the human ring. Russel Means states that bison were killed by using a method that coyotes implemented. Coyotes will sometimes cut one bison off from the herd and chase it in a circle until the animal collapses or gives up due to exhaustion. During winter, Chief One Heart's camp would maneuver

3175-707: A soldier in the Union Army during the American Civil War but was refused because of his young age. He began working with a freight caravan that delivered supplies to Fort Laramie in present-day Wyoming. In 1863, at age 17, he enlisted as a teamster with the rank of private in Company H, 7th Kansas Cavalry , and served until discharged in 1865. In 1866, he reunited with his old friend Wild Bill Hickok in Junction City, Kansas , then serving as

3302-841: A span of over 2,000 mi (3,200 km). Other paths included the Santa Fe Trail , the Chisholm Trail , the California Trail (which split southwestward from the Oregon Trail), the Mormon Trail , and the Old Spanish Trail . Although "wagon train" suggests a line of wagons, when terrain permitted, wagons would often fan out and travel abreast to minimize the amount of dust blown onto other wagons. Travel by wagon train occurred primarily between

3429-479: A train. Contrary to popular belief, wagons were seldom circled defensively. Today, covered wagon trains are used to give an authentic experience for those desiring to explore the West as it was in the days of the pioneers and other groups traveling before modern vehicles were invented. The advent of gunpowder warfare meant that an army could no longer rely solely on foraging in the surrounding countryside, and required

3556-846: A visit from King Edward VII and the future King George V. The Wild West traveled throughout Great Britain in a tour in 1902 and 1903 and a tour in 1904, performing in nearly every city large enough to support it. The 1905 tour began in April with a two-month run in Paris, after which the show traveled around France, performing mostly one-night stands, concluding in December. The final tour, in 1906, began in France on March 4 and quickly moved to Italy for two months. The show then traveled east, performing in Austro-Hungarian territories of Bohemia (now

3683-581: Is argued that in contrast to Cody's claims, he never rode for the Pony Express, but as a boy, he did work for its parent company, the transport firm of Russell, Majors, and Waddell. In contrast to the adventurous rides, hundreds of miles long, that he recounted in the press, his real job was to carry messages on horseback from the firm's office in Leavenworth to the telegraph station three miles away. After his mother recovered, Cody wanted to enlist as

3810-696: The American bison , also commonly known as the American buffalo) was an activity fundamental to the economy and society of the Plains Indians peoples who inhabited the vast grasslands on the Interior Plains of North America , before the animal's near- extinction in the late 19th century following United States expansion into the West . Bison hunting was an important spiritual practice and source of material for these groups, especially after

3937-598: The Czech Republic ) and Croatia-Slavonia , before returning west to tour in Galicia (now part of Poland ), then Germany, and Belgium. The show was enormously successful in Europe, making Cody an international celebrity and an American icon. Mark Twain commented, "It is often said on the other side of the water that none of the exhibitions which we send to England are purely and distinctly American. If you will take

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4064-735: The Pony Express at age 15. During the American Civil War , he served the Union from 1863 to the end of the war in 1865. Later he served as a civilian scout for the U.S. Army during the Indian Wars . While he was initially awarded the Medal of Honor in 1872 for his actions in the Indian Wars, he was among 910 recipients to have the award rescinded in 1917. Congress reinstated the medals for Cody and four other civilian scouts in 1989. Cody

4191-549: The Pony Express . He signed with them, and after building several stations and corrals, Cody was given a job as a rider. He worked at this until he was called home to his sick mother's bedside. Cody claimed to have had many jobs, including trapper , bullwhacker , " Fifty-Niner " in Colorado , Pony Express rider in 1860, wagonmaster, stagecoach driver, and a hotel manager , but historians have had difficulty documenting them. He may have fabricated some for publicity. Namely, it

4318-551: The Wild West show over there you can remove that reproach." The Wild West brought an exotic foreign world to life for its European audiences, allowing a last glimpse at the fading American frontier. Several members of the Wild West show died of accidents or disease during these tours in Europe: In 1895, Cody was instrumental in the founding of the town of Cody , the seat of Park County , in northwestern Wyoming . Today

4445-412: The 16th century that the bison herds propagated wildly. In such a view, the seas of bison herds that stretched to the horizon were a symptom of an ecology out of balance, only rendered possible by decades of heavier-than-average rainfall. Other evidence of the arrival circa 1550–1600 in the savannas of the eastern seaboard includes the lack of places that southeast natives named after buffalo. Bison were

4572-578: The 1840s–1880s, diminishing after completion of the first transcontinental railroad . Some remnants of wagon ruts along the well-traveled trails are still visible today. Originally, westward movement began in small groups, but well-funded travelers with 100 or more wagons could employ professional wagon masters (or trail masters) and hostlers . Overland emigrants discovered smaller groups of 20 to 40 wagons were more manageable than larger ones, especially without professional wagon masters. Many operated under democratic principles, creating bylaws and electing

