Francis Parkman
Scholar. Inventor. Expert marksman and horseman. Lawyer. Author. Francis Parkman, Jr. overcame poor health and near blindness to become a foremost historian of the American frontier.
Born in Boston in 1823, Parkman was sent to live in the nearby countryside at an early age, to protect his fragile health. In the forests there, he became an excellent rider and hunter. As a young man, he entered Harvard at 16, and then earned his law degree there at his father's urging. However, it was his lifelong fascination for wilderness and Native American culture that was to become his life's work.
In 1846, he traveled west to Wyoming to Fort Laramie, where he and several fellow travelers attached themselves to a group of Oglala Sioux. Parkman travelled with the Indians for months, recording his experiences with them, with emigrants passing through on the Oregon Trail, and with French traders and trappers at the Fort.
After returning to the East, he was stricken with an eye ailment that forced him to keep his eyes shut except in dark rooms. In order to write his memoir of his time with the Plains Indians, he invented a special box with wires strung across it to guide his hand so that he could write without using his eyes. He published his recounting of his time on the frontier in 1849 in a book titled The Oregon Trail.
Parkman spent much of the rest of his life writing a multi-volume history of the French and British presence in the New World. He also became an avid gardener who originated several new types of flowers and taught horticulture at Harvard. But perhaps his greatest contribution was his accurate description of Native American tribal societies of the mid-1800s. He died in 1893 at the age of 70.
A Buffalo Hunt
Native Americans were skilled horseback hunters of bison, but pursing sharp-horned, one-ton animals at full gallop over ground covered with prairie dog holes was very dangerous. Francis Parkman, Jr., himself a fine horseman, found this out
Instantly [the buffalo] took the alarm; those on the hill descended; those below gathered into a mass, and the whole got in motion, shouldering each other along at a clumsy gallop. We followed, spurring our horses to full speed; and as the herd rushed, crowding and trampling in terror through an opening in the hills, we were close at their heels, half suffocated by the clouds of dust...
The fugitives, indeed, offered no very attractive spectacle, with their enormous size and weight, their shaggy manes and the tattered remnants of their last winter's hair covering their backs in irregular shreds and patches, and flying off in the wind as they ran. At length I urged my horse close behind a bull, and after trying in vain, by blows and spurring, to bring him alongside, I shot a bullet into the buffalo from this disadvantageous position...The bullet, entering too much in the rear, failed to disable the bull, for a buffalo requires to be shot at particular points, or he will certainly escape...Reloading my pistols, in the best way I could, I galloped on until I saw them again...About a dozen bulls were before us, scouring over the hills, rushing down the declivities with tremendous weight and impetuosity, and then laboring with a weary gallop upward...One bull at length fell a little behind the rest, and by dint of much effort I urged my horse within six or eight yards of his side.
His back was darkened with sweat; he was panting heavily, while his tongue lolled out a foot from his jaws...Suddenly he did what buffalo in such circumstances will always do; he slackened his gallop, and turning toward us, with an aspect of mingled rage and distress, lowered his huge shaggy head for a charge. Pontiac with a snort, leaped aside in terror, nearly throwing me to the ground, as I was wholly unprepared for such an
evolution. I fired the bullet after the bull, who had resumed his flight, then drew rein and determined to rejoin my companions. --Francis Parkman, Jr., 1849
A Way of Life Built on Their Shaggy Backs
Fur trappers subsisted on buffalo in the form of pemmican: the meat was cut into thin flakes, dried and pounded into a powder, poured into a buffalo hide bag with melted grease and eaten raw or mixed with flour and boiled. Some Native American tribes harvested all they needed from the "ships of the plains." Wrote Francis Parkman,
The buffalo supplies the Indians with the necessities of life; with habitations, food, clothing, beds and fuel, strings for their bows, glue, thread, cordage, trail ropes for their horses, covering for their saddles, vessels to hold water, boats to cross streams, and the means of purchasing all they want from the traders. When the buffalo are extinct, they too must dwindle away.
In 1800 there were around 60 million buffalo in North America. By the second half of the 19th century, buffalo hunters armed with long-range guns had begun killing the animal in large numbers, as many as 250 a day. In the 1870s, buffalo meat was so plentiful it was hardly worth one cent per pound. Over 5,000 hunters and skinners came to be involved in the bison slaughter. By 1890, the numbers of the great beasts had fallen to 750. The way of life of the Plains Indians was over, and they were forced onto government reservations.
About Francis Parkman's Buffalo Strips
Francis Parkman found dried buffalo meat "an excellent thing for strengthening the teeth." You'll find our premium bison strips--marinated then slowly smoked over hickory chips--far more sweet and tender! The meat comes from free-range animals raised with no hormones, steroids or antibiotics. Our strips are 99% fat free, low in carbs and cholesterol, and high in protein. Enjoy it in good health; buffalo is the only red meat endorsed by the American Heart Association. Net weight 4 oz.