4699-405: The 1870s through the early part of the twenty first century. Playwright Frederick G. Maeder adapted Buntline's novel into the hit play Buffalo Bill which premiered at Niblo's Garden in 1872 with J. B. Studley in the title role. Cody attended this play while visiting New York which gave him the idea to portray himself on the stage. He later became world-famous for Buffalo Bill's Wild West ,

4826-606: The 23-year-old Cody met Ned Buntline , who later published a story based on Cody's adventures (largely invented by the writer) in Street and Smith's New York Weekly and then published a highly successful novel, Buffalo Bill, King of the Bordermen , which was first serialized on the front page of the Chicago Tribune , beginn ing that December 15. Many other sequels followed by Buntline, Prentiss Ingraham and others from

4953-605: The American Exhibition, which coincided with the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria . The Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII , requested a private preview of the Wild West performance; he was impressed enough to arrange a command performance for Queen Victoria . The Queen enjoyed the show and meeting the performers, setting the stage for another command performance on June 20, 1887, for her Jubilee guests. Royalty from all over Europe attended, including

5080-559: The Army Board for Correction of Military Records. After months of deliberation, the Board agreed with the persuasive legal brief and made the decision to restore the Medal of Honor, not only to Buffalo Bill but also several other civilian scouts whose medals had also been rescinded. Long after the medal was restored, the decision was thought to be controversial for several reasons. Some people interpreted Simpson's submission as arguing that

5207-732: The Cheyenne, "who challenged their right to hunt buffalo". Later, the Kiowas headed for the south together with the Comanche , when "the Lakota (Teton Sioux) drove them from the Black Hills territory". In present-day Montana, the better-armed Blackfoot pushed the Kutenai , Flathead , and Shoshone off the plains. At the start of the 19th century, they claimed the buffalo ranges entirely to

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5334-627: The East End Exhibition Building, and George C. Crager sold The Ghost Shirt to the Kelvingrove Museum . The show's 1892 tour was confined to Great Britain; it featured another command performance for Queen Victoria. The tour finished with a six-month run in London before leaving Europe for nearly a decade. Buffalo Bill's Wild West returned to Europe in December 1902 with a fourteen-week run in London, capped by

5461-464: The European introduction of the horse in the 16th through 19th centuries enabled new hunting techniques. The species' dramatic decline was the result of habitat loss due to the expansion of ranching and farming in western North America, industrial-scale hunting practiced by non-Indigenous hunters increased Indigenous hunting pressure due to non-Indigenous demand for bison hides and meat, and cases of

5588-551: The Indians; and John Shangren, a native interpreter. In 1891, Buffalo Bill performed in Karlsruhe , Germany, in the Südstadt Quarter. The inhabitants of Südstadt are nicknamed Indianer (German for "American Indians") to this day, and the most accepted theory says that this is due to Buffalo Bill's show. In October Cody brought the show to Dennistoun , Glasgow , where it ran from November 16 until February 27, 1892, in

5715-523: The Old Trail Town museum is at the center of the community and commemorates the traditions of Western life. Cody first passed through the region in the 1870s. He was so impressed by the development possibilities from irrigation, rich soil, grand scenery, hunting, and proximity to Yellowstone Park that he returned in the mid-1890s to start a town. Streets in the town were named after his associates: Beck, Alger, Rumsey, Bleistein, and Salsbury. The town

5842-543: The Pawnee never rebuilt it. More than 60 inhabitants lost their lives, including Chief Blue Coat. The otherwise numerous Small Robes band of the Piegan Blackfoot lost influence and some self-reliance after a severe River Crow attack on a moving camp at "Mountains on Both Sides" ( Judith Gap, Montana ) in 1845. "Their days of greatness were over." In 1852, an Omaha delegation visited Washington, D.C. It would "request

5969-548: The Plains region. Some railroads even hired commercial hunters to feed their laborers. William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody , for example, was hired by the Kansas Pacific Railroad for this reason. Hunters began arriving in masses, and trains would often slow down on their routes to allow for raised hunting. Men would either climb aboard the roofs of trains or fire shots at herds from outside their windows. As

6096-506: The Prairie , one of the original Wild West shows produced by Ned Buntline . The effort was panned by critics – one critic compared Cody's acting to a "diffident schoolboy" – but the performer was a hit with the sold-out crowds. In 1873, Cody invited "Wild Bill" Hickok to join the group in a new play called Scouts of the Plains . Hickok did not enjoy acting and often hid behind scenery; in one show, he shot at

6223-585: The Revolutionary War, when Congress decided to create a hierarchy of medals, designating the "Medal of Honor" as the highest military honor it could bestow. Subsequent regulations authorized the War Department to revoke prior Medal of Honor awards it considered not meeting requirements since the introduction of strict regulations promulgated under the 1917 law. Those regulations required the medal to be awarded for acts of bravery above and beyond

6350-637: The Rocky Mountains and fought all conceived as intruders. The less numerical tribe peoples west of the continental divide did not accept this. Their ancestors had hunted on the Great Plains and they would continue the tradition at all cost. "When we go to hunt Bison, we also prepare for war with the Peeagans [Piegan Blackfeet] and their allies", revealed a Flathead chief. A Kutenai gave this description of tribal hunts during buffalo days, "Across

6477-622: The South of France and Barcelona , Spain, then on to Italy. While in Rome, a Wild West delegation was received by Pope Leo XIII . Buffalo Bill was disappointed that the condition of the Colosseum did not allow it to be a venue; however, at Verona , the Wild West did perform in the ancient Roman amphitheater . The tour finished with stops in Austria-Hungary and Germany . In 1891

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6604-525: The Southeast for four years in the early 16th century and saw hordes of people but apparently didn't see a single bison." Mann discussed the evidence that Native Americans not only created (by selective use of fire) the large grasslands that provided the bison's ideal habitat but also kept the bison population regulated. In this theory, it was only when the original human population was devastated by wave after wave of epidemics (from diseases of Europeans) after

6731-776: The Spanish were well-established in the nomadic hunting cultures by the early 1700s, and Indigenous groups once living east of the Great Plains moved west to hunt the larger bison population. Intertribal warfare forced the Cheyenne to give up their cornfields at Biesterfeldt village and eventually cross west of the Missouri and become the well-known horseback buffalo hunters. In addition to using bison for themselves, these Indigenous groups also traded meat and robes to village-based tribes. A good horseman could easily lance or shoot enough bison to keep his tribe and family fed, as long as

6858-584: The United States and, beginning in 1887, in Europe. He was born in Le Claire , Iowa Territory (now the U.S. state of Iowa ), but he lived for several years in his father's hometown in modern-day Mississauga , Ontario , before the family returned to the Midwest and settled in the Kansas Territory . Buffalo Bill started working at the age of 11, after his father's death, and became a rider for

6985-695: The United States in May 1888 for a short summer tour. Buffalo Bill's Wild West returned to Europe in May 1889 as part of the Exposition Universelle in Paris, an event that commemorated the 100th anniversary of the Storming of the Bastille and featured the debut of the Eiffel Tower . On this tour, his portrait was painted by Europe's leading female painter Rosa Bonheur . The tour moved to

7112-416: The animal behind to decay on the ground. After the animals rotted, their bones were collected and shipped back east in large quantities. Due to the roaming behavior of bison, their mass destruction came with relative ease to the European hunters. When one bison in a herd is killed, the other bison gather around it. Due to this pattern, the ability of a hunter to kill one bison often led to the destruction of

7239-412: The antislavery population. During his return trip, he caught a respiratory infection which, compounded by the lingering effects of his stabbing and complications from kidney disease, led to his death in April 1857. After his death, the family suffered financially. At age 11, Bill worked for the freight carrier Russel, Major, and Waddel as a "boy extra". On horseback, he would ride up and down the length of

7366-428: The assistance of the artist and rancher Abraham Archibald Anderson . Cody established the TE Ranch , located on the south fork of the Shoshone River about thirty-five miles from Cody. When he acquired the TE property, he stocked it with cattle sent from Nebraska and South Dakota. The new herd carried the TE brand. The late 1890s were relatively prosperous years for the Wild West show, and he bought more land to add to

7493-489: The authority to reinstate the medal directly, and so decided to return the case to the board for reconsideration. As a result, the board amended Cody's record to make him an enlisted soldier – aligning it with the legal argument that civilian scouts were the equivalent to officers or enlisted soldiers – so that he would fall within the legal requirements and did the same for four other civilian guides who had also had their medals rescinded. In doing so,

7620-419: The back to get at the tender meat just beneath the surface, the area known as the "hatched area". After the removal of the hatched area, the front legs are cut off as well as the shoulder blades. Doing so exposes the hump meat (in the Wood Bison), as well as the meat of the ribs and the Bison's inner organs. After everything was exposed, the spine was then severed and the pelvis and hind legs were removed. Finally,

7747-415: The bison hunting tactics of the later Folsom tradition . The modern American bison is split into two subspecies, the wood bison in the boreal forests of what is now Canada , and the plains bison on the prairies extending from Canada to Mexico . The plains subspecies became the dominant animal of the prairies of North America, where bison were a keystone species , whose grazing and trampling pressure

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7874-412: The bison. To Plains tribes, the buffalo is one of the most sacred animals, and they feel obligated to treat them with respect. When they are about to kill a buffalo, they will offer it a prayer. Failures in the hunt could have been attributed to poorly performed rituals. Before the introduction of horses, bison were herded into large chutes made of rocks and willow branches (drive lines) and trapped in

8001-541: The board overlooked the fact that Cody was a civilian guide with far greater employment flexibility than a soldier, including the ability to resign at will. Nevertheless the Board did recognize the value that all scouts provided, whether Native American or otherwise, and how they volunteered to put themselves in harm's way (in the case of Buffalo Bill, saving the lives of several soldiers by rushing onto an active battlefield and pulling them to safety while under fire) instead of pursuing less demanding civilian jobs. Cody received

8128-424: The cabinet level, the legal brief was written in conformance with the statutes. Modern Medal of Honor cases originating from the board, such as the recent case of Garlin Conner , required both executive action as well as a statutory waiver from Congress, which underscores the point that some cases might be in conflict with statutes. In the Cody case, the board's governing assistant secretary recognized that it lacked

8255-402: The call of duty by officers or enlisted soldiers. The law was enacted days before Buffalo Bill died, so he never knew a law might rescind the medal awarded to him. All civilian scout medals were rescinded since they did not appear to meet the basic criterion of being officers or enlisted soldiers, which had been expressly listed in every authorizing statute ever enacted for the Medal of Honor. Cody

8382-406: The cause in 1989. The legal brief he drafted and submitted to the Department of Defense on behalf of the relatives of Buffalo Bill argued that civilian scouts were technically officers, as their native American counterparts were nominally scouts. However, they were given the rank and pay of officers – both for retention purposes. Also, scouts were the equivalent of "reconnaissance" for

8509-408: The collapse of the bison in the southern Plains. By the 1830s the Comanche and their allies on the southern plains were killing about 280,000 bison a year, which was near the limit of sustainability for that region. Firearms and horses, along with a growing export market for buffalo robes and bison meat had resulted in larger and larger numbers of bison killed each year. A long and intense drought hit

8636-413: The competition. Augusto Imperiali became a local hero after the event: a street and a monument were dedicated to him in his hometown, Cisterna di Latina , and he was featured as the hero in a series of comic strips in the 1920s and 1930s. Cody set up an independent exhibition near the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 , which greatly contributed to his popularity in the United States. It vexed the promoters of

8763-482: The deserts and lonely plains. Indigenous peoples whose lives depended on the Buffalo also continued to hunt, and they were faced with having to adapt to the arrival of European settlers in the Plains . While most struggled to continue their traditional ways, other Plains cultures were forced to adapt their style of hunting. Andrew Isenberg argues that some Native people embraced the fur trade and that adapting their hunting methods to include hunting on horseback, added to

8890-403: The end of intertribal warfare in the area. Eighteen out of 30 prominent Poncas were killed in a surprise attack in 1824, "including the famous Smoke-maker". At a stroke, the small tribe stood without any experienced leaders. In 1859, the Poncas lost two chiefs when a combined group of enemies charged a hunting camp. Half a Pawnee village was set ablaze during a large-scale attack in 1843, and

9017-443: The enemy, and villages had to flee their homes. The Sioux burned a village of Nuptadi Mandans in the last quarter of the 18th century. Other villages of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara destroyed either completely or partially in attacks are two Hidatsa villages in 1834, Mitutanka on January 9, 1839 and Like-a-Fishhook Village in 1862. The three tribes would routinely ask the U.S. army for assistance against stronger powers until

9144-441: The entire show train had passed, not realizing it was three units, and returned to the tracks; 110 horses, including his mounts Old Pap and Old Eagle, were killed in the crash or had to be killed later. Three young Native Americans were killed in the train accident and many others injured. Annie Oakley's injuries were so severe that she was told she would never walk again. She did recover and continued performing later. The incident put

9271-403: The extinct bison species Bison antiquus , which represented a bison herd of at least 22 individuals, which dates to around 12,838 calibrated years Before Present (10,888 BC) At the time of deposition, the site was a steep-sided arroyo (dry watercourse) that formed a dead-end, suggesting that Clovis hunters trapped the bison herd within the arroyo before killing them, showing continuity with

9398-419: The fair, who had rejected his request to participate. In 1894, Edison Studios invited Buffalo Bill and his show to be filmed in an early silent film , Buffalo Bill . On October 29, 1901, outside Lexington, North Carolina , a freight train crashed into one unit of the train carrying Buffalo Bill's show from Charlotte, North Carolina , to Danville, Virginia . The freight train's engineer had thought that

9525-426: The family was frequently persecuted by pro-slavery supporters. Cody's father spent time away from home for his safety. His enemies learned of a planned visit to his family and plotted to kill him on the way. Bill, despite his youth and being ill at the time, rode thirty miles (48   km) to warn his father. Isaac Cody went to Cleveland , Ohio , to organize a group of thirty families to bring back to Kansas, to add to

9652-452: The federal government's protection". Five different nations raided the Omaha. In the 19th century, European settlers hunted bison almost to extinction . Fewer than 100 remained in the wild by the late 1880s. Unlike Indigenous practices, where hunters took only what was needed and used the whole animal, these settlers hunted them en masse for only their skins and tongues and left the rest of

9779-437: The future Kaiser Wilhelm II and the future King George V . These royal encounters provided Buffalo Bill's Wild West an endorsement and publicity that ensured its success. Also, at this time, Buffalo Bill was presented with written accolades from several of America's high ranking generals including William T. Sherman , Philip H. Sheridan and William H. Emory testifying to his service, bravery, and character. Among

9906-401: The future, or very serious collisions may be the result." Demonstrating clearly that he saw white poaching of bison as a problem only because it may lead to retaliation from the Indians, and on the contrary, that he saw the extermination of the buffalo as potentially beneficial in the forced assimilation of Indians. According to Professor David Smits: "Frustrated bluecoats, unable to deliver

10033-462: The game is getting very scarce and that you must soon have some other means of living; you should therefore cultivate the friendship of the white man, so that when the game is all gone, they may take care of you if necessary." Commercial bison hunters also emerged at this time. Military forts often supported hunters, who would use their civilian sources near their military base. Though officers hunted bison for food and sport, professional hunters made

10160-492: The game out on slick ice, where it was easier to kill with hunting weapons. The Hidatsa near the Missouri River confined the buffalo on the weakest ice at the end of winter. When it cracked, the current swept the animals down under thicker ice. The people hauled the drowned animals ashore when they emerged downstream. Although not hunted in a strict sense, the nearby Mandan secured bison, and drowned by chance, when

10287-532: The game-rich areas had to try their luck on the edges of the best buffalo habitats. Small tribes found it hard to do even that. Due to attacks in the 1850s and 1860s, the villages of Upper Missouri "hardly dared go into the plains to hunt buffalo". The Sioux would stay near Arikara villages "and keep the bison away, so they could sell meat and hides to the Arikaras". The Kiowas have an early history in parts of present-day Montana and South Dakota. Here they fought

10414-440: The herd in the early morning, and station himself about 100 yd (91 m) from it, shooting the animals broadside through the lungs. Head shots were not preferred as the soft lead bullets would often flatten and fail to penetrate the skull, especially if mud was matted on the head of the animal. The bison would continue to drop until either the herd sensed danger and stampeded or perhaps a wounded animal attacked another, causing

10541-482: The herd to disperse. If done properly a large number of bison would be felled at one time. Following up were the skinners, who would drive a spike through the nose of each dead animal with a sledgehammer , hook up a horse team, and pull the hide from the carcass. The hides were dressed, prepared, and stacked on the wagons by other members of the organization. Wagon train In the American West , settlers traveling across

10668-704: The hunters with cutting up a bison and packing the meat on a horse in less than 15 minutes. When the bison stayed away and made hunting impossible, famine became a reality. The hard experience of starvation found its way into stories and myths. A folk tale of the Kiowa begins "Famine once struck the Kiowa People   ..." "The people were without food and no game could be found   ..." makes an Omaha myth certain. A fur trader noted how some Sioux were in want of meat at one time in 1804. Starving Yanktonais passed by Fort Clark in 1836. Already Castaneda noted

10795-452: The ice broke. A trader observed the young men "in the drift ice leap from piece to piece, often falling between, plunging under, darting up elsewhere and securing themselves upon very slippery flakes" before they brought the carcasses to land. The Olsen–Chubbuck archaeological site in Colorado , where buffalo herds were driven over a cliff, reveals some techniques, which may or may not have been widely used. The method involves skinning down

10922-401: The law had never required Cody to be a soldier. However, this was never a key element of Simpson's brief. According to these interpretations, Simpson's submission cited a book, Above and Beyond , to illustrate the lack of requirement to be a soldier. However, it was recognized in the legal brief that Medal of Honor recipients had to be an officer or enlisted soldier. Another problem cited by some

11049-518: The law, but rather conforming the status of civilian scouts to that of other scouts similarly situated (source: copy of the actual legal brief, by the author). Since the Board of Correction is merely a delegation of the Secretary of the Army 's authority, some suggest a separation of powers conflict, since even the president cannot contravene a clear statute and, although Cody's case was dealt with below

11176-465: The military and thus provided highly valued services. In addition, a practical reason was to avoid mistaking them for opponents in skirmishes. Moreover, although civilian scouts might have normally been officers because of their highly valued skills, the military drawdown and related budget cuts after the Civil War left no billets available for the civilian scouts to fill, and thus they were relegated to

11303-451: The moon rose, dead ahead of me; and painted boldly across its face was the figure of an Indian. He wore this war-bonnet of the Sioux , at his shoulder was a rifle pointed at someone in the river-bottom 30 feet [9   meters] below; in another second he would drop one of my friends. I raised my old muzzle-loader and fired. The figure collapsed, tumbled down the bank and landed with a splash in

11430-540: The most numerous single species of large wild mammal on Earth. Religion plays a big role in Native American bison hunting. Plains tribes generally believe that successful hunts require certain rituals. The Omaha tribe had to approach a herd in four legs. At each stop, the chiefs and the leader of the hunt would sit down and smoke and offer prayers for success. The Pawnee performed the purifying Big Washing Ceremony before each tribal summer hunt to avoid scaring

11557-509: The mountains they went out on the prairie, but they were afraid of the Piegans." In 1866, the Pend d'Oreilles crossed the Rocky Mountains from the west, just to be attacked by tribes as they entered the plains. They lost 21 people. The beaten hunting party returned in a "horrible condition" and "all nearly famished". Often, the attackers tried to capture dried meat, equipment, and horses during

11684-533: The native people onto the Indian reservations during times of conflict by removing their main food source. Without the bison, native people of the plains were often forced to leave the land or starve to death. One of the biggest advocates of this strategy was General William Tecumseh Sherman . On June 26, 1869, the Army Navy Journal reported: "General Sherman remarked, in conversation the other day, that

11811-421: The neck and head were removed as one. This allowed for the tough meat to be dried and made into pemmican . Castaneda saw Indigenous women butchering bison with a flint fixed on a short stick. He admired how quickly they completed the task. Blood to drink was filled in emptied guts, which were carried around the neck. Each animal produces from 200 to 400 lb (91 to 181 kg) of meat. Horses taken from

11938-574: The next train, or an emigrant might "whip up" to overtake a forward train after a quarrel. Some might break away to settle in Colorado Territory or other territories along the way. At night, wagon trains were often formed into a circle or square for shelter from wind or weather, and to corral the emigrants' animals in the center to prevent them from running away or being stolen by Native Americans . While Native Americans might attempt to raid horses under cover of darkness, they rarely attacked

12065-531: The nickname "Buffalo Bill" after the American Civil War, when he had a contract to supply Kansas Pacific Railroad workers with buffalo (American bison) meat. Cody is purported to have killed 4,282 buffalo in eighteen months in 1867 and 1868. Cody and another hunter, Bill Comstock, competed in an eight-hour buffalo-shooting match over the exclusive right to use the name, which Cody won by killing 68 animals to Comstock's 48. Comstock, part Cheyenne and

12192-686: The number of bison they could hunt. For settlers of the Plains region , bison hunting served as a way to increase their economic stake in the area. Trappers and traders made their living selling buffalo fur; in the winter of 1872–1873, more than 1.5 million buffalo were put onto trains and moved eastward. In addition to the potential profits from buffalo leather, which was commonly used to make machinery belts and army boots, buffalo hunting forced Natives to become dependent on beef from cattle. General Winfield Scott Hancock , for example, reminded several Arapaho chiefs at Fort Dodge in 1867: "You know well that

12319-586: The plains and mountain passes in covered wagons banded together for mutual assistance. Although wagon trains are associated with the Old West , the Trekboers of South Africa also traveled in caravans of covered wagons. Wagon trains followed several trails in the American West , nearly all originating at Independence, Missouri . Perhaps the most famous wagon train trail was the Oregon Trail which had

12446-748: The presentations was a document signed by Governor John M. Thayer of Nebraska appointing Cody as aide-de-camp on the Governor's staff with the rank of colonel dated March 8, 1887. The rank had little official authority but the English press quickly capitalized on the new title of "Colonel Cody". Buffalo Bill's Wild West closed its successful London run in October 1887 after more than 300 performances, with more than 2.5 million tickets sold. The tour made stops in Birmingham and Manchester before returning to

12573-406: The quickest way to compel the Indians to settle down to civilized life was to send ten regiments of soldiers to the plains, with orders to shoot buffaloes until they became too scarce to support the redskins." Similarly, Lieutenant General John M. Schofield would write in his memoirs: "With my cavalry and carbined artillery encamped in front, I wanted no other occupation in life than to ward off

12700-504: The ranch. He eventually held about eight thousand acres ( 12 + 1 ⁄ 2 square miles; 32 square kilometers) of private land for grazing operations and ran about a thousand head of cattle. He operated a dude ranch , pack-horse camping trips, and big-game hunting business at and from the TE Ranch. In his spacious ranch house, he entertained notable guests from Europe and America. Bison hunting Bison hunting ( hunting of

12827-445: The rear of the herd and leaving a trail of killed buffalo "scattered over a distance of three miles", Cody – likening his strategy to a billiards player "nursing" his billiard balls during "a big run" – first rode his horse to the front of the herd to target the leaders, forcing the followers to one side, eventually causing them to circle and create an easy target, and dropping them close together. In 1869,

12954-515: The savage and kill off his food until there should no longer be an Indian frontier in our beautiful country." Later, President Ulysses S. Grant vetoed the act of Congress HR 921, which would have implemented protections against white overhunting of buffalo. Before this, Secretary of the Interior, Columbus Delano , had stated the following regarding complaints about whites hunting buffalo on native reservations: "While I would not seriously regret

13081-487: The short film, a series of adventures presented in flashback as Buffalo Bill's dreams. The film had two other directors before it was successfully completed by John B. O'Brien . The film is in the collection of the Library of Congress. Buffalo Bill's Wild West toured Europe eight times, the first four tours between 1887 and 1892, and the last four from 1902 to 1906. The Wild West first went to London in 1887 as part of

13208-586: The short-lived settlement of Rome . In 1867, with the construction of the Kansas Pacific Railway completing through Hays City and Rome, Cody was granted a leave of absence to hunt buffalo to supply railroad construction workers with meat. This endeavor continued into 1868, which saw his hunting contest with William Comstock. Cody returned to Army service in 1868. From his post in Fort Larned , he performed an exceptional feat of riding as

13335-622: The show out of business for a while, and this disruption may have led to its eventual demise. In 1908, Pawnee Bill and Buffalo Bill joined forces and created the Two Bills show. That show was foreclosed on when it was playing in Denver, Colorado. The Buffalo Bill and Pawnee Bill Film Company, based in New York City, produced a three-reel motion picture in 1912 titled The Life of Buffalo Bill . Cody himself appears in scenes that bookend

13462-830: The show to Great Britain in celebration of the Jubilee year of Queen Victoria , who attended a performance. It played in London and then in Birmingham and Salford , near Manchester , where it stayed for five months. In 1889, the show toured Europe, and, in 1890, Cody met Pope Leo XIII . On March 8, 1890, a competition took place. Buffalo Bill had met some Italian butteri (a less-well-known sort of Italian equivalent of cowboys) and said his men were more skilled at roping calves and performing other similar actions. A group of Buffalo Bill's men challenged nine butteri , led by Augusto Imperiali  [ it ] , at Prati di Castello neighbourhood in Rome. The butteri easily won

13589-633: The show toured cities in Belgium and the Netherlands before returning to Great Britain to close the season. Cody depended on several staffs to manage arrangements for touring with the large and complex show: in 1891 Major Arizona John Burke was the general manager for the Buffalo Bill Wild West Company; William Laugan [ sic ], supply agent; George C. Crager, Sioux interpreter, considered leader of relations with

13716-504: The show was Calamity Jane , as a storyteller as of 1893. The show influenced many 20th-century portrayals of the West in cinema and literature. With his profits, Cody purchased a 4,000-acre (16-km²) ranch near North Platte , Nebraska, in 1886. The Scout's Rest Ranch included an eighteen-room mansion and a large barn for winter storage of the show's livestock. In 1887, invited by the British businessman John Robinson Whitley , Cody took

13843-402: The show. For example, Sitting Bull appeared with a band of 20 of his soldiers. Cody's headline performers were well-known in their own right. Annie Oakley and her husband, Frank Butler , were sharpshooters, together with the likes of Gabriel Dumont and Lillian Smith . Performers re-enacted the riding of the Pony Express , Indian attacks on wagon trains, and stagecoach robberies. The show

13970-442: The slavery question. Isaac Cody was against slavery. He was invited to speak at Rively's store, a local trading post where pro-slavery men often held meetings. His antislavery speech so angered the crowd that they threatened to kill him if he did not step down. A man jumped up and stabbed him twice with a Bowie knife . Rively, the store's owner, rushed Cody to get treatment, but he never fully recovered from his injuries. In Kansas,

14097-505: The southern plains in 1845, lasting into the 1860s, which caused a widespread collapse of the bison herds. In the 1860s, the rains returned and the bison herds recovered to a degree. After the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 , the West experienced a large boom in the colonist population—and a large decline in the bison population. As railways expanded, military troops and supplies were able to be transported more efficiently to

14224-477: The spotlight when it focused on him. He was therefore released from the group after a few months. Cody founded the Buffalo Bill Combination in 1874, in which he performed for part of the year while scouting on the prairies the rest of the year. The troupe toured for ten years. Cody's part typically included a reenactment of an 1876 incident at Warbonnet Creek , where he claimed to have scalped

14351-523: The total disappearance of the buffalo from our western prairies, in its effect on the Indians, regarding it rather as a means of hastening their sense of dependence upon the products of the soil and their own labors, yet these encroachments by the whites upon the reservations set apart for the exclusive occupancy of the Indian is one prolific source of trouble in the management of the reservation Indians, and measures should be adopted to prevent such trespasses in

14478-403: The trains failed to stop in time. Herds often took shelter in the artificial cuts formed by the grade of the track winding through hills and mountains in harsh winter conditions. As a result, bison herds could delay a train for days. Bison skins were used for industrial machine belts, clothing such as robes, and rugs. There was a huge export trade to Europe of bison hides. Old West bison hunting

14605-427: The typical relations of two different plains people relying heavily on the same food source: "They ... are enemies of each other." The bison hunting resulted in the loss of land for many tribal nations. Indirectly, it often disturbed the rhythm of tribal life, caused economic losses and hardship, and damaged tribal autonomy. As long as bison hunting went on, intertribal warfare was omnipresent. Tribes forced away from

14732-550: The water. "What is it?" called McCarthy, as he hurried back. "It's over there in the water." "Hi!" he cried. "Little Billy's killed an Indian all by himself!" So began my career as an Indian fighter. At the age of 14, in 1860, Cody was caught up in the "gold fever", with news of gold at Fort Colville and the Holcomb Valley Gold Rush in California . On his way to the goldfields, however, he met an agent for

14859-589: Was a descendant of Josiah Bunting, a Quaker who had settled in Pennsylvania . There is no evidence to indicate Buffalo Bill was raised as a Quaker. In 1847 the couple moved to Ontario, having their son baptized in 1847, as William Cody, at the Dixie Union Chapel in Peel County (present-day Peel Region , of which Mississauga is a part), not far from the farm of his father's family. The chapel

14986-607: Was a force that shaped the ecology of the Great Plains as strongly as periodic prairie fires and which were central to the survival of many Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains . To the corn-growing village people, it was a valued second food source. However, there is now some controversy over their interaction. Charles C. Mann wrote in 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus , pages 367 ff, " Hernando De Soto's expedition staggered through

15113-654: Was also Chief of Scouts for the Third Cavalry in later campaigns of the Plains Wars . In January 1872, Cody was a scout for the highly publicized hunting expedition of the Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich of Russia . Cody was awarded the Medal of Honor in 1872 for documented gallantry above and beyond the call of duty as an Army scout in the Indian Wars. It was revoked in 1917, along with medals of 910 other recipients dating back to

15240-529: Was at this time Buffalo Bill's Cowboy Band was organized. The band was directed by William Sweeney, a cornet player who served as leader of the Cowboy Band from 1883 until 1913. Sweeney handled all of the musical arrangements and wrote a majority of the music performed by the Cowboy Band. In 1893, Cody changed the title to Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World . The show began with

15367-521: Was born on February 26, 1846, on a farm just outside Le Claire, Iowa . His father, Isaac Cody, was born on September 5, 1811, in Toronto Township , Upper Canada , now part of Mississauga , Ontario , directly west of Toronto . Mary Ann Bonsell Laycock, Bill's mother, was born about 1817 in Trenton, New Jersey . She moved to Cincinnati to teach school, and there she met and married Isaac. She

15494-454: Was built with Cody money, and the land was donated by Philip Cody of Toronto Township. They lived in Ontario for several years. In 1853, Isaac Cody sold his land in rural Scott County, Iowa , for $ 2,000 (equivalent to $ 73,248 in 2023), and the family moved to Fort Leavenworth , Kansas Territory . In the years before the Civil War, Kansas was overtaken by political and physical conflict over

15621-631: Was incorporated in 1901. In November 1902, Cody opened the Irma Hotel , named after his daughter. He envisioned a growing number of tourists coming to Cody on the recently opened Burlington rail line. He expected that they would proceed up Cody Road, along the north fork of the Shoshone River, to visit Yellowstone Park. To accommodate travelers, Cody completed the construction of the Wapiti Inn and Pahaska Tepee in 1905 along Cody Road with

15748-527: Was one of five scouts affected. Their medals were stripped shortly after Cody died in 1917. Cody's relatives objected, and, for over 72 years, they wrote repeatedly to the US Congress seeking reconsideration. All efforts failed, until a 1988 letter to the Senate from Cody's grandson received by the office of senator Alan K. Simpson of Wyoming, when a newly assigned legislative assistant (K. Yale) took up

15875-451: Was said to end with a re-enactment of Custer's Last Stand , in which Cody portrayed General Custer, but this is more legend than fact. The finale was typically a portrayal of an Indian attack on a settler's cabin. Cody would ride in with an entourage of cowboys to defend a settler and his family. This finale was featured predominantly as early as 1886 but was not performed after 1907; it was used in 23 of 33 tours. Another celebrity appearing on

16002-408: Was the authority of the Board to contravene several federal statutes because the Medal of Honor revocation had been expressly authorized by Congress, meaning that the restoration went against the law in force in 1872, the law requiring the revocation in 1916, and the modern statute enacted in 1918 that remains substantially unmodified today. However, the legal brief clearly did not suggest overturning of

16129-424: Was very often a big commercial enterprise, involving organized teams of one or two professional hunters, backed by a team of skinners, gun cleaners, cartridge reloaders, cooks, wranglers, blacksmiths, security guards, teamsters, and numerous horses and wagons. Men were even employed to recover and recast lead bullets taken from the carcasses. Many of these professional hunters, such as Buffalo Bill Cody , killed over

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